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The finishing department used to be such a predictable place. Dull, even, with a standard range of equipment doing all that unremarkable fold, stitch and trim stuff.

However, Madonna-like, finishing has reinvented itself in the digital age, and is now likely to be viewed as a powerful profit centre. It’s an area that’s certainly the focus of an enormous amount of invention. Witness the dazzling range of devices on display at Ipex, in particular, the kit targeted at digital printers. A host of snazzy machines were on show, taking the output from the myriad digital printing engines on display, and turning it into finished products in the most efficient way possible.

Surveying the market as it currently stands, Watkiss communications director Jo Watkiss observes: "The choice between online and offline depends on the range of jobs and the run lengths. Customers who produce a standard range of products – especially in-plants, universities, colleges and local authorities – often choose a dedicated online system.

Commercial printers are more likely to buy offline systems, partly to take the output from multiple printers – both digital and offset – but also to maintain flexibility."

The majority of Watkiss installations, thanks to its OEM arrangements with Xerox and Océ, are online. Split that into direct sales and Watkiss describes it as half-and-half.

In the wider market, specifically commercial printers that have added digital printing facilities, the most flexible route has typically been to use their finishing equipment off- or near-line, in order to maximise the use of the investment, not least because digital presses have been, in the main, much slower than the finishing kit.

The third way
The near-line option, whereby the finishing system or device isn’t physically connected to an output device, but it knows the job details, either through being linked via electronic interface or by using some form of intelligent mark on the paper.

"With variable data work, the most flexible solution is likely to be near-line," says Peter Jolly, marketing manager at Duplo UK. "This allows the output from multiple print engines to be brought together, with the additional advantage that dynamic feeding and finishing is made possible, through the device interface or on-sheet markings."

"However if you are running multiple job types, as in a typical commercial print environment, it has to be near or offline finishing. This means that you have extra flexibility where your finishing is not reliant on the press working, plus you can finish from multiple presses. From Duplo the message is offline or near-line will maximise your investment in finishing," he asserts.

Power digital print players, such as Precision Printing and 1st Byte, are currently opting for near-line. "We’re handling such a variety of work that our view – up until now – is that near-line is the best solution for us," says 1st Byte managing director Lawrence Dalton. "That said, there are one or two things we do that are more repetitive where online might make sense. The biggest potential downside for us would be if the finishing line goes down then the whole press could be out of action."

It’s a similar picture at Precision, as managing director Gary Peeling explains: "At the moment we’re working near-line. We’re creating dynamic ‘work-to’ lists for conventional finishing machinery and processes, so jobs are in the correct groups for efficiency, and for priority, and we’re making those adjustments all the time.

"Effectively it’s an automated line with humans in it, but they don’t have to spend all their time juggling schedules. Our aim is to have each bit of kit working on the right job, in the right order, in the right batch," he adds.

Peeling and Dalton are both keeping a close eye on market developments, and come the new year one of the pieces of kit on show in Hall 12 in Birmingham will be coming to the market. It could herald a step-change in the options for digital finishing, reigniting the debate about when inline, offline or near-line finishing is the best solution.

The machine in question is made by Lasermax Roll Systems, the American-Swedish company formed in 2004 when Stralfors merged its Lasermax wing with Roll Systems. The business, now owned by Böwe Systec International, lays claim to being the world’s largest manufacturer of paper handling, processing, and inspection systems for digital printing.

As the name implies, it is perhaps best known for its products targeted at reel-fed systems, however, two new products from the company are aimed squarely at the sheetfed digital space.

Through an exclusive deal with HP (Lasermax is a Platinum Partner) it has developed two new finishing products designed to work with the firm’s HP Indigo 7500 and 7000 engines. One is FinishReady, a controller that integrates the digital press with third-party finishing systems, whether they are inline or near-line. At Ipex, the FinishReady system was hooked up to a Duplo Alpha saddlestitcher. The second product is PageReady, a sort of all-singing, all-dancing inline system that includes fully-automated cutting, slitting, merging and stacking. Lasermax cites postcards, direct mail pieces, brochures, greeting cards, calendars and even photobooks (described by one expert as the ‘Holy Grail’ of inline finishing) as among the types of product that can be produced.

End-to-end solutions
Nancy Janes, HP Indigo country manager, UK and Ireland, says: "We view the printing market, more than ever, as application-centric. And such finishing systems are a great fit for our strategy to offer end-to-end solutions. The faster the presses, the more requirements for inline finishing. Interest for customers is systematic for all 7500 deals and highly demanded for the 5500 series. More and more printers moving to digital, have a precise type of job in mind and require a full solution."

It’s no surprise that a system with the possibility to be such a magic bullet has piqued the interest of potential users, including Precision’s Peeling: "There are things coming to the market next year that will allow us to bring a production line mentality to dynamic, on-demand orders," he states. "The key to automated finishing is workflow – then hardware. The PageReady system should switch in seconds as the next job is being prepared. We have to be a little cautious about it, though, as with all things that are revolutionary."

1st Byte’s Dalton is also musing on the possibilities for a totally inline solution for elements of his company’s work: "There may be a time, soon, when we have one press dedicated to one type of product, for example, business cards. But there are still lots of variables in that product. They could be laminated on one side, or both, and with various different trim sizes. We’re keeping an open mind."

A complex question
Lasermax isn’t the only supplier making developments in this area. Dominic Quennell of Quennell Associates is currently working with CP Bourg in a consultancy role. He describes the inline/near-line debate as "a very, very, complex question", and advises customers to look very carefully at workflow and work patterns.

"It’s something I spend more time talking about with customers than anything else. And we at Bourg are spending a lot of time thinking about all the aspects of inline and near-line, and where we will put our investment dollars," he says.

"For people with multiple systems, near-line is more sensible, because there’s redundancy. And customers probably get more value out of the system because most finishing kit can run faster than the print engines that feed them."

Quennell believes customers are also benefiting from the current era of open interfaces. "I remember seeing a Xerox DocuTech running 20 years ago with inline bookletmaking from CP Bourg. All the digital print engine manufacturers had their own protocols in those days, because they wanted to differentiate themselves. As time has gone by it’s become much more open. You could have Bourg, Duplo or Plockmatic kit running online to a Xerox engine now. They’ve gone out of their way to give customers choice.

"It’s very interesting what HP has done. They’re using Lasermax to validate various sorts of finishing kit," adds Quennell.
Come the first quarter of next year when the Lasermax products are set to come to market, rival suppliers will be queuing up alongside potential customers to see how the kit functions and how the payback stacks up – the PageReady system is set to be priced at around £130,000. Alon Bar-Shany, vice-president and general manager at HP’s Indigo division, has described the new Lasermax systems as "taking finishing to the next level" in digital production. One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be a new chapter in the story of finishing’s reinvention.