Brochure descriptions are often brimming with references to the machine’s "unrivalled accuracy", its "revolutionary" features, "unsurpassed quality" or "ingenious" design. There might be a sprinkling of "world’s fastest" and "most advanced" in there too.
Which is why – enthralled as they might be by these claims – most potential buyers will probably be very keen to get to the specifications page of a brochure. It is here afterall that they’ll hopefully be able to start to unpack the appetising postulations made elsewhere and double check they’ll hold true.
Or is it? In fact getting to grips with what kit is actually capable of can be a complicated business. These figures are not always representative of how kit will perform in a real-live pressroom. And, with different manufacturers often describing a similar capability in very different, not always directly comparable, terms, neither do they always help printers choose between different machines.
This issue of comparing apples with apples is most pronounced in the world of digital print. So problematic can this be, that one print boss apparently resorted to creating his own spreadsheet whereby all the various, well, variables were extrapolated into like-for-like details. The result of his computations allowed the company to make a buying decision based upon genuine comparatives, so there were no nasty surprises when it came to factors such as consumables costs.
Having to do this is of course far from ideal, and manufacturers too find lack of standardisation a headache. Domino has become so frustrated at what it believes is misleading information in the marketplace about inkjet resolution, in particular, that it has produced a white paper on the topic.
"The term dpi refers to drops per inch, but a number of our competitors have come up with terms based on variable drop sizes, such as ‘virtual dpi’," says Philip Easton, the firm’s director of digital printing solutions. "If something is 360dpi, it’s not 1,000dpi. We always quote the native resolution, and in an ideal world we [manufacturers] would all just quote that and then say how many greyscales we have."
Missing data
Getting an accurate impression of how a digital machine’s uptime compares with that of a litho press, is also an issue. This is not something that will generally feature in a product’s data sheet, but the wise buyer will look into this closely.
Digital print kit manufacturers provide monthly ‘duty cycles’ for their devices, typically given in pages or ‘images’ (note the important difference, a four-colour page is four images). But as Heidelberg’s sales director Jim Todd points out, when these figures are extrapolated into the available hours of use, a much more illuminating figure starts to emerge.
"It’s low numbers and that means the depreciation equation is modified enormously," he states. "That’s why some of the digital manufacturers have backed down in their claims about competing with offset. They’ve been educated by their customers who understand both technologies."
The flipside of the argument for standardisation of specs, however, is that it would make it more difficult for manufacturers who want to highlight a unique selling point. An example is Ricoh, which has developed something called a Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL), used in its Pro C651 and C751 production printers. It boasts "the industry’s highest pixel density", claims the company, at 4,800dpi.
"On a number of features there is a good case for having standardisation," says Ricoh production print director Stephen Palmer, who goes on to explain that VCSEL is not, however, in his opinion one of them: "The actual resolution of the print engine is 1,200dpi, however the VCSEL technology enhances this to effective 4,800dpi," he explains. "It effectively gives you four times the resolution, by splitting the dot up. I don’t think we’re bending the rules in saying that."
But it’s not only the issue of attempting to compare completely different measurements from one machine to another, that confronts the prospective buyer. Even where they do compare directly in this way, assessing whether these figures accurately reflect how the kit will perform on live jobs can still be problematic.
Inca Digital marketing director Heather Kendle believes that some of the claims in product documentation are quite simply unachievable in real life, particularly when it comes to the potential throughput of machines.
"The problem is people quote square metres per hour, as if you would just be printing flat out," she notes. "It would be much fairer to say that to print the maximum print area, in different modes, it takes ‘x’ amount of time. Or to include the handling time too for loading and unloading, and talk about total throughput."
This is arguably less of an issue, say some, when looking at specs for modern sheetfed presses. A few years ago a press might have had a ‘maximum mechanical speed’ of, say, 18,000sph, but a maximum print speed of 15,000sph. Then, because a tricky paper or sheet size might reduce that to 10,000sph, the average print speed in reality was more likely to work out at something like 13,000sph.
However, Heidelberg’s Todd believes that nowadays, the brochure spec matches the printroom reality, and a press that is rated at 18,000sph, will actually print at that: "One of the differences with what we call ‘new offset’ is that the degree of automation has taken over," he says, pointing to the productivity figures achieved by users such as Swindon’s ESP Colour.
"Anthony Thirlby’s stats prove that what we say on the tin can actually be bettered. What you see at an exhibition or in a showroom can be delivered."
So rather than over-egging things, it could be argued that press manufacturers such as Heidelberg are actually being quite conservative in their published specs.
But there is still often cause for caution in taking modern sheetfed press specs completely as read. KBA UK managing director Christian Knapp notes that amidst all the talk of hyper-fast makeready times, printers should make sure they take into account processes such as wash-ups.
"When talking about quick change overs, wash-ups or coater change-overs are often forgotten," he says. "Yet many of those processes can only be done in sequence. It’s a bit like talking about a lap time in F1 but forgetting that on occasion the car requires a pit stop – that’s also why we talk about the ‘no-pit stop’ machine, to highlight this."
Do it yourself
The best course of action for litho and digital printers alike, then, would seem to be a rigorous DIY approach to interrogating specs. This is certainly advocated by Cambrian Printers, which took a forensic approach to its most recent purchases.
The Aberystwyth company is unusual in that it has purchased latest-generation sheetfed presses from both KBA and Heidelberg. Managing director Doug Gray has created a blueprint for evaluating equipment, and is happy to share some of his top tips. "We did quite extensive tests, and supplied our own job files and our own paper. We always send our own paper so it’s the typical paper we will have to print on," he explains.
"We took note of what we considered to be crucial settings, such as the conductivity of the water, the inks used and the founts. Presses in showrooms or R&D environments are in temperature and humidity controlled environments, and we’re never going to be able to replicate that."
Armed with a stopwatch Gray and his team then noted down all the critical timings during their demonstrations with both Heidelberg and KBA, and were subsequently able to make their investment decisions based upon facts that related to the company’s own requirements.
Best Digital in Hertfordshire took a similar approach when it went in search of a new wide-format device. "We looked at six or seven machines over a period of six-to-eight months," says director Danny Colegate. "They all came with wonderful specs."
The result of the process was the purchase of the world’s first Screen Truepress Jet W1632 UV inkjet printer, so the company must have had considerable confidence in the rigour of its evaluation process. "It wasn’t the biggest and it wasn’t the cheapest, but it did more of what it said on the tin. Also, very importantly, it came with backup," adds Colegate.
It seems, then, it is ultimately down to print bosses to establish the facts around the machine specifications that are most important for their own particular purchasing decision. Perhaps Inca’s Kendle hits the nail on the head when she says of spec sheets: "These theoretical numbers are all very well, but a printer wants to know how many jobs they can produce a day, and how much money they can earn from it."
So there’s a lot to be said for the old adage ‘buyer beware’. A piece of kit may well look good on paper, but might not be quite so impressive when it actually comes to putting ink on paper. Time spent actually understanding what’s behind the specs will be time well spent.
Top tips for comparing machines
Resolution versus speed of some digital kit What is the ‘native’ resolution? What speed, at the resolution required to produce sellable output, will it print at?
Stocks If you regularly need to print onto very thin or very thick stocks, or special substrates, test the production speed using these non-standard materials
Uptime What are the likely available production hours of the equipment? Check manufacturers’ stats for average time lost due to breakdowns across the user base. For digital kit also pay particular attention to duty cycles
Materials handling The unloading and loading of materials will affect throughput, particularly on wide-format kit
Consumables costs What will the ongoing running costs be?
Waste levels How much paper will be wasted at start-up, and when changing stocks? How many calibration sheets will be required?
Backup and support The fastest machine in the world is no use if there’s not an engineer available to fix it
Test the reality Carry out print tests of your own typical work
Take your own stopwatch Manufacturers have been known to be economical with the truth about how long some processes actually take
Case study: Best Digital
Hertfordshire-based Best Digital took a thorough look at all the available options when it wanted to invest in a major expansion of its large-format printing facilities.
The firm took several months to evaluate all the options, explains managing director Geoff Rawlings.
"Probably every manufacturer will hate me for saying this, but they all exaggerate about what their machines can actually do," he says.
"They might say it prints at 300sqm/hr, but then you find out it either doesn’t do it or it does but the results aren’t actually sellable. There’s a difference between the specification on paper and the specification on the shopfloor.
"You’ve got to go along with a stopwatch and really check things, rather than just believe what you’re told. If the manufacturer says it runs at 90m2/hr, then let’s run it at that and put a stopwatch on it and see what we get."
Best Digital’s lengthy evaluation process came down in favour of Screen’s Truepress Jet W1632 UV flatbed, even though Best was the first company in the world to buy the device. It bought the machine, together with a second Screen device, as part of a £500,000 investment.
In doing so, Best put Screen’s claims of "outstanding imaging technology with superior engineering and a reliable flatbed design" on the Truepress Jet W1632 very much to the test, putting the 1.6x3.2m format device through a range of tests.
"We took a massive decision to buy that machine, but we had tested it and it did do what they said it would. It was as fast and as good," Rawlings asserts.
"I think that comes from the Japanese ethos. It’s not ‘it will eventually do this’- it’s ‘it will do it’."
Another important factor for Best was having confidence in the availability of backup, should there be a problem. "You need to know there is going to be backup and parts in stock, that’s why we prefer to deal directly with the supplier, rather than an agent."
When it comes to the performance measures Best deems to be most important, Rawlings’ recommendations are simple: "Check the running speed, and the quality it produces. And look for really good backup."
