The B3 sector is up against strong challengers, most notably from the growth in digital printing. While short-run, personalised work with variable data – and the print quality from toner-based digital presses – is on the up, the digital offset market of direct imaging (DI) presses has also made its mark. Falling makeready times on larger sheetfed presses are also making them a potential threat to the fast-turnaround B3 printer.
But B3 printers and press manufacturers argue that the sector still has a niche based on fast-turnaround work where the quality must be higher than current digital presses can manage.
Retaining a niche
Chris Parry, managing director at Wiltshire-based Corsham Print, which recently installed a landscape-format B3 Ryobi press (PrintWeek, 12 February 2007), believes that this niche market will remain viable for some time. He says: “We’re geared up for run lengths of between 500 and 5,000. Because the makereadies are so quick now, we can really keep the costs down, plus the quality is better than digital.”
Heidelberg B3 sheetfed product marketing manager Richard Bradley agrees: “The quality is unmatched by anything digital can offer and it’s supremely fast. Conventional offset is always going to be needed and will survive well into the 21st century.”
However, the quality of digital print is constantly improving, and MAN Roland GB sheetfed sales director Gary Doman doesn’t think it will be too long before parity is achieved between litho and digital. “The edge that litho has on print quality is really only a small one,” he says. “Only the more discerning customers would appreciate that quality difference.”
This is one of the reasons MAN Roland withdrew from the B3 market. “The advent of digital machines meant that the short-run market wasn’t viable for us anymore. You could see the writing on the wall,” says Doman.
However, Heidelberg’s Bradley argues that digital’s strength is not necessarily based on the same short-run work B3 litho printers are targeting. “Digital is gen-erally good for direct mail,” he explains. “It is the strength of the database that gives digital its power, not cost-per-copy. On a 1,000 copy print run, offset is easily one third of the cost of digital.”
Corsham Print’s Parry agrees: “Digital is developing its own market in terms of variable data. I don’t think there’s a threat. The quality may be getting better, but we’ve got the flexibility of doing spot colours or seals, which digital presses won’t bother with.” So litho isn’t lying down just yet.
New life
Heidelberg believes that its latest development, the Anicolor inking system, will breathe new life into the B3 marketplace by cutting makeready times.
Chris Ollard, joint man-aging director of Herts & Essex Printers, says: “The break point will be the new Heidelberg Anicolor. This has no ink ducts and five minutes makeready. We’re talking closely with Heid-elberg about buying one.”
And B3 printers are not losing any sleep over competition from the DI press market. Ray Burn, managing director of West Sussex-based A Local Printer, which runs B3, B2 and digital kit, says: “It’s quite simple. I absolutely see no point in DI – the plate media is very expensive and, in the time it takes to make the plates, we could have the job done on B3 sheetfed and be moving on the next job.”
Competitive platemaking
Neil Handforth, sales and marketing manager for Apex Digital Graphics says sheetfed is more flexible in terms of stock thickness and runs, which makes it more competitive for the application of plates and plate materials.
He says: “The DI is pleasing to someone with little experience of running a press, but its disadvantage is that while you’re making a plate on a DI, you can’t be doing anything while the plates are being imaged.”
The B3 argument, though, isn’t restricted to litho versus digital; there is also the question of B2 litho. MAN Roland’s Doman says: “Obviously, B3 represents a lower investment value, but you’re going to take twice as long to run. Makereadies are pretty much the same now, and you could put through twice as many jobs on a B2, so if you’re busy, it makes more sense economically.”
But Heidelberg’s Bradley believes that the margins on B3 work justify restrictions on flexibility for longer runs. He says: “Generally, pound for pound, there is more profit in B3 than in the larger, over-capacity ‘boxing arena’ B2 and B1 sectors.”
Of course, printers are most concerned about the bottom line, and as long as B3 printers can hold on
to their niche, their future looks secure.
Small-format print has its niche cornered
Much of print has been getting supersized or going digital in recent years. So it was a refreshing change to see last week that MT Print in Darlington had kept its faith in the humble B3 sheetfed press and gone for a full, three-press revamp to its factory.
