Inkjet & Digital Printing
Digital first and foremost…
Wednesday 30. January 2008 - Common goals concentrate energies and buysite AG is the result of such concentration. At its production plant in Basel, digital printing and quality connoisseurs are at work: connoisseurs who put their trust in Kodak and nothing else when it comes to printing technology, using two KODAK NEXPRESS Digital Production Color Presses.
Ambitious short runs, exquisite folding boxes and packages, and advertising material demonstrate all the refinements of color gamut expansion, creative coating and glossy finishing.
Approximately five years ago, three offset print shops and a lithographic shop in Basel, Switzerland, joined forces with the aim of seizing the opportunities offered by digital printing and utilizing this production method wherever it generates added value compared to conventional printing processes. The partners in this joint venture all agreed that digital printing demands different parameters from the offset process with respect to marketing, customers, speed, and staff. Because of this, the new technology was to be installed in an independent company founded specifically for this purpose and with a consistently implemented business concept. The partners wanted to make a name for themselves among customers for the quality of their service and not just the price. The founders of buysite were also in full agreement about the production equipment they wanted to use: a KODAK NEXPRESS 2100 Digital Production Color Press (1st generation without additional printing unit). But that was just the start of things.
Downtown Basel is home to the headquarters, or at least branch offices, of a large number of advertising agencies and major industrial companies. And in the midst of this urban conglomeration of potential customers is buysite. Peter Fischli, Managing Director of the digital print shop with a workforce of five, replaced one of the founding members some three years ago, taking a 25% share in the partnership. Previously heading up a medium-sized offset print house, the switch to digital printing did involve certain risks for Peter Fischli. “I had to find my feet in the marketplace with a new company, a totally different and new printing technology, and an unusual concept. Thanks to the willingness and ability of all involved, I have succeeded in achieving this, and the peculiarities of digital printing have been taken into account right from the concept phase.” Fischli elaborates by saying, “We all agreed that we did not want to operate as a copyshop or a web-to-print provider. What we wanted to do was produce demanding and very high-quality jobs for advertising agencies and big direct customers. And we decided that although we intended to work with digital presses, we would leave the creative side of the work entirely to our customers.”
No sooner said than done. buysite supplies the premium quality segment of the market with innovative communication solutions that stand out thanks to their high customer utility. Nevertheless, this doesn’t conflict with the fact that 80% of the jobs are executed or indeed actually ready for shipment within just 24 hours.
60% of the pressroom capacity of this impeccable digital print shop is taken up with work for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries -for instance, buysite produces preliminary, limited edition print runs of high-quality advertising and information brochures for this clientele, some of these personalized. If these small runs are received well in the test market, the main runs can be produced on an offset press. Another important category comprises small print runs typical of the digital printing process or runs that are heavily segmented due to the need to produce several different language versions. MCH Swiss Exhibition (Basel) Ltd. is one of buysites main customers, and the order books are full of further digital printing jobs for agencies, industrial and retail companies, and other direct customers.
Where pros pull out all the stops for other pros
All of the employees at buysite are highly trained prepress professionals who also operate the digital presses. Press-ready PDFs are mainly generated by buysite from native application files. As Peter Fischli says, “90% of the program files supplied to us are open, and we can then tune them to the technical requirements of the two NEXPRESS presses on the basis of our own Distiller settings. This is without doubt one of the reasons for our excellent print results and high level of production reliability.”
Incidentally, buysite AG acts as the general contractor for all production steps through to final delivery of the printed products. The company also readily takes on jobs that are predestined for the offset process, offering the customers appropriate advice as well as coordinating and handling the business side of the externally produced offset jobs. This complementary business now accounts for a quarter of total sales.
Launched with a KODAK NEXPRESS Press
Consistent concentration on quality and products with a creative flair necessitates the use of production equipment that fully supports achievement of the self-imposed demands and standards. This is the reason why buysite chose a KODAK NEXPRESS 2100 Digital Production Color Press when it launched. Three years after the company entered the digital printing sector, this press was replaced by a more modern version of the same machine. The fact that the company equipped this digital production color press with an optional fifth printing unit, and the additional procurement of a KODAK NEXGLOSSER Glossing Unit, enabled welcome options for product variations that go beyond simple CMYK printing.
In April 2007, buysite AG more than doubled its digital color printing capacity by installing a KODAK NEXPRESS 2500 Digital Color Production Press, which can print 2500 A3 sheets per hour in a 4/0, 5/0, or 5/5-color configuration. Like the NEXPRESS 2100, this press is driven and controlled by a dedicated KODAK NEXSTATION Front End. Although very happy with the NEXPRESS Press from the point of view of the quality it produces and the application options it offers, Peter Fischli had previously researched the market with regards to the range of popular digital presses available – before ultimately arriving at a familiar conclusion: the NEXPRESS is simply the machine best suited to his purposes. Peter Fischli and his colleagues value the sophistication and reliability of the entire system immensely. Another point in its favor is the Operator Replaceable Component (ORC) service model for KODAK NEXPRESS Presses. This feature gives the digital print service provider greater independence as far as system maintenance is concerned. According to Peter Fischli, the fact his staff are for the most part able to maintain and care for the presses without outside assistance is evidenced by fewer and shorter production stoppages and cost savings.
And yes, the NEXPRESS 2500 Press is also equipped with a fifth printing unit as a prerequisite for various value-adding production steps in the inline process (see box). What’s more, the larger maximum sheet format (356 x 520 mm), the multitude of different paper and board types, and the wider range of grammages (60 to 350 g/m2) that can be used add to the variety of digital print products buysite is able to offer its customers. And Peter Fischli certainly doesn’t hold back when informing his customers of these capabilities. When asked whether he has his own sales representatives, he responds with a smile and remarks that “happy customers are our best salesmen”. All the more dynamic is his marketing strategy. For instance, personalized mailings are sent at irregular intervals to carefully selected target groups, which not only point out the extraordinary skills of buysite but at the same time function as samples of potential print products to canvass for future orders.
Effective marketing of additional capabilities
Apart from all this, Peter Fischli operates in accordance with the following motto: the more sophisticated and the higher the quality, the more personal the business. This explains why more and more graphic designers, advertisers, and ‘desirable customers’ from various target markets are being invited to the company’s premises to take a closer look at the digital printing technology. The boss himself demonstrates the KODAK NEXPRESS Presses to them, revealing the host of possibilities on the basis of sample prints, while other members of his team explain the nitty-gritty of how to prepare the data required to obtain perfect print results.
It is almost possible to feel Peter Fischli’s enthusiasm for the special effects that can be achieved with the fifth printing units of the two KODAK NEXPRESS Presses, such as expansion of the color gamut beyond the bounds of CMYK, the visual effect of full-surface or partial coating of prints with KODAK NEXPRESS Clear Dry Ink as protective or special-effect coatings, or the highlights of a full-surface “high-gloss coating” as produced by the KODAK NEXGLOSSER Glossing Unit. And isn’t it also possible to bolster special-effect coatings by combining them with the CMYK inks? Fischli gushes with answers and application tips, because he is totally aware of the fact that only properly informed designers and advertisers can enjoy and fully leverage the greater creative design freedom buysite is offering them.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the buysite team always makes the most of the qualitative potential of the KODAK NEXPRESS Presses. For example, depending on the job definition and subject, they sometimes also fall back on FM hybrid screening, KODAK STACCATO DX Screening, as an alternative to the four standard AM screen types. “FM screening is advantageous when reproducing flesh tones or screened text, or when the details of very small images need to be highlighted”, reports Fischli. “Apart from that, FM is called for due to the familiar problem of moiré in images with recurring patterns, such as with subjects depicting textiles or structured metallic surfaces.”
These value-added services go down very well when printing elaborate, stylish packages and folding boxes, be they for market tests or special small batches. Due to the comparatively short runs for such packaging products, this niche is of no interest to large printing houses, but for buysite it is a very attractive area of activity. As Peter Fischli says, “There are customers out there who are desperately looking for solutions in this segment. With our digital presses and the KODAK NEXPRESS Fifth Imaging Unit Solutions, we can offer such solutions. But if our presses didn’t have the capacity to print on the enormous variety of substrates, we could forget it. What’s more, all KODAK NEXPRESS Dry Inks are demonstrably non-toxic and can be used to print food packaging without any concerns.” And this is highly relevant because the folding boxes are used, among other things, to convey an assortment of tempting goodies for the sweet-toothed, such as chocolates, pralines, or cookies, on their way to demanding consumers. Ten percent of buysite’s sales are now achieved in the digital packaging printing segment. Yet Peter Fischli knows there is still a great deal more money waiting to be made.