Practical Publishing has noted the increasing convergence between the signage and commercial printing industries which prompted the introduction of the Africa Print show. Africa Print runs alongside Sign Africa and Visual Communications Africa 2010 for the first time and is the largest commercial digital print show for the African continent.
This significant new event is a dedicated digital print exhibition that will showcase the entire digital print process, featuring from sheetfed A3 machines up to Grand format digital equipment and will include both suppliers and manufacturers of digital printers, finishing equipment, software, media and consumables.

Sign Africa Johannesburg 2010, an internationally recognised exhibition for the global sign and large format digital print industry, will bring together a principle fusion of signage suppliers and manufactures, exhibiting the latest in state-of-the-art technology, new products and up-to-the-minute news on international trends making an impact on the local industry.

What is driving this trend of convergence? Well, there are several factors, but the main contributor is the importance of saving time and the desire for printing company’s to become one-stop-shops for their clients.

Like many things, there are pros and cons in both litho and digital printing. A litho printing job can be expensive and can take time, but for large print runs it remains the most efficient process and also boasts superior quality and finish. On the other hand, long turn around times and comparatively expensive short print runs means the move to digital makes good business sense. The most forward-thinking companies are using a combination of the two to best suit their client’s requirements.

The push towards digital printing stems from the fact clients want faster turnaround times, just-in-time production, shorter runs, personalisation, web-to-print capability, and integration with other printed collateral. Digital is advantageous because it is instant. Jobs can be turned around in a day if need be and there are no setup costs which means you pay for what you print. These days the top of the range digital print presses offer very high quality – almost comparable to a litho print job. With poor returns and rising costs, it’s not surprising that print businesses are looking for new market opportunities – and South African companies are no different.

In 2006, Clarion Printed Products made a R6-million investment in new digital printing technology. As a result of this foresight, the company has recently made inroads into the world of digital printing and now offers a top quality digital print service that compliments its screen and litho print services. The company considers itself a market leader in the printing industry, and by offering digital, screen and litho printing all under one roof, has become a complete print solution partner for its customers.

Clarion Visual Graphics is the focused large format printing division of Clarion Printed Products and takes advantage of both screen-printing and digital printing processes. Clarion has the ability to add value to existing designs through the combination of both these print processes and also through the creative use of print using interactive and decorative ink technology.

In the US, Eastman Kodak recently announced that it had posted a 9% rise in digital printing revenues, despite an overall 11% decline in sales for the second quarter of 2010. Most notably, the company reported a 9% rise in revenues for its digital commercial printing division, including an 18% rise in its commercial inkjet printing operations. The company said the results reflected ‘continued acceleration of the company's major growth businesses in commercial and consumer inkjet’ and the ‘continued decline’ of its traditional film business.

After IPEX earlier this year, Practical Publishing managed to speak to Leon Minnie, Production Specialist of Production Systems at Konica Minolta, on the subject of convergence. Being his first visit to the show, his only basis of comparison was what his clients and colleagues had told him. However, Minnie’s most prominent opinion was that while the last show seemed geared towards litho printing, this year’s event revealed that digital is overtaking litho, and is starting to dominate.

According to Minnie, despite the shift in the printing market to on-demand digital printing solutions, traditional printing still has a place, particularly for long runs. That being said, it is noted that digital has a strong presence in terms of enhancing this. As he explains to his litho clients, ‘We don’t want to replace litho, we just want to add value to your business.’

He also believes that a lot of commercial printers that visited IPEX would have seen that digital can do a lot of the smaller, tedious work currently being done on litho. Visiting IPEX would have highlighted the fact that commercial printers can do certain tasks a lot easier, a lot quicker and a lot more cost effectively with digital, without doing it manually or outsourcing it.

‘We don’t want to replace litho, we just want to add value to your business.’ Minnie went on to say that to have a one-stop printing shop; one should really have both litho and digital. In due course you should invest or merge with a company that offers what you don’t offer so that you can become a one-stop commercial company. This will enable your business to print 500 business cards and 10 000 magazines at the same time, for example.

One cannot say that digital is the only way, as there are certain long-run jobs that still require a litho machine, says Minnie. Having read the Insight Report by Frank Romano that stated print orders of between 1 000 and 2 000 showed definite growth, while orders of between 2 000 and 5 000 prints showed less growth, it is evident smaller runs need digital technology.

Minnie himself has two litho clients that currently outsource digital printing, but the margins are low. A potential problem with this scenario is that a third party may not always be able to match the required quality or colours and may struggle to meet deadlines.

The wide format digital printing market is characterised by an orientation around small companies, largely because of the relatively low barriers to market entry and low initial investment in equipment required to start up operations or to enter the market from another print-oriented background.

The convergence of the traditional printing segments around the wide format market has resulted in more non-traditional suppliers entering the wide format market space. The benefit of this has been the expansion of new applications and value-added services that traditional wide format print service providers have developed to avoid continuous price competition.

Wide format digital makes up a greater share of the revenue of smaller companies than it does bigger companies that are more invested in screen or offset equipment. With digital printing technologies, the wide format market continues to evolve, with a near constant shifting among the technologies in use. The use of Latex inkjet, Eco-solvent inkjet, and UV-curable inkjet is expected to grow over the next two years, while notable declines are simultaneously expected in the use of solvent inkjet and analog processes.

InfoTrends is seeing still strong expectations for investment in new wide format digital printing equipment and supplies. Almost 40% of respondents said they plan to buy a new printer in the next 12 months. At the same time, over 54% said they expect to spend more on wide format digital printing supplies than they did last year.

Banners, posters, and signs come up again and again as the leading wide format digital print applications. This is important because as companies consider entering the wide format market they can target those primary applications fairly readily – which makes it easier to compete in that market, increasing competition and depressing prices.

Respondents reported that all of these applications are growing more than declining. There are some particularly strong applications such as POP displays, textiles, and signs where growth outweighs declines more strongly.

InfoTrends believes that the economic downturn has accelerated many of these trends as companies are trying to both maximise the impact of advertising and minimize their costs related to storing and managing these materials. In short, print buyers don’t want to pay for anything until they need it, and this has a ripple effect all the way through the supply chain in the wide format graphics market.

Just 3% of the respondents reported that they think ‘pure-play’ screen-printing is the best model from a print production standpoint in the future. Over 50% responded that they see digital printing as providing the greatest opportunity while 24% responded that a mix of both screen and digital printing will be the best path forward.

In our own poll run on the Sign Africa website (www.signafrica.com), 31.2% of respondents said they used a combination of digital and litho printing in their businesses.

What can be ascertained from the move towards printing convergence is that the best path forward is the evolution from printer to all-round print service provider.

CLARION (+ 27 21) 534 25 21 blake@clarion.co.za www.clarion.co.za
Leon Minnie, Product Specialist - PRODUCTION SYSTEMS, Konica Minolta South Africa (+27 11) 661 9000 leonm@kmsa.com www.konicaminoltasa.com
 

AT the time of writing, we are on the eve of the Public Hearings on the proposal of the Minister of Higher Education & Training to reconfigure various SETAs and, if unamended, will see the broader industry affected in two ways.

Firstly, Printing & Packaging will be assigned to a brand new SETA – the Manufacturing SETA – along with a variety of other industries, with most of which we have nothing in common. Furthermore, if this happens, we will find ourselves with a brand-new administration entailing new systems, new individuals and unknown levels of service. For many years, we have complained of the poor, shoddy and unprofessional service that the industry has been receiving; and the general unhappiness of both employers and labour is well known.

However, is this a case of ‘Better the devil you know’? Will the new administration be better or worse than the poor service we’ve grown accustomed to? In either event, how will this affect training in the industry?

It may not be widely known, but the new PIFSA Training Council is working on an exciting proposal for training. If successfully extended to its logical end, both below and above the level of apprenticeship training, this model could revolutionise training, and the way in which the public views the industry. It would be a great pity if the allocation of Printing & Packaging to a new and untried SETA were to slow the momentum developing in this regard or, even worse, jeopardise the delivery of the intended training model.

Secondly, the proposal by the Department will see Print Media being split away from Printing &
Packaging. This is unthinkable, as the different sectors are not different industries and use common technology and interchangeable skills. This has the potential for causing huge difficulties. For instance, in which SETA will Electronic Origination and/or Rotary Offset Machine Minding apprentices be trained? Will they be trained by both SETAs and will each SETA expect different standards?

These are vexing difficulties and both employer organisations and labour representatives have made submissions to the various authorities, warning of the consequences for training should this difficulty not be corrected.

It’s sincerely hoped that those bureaucrats tasked with making the fi nal decision fully appreciate
the difficulties they are about to impose on employers and trainees and the consequences for skills development in South Africa.