Every press – and indeed piece of print-related software – that hits the market has been intensively beta tested in the field before its release and manufacturers are constantly on the look out for test partners. Signing up for a beta test has numerous potential benefits – you get to try out the next generation of kit and get the full attention of the manufacturer's engineers during those early months to ensure that you're getting the maximum out of it. On the flipside there will inevitably be teething problems and downtime, plus a couple of months after the test concludes the manufacturer will release an enhanced version of the machine minus the problems that your company helped to iron out. So what's the truth of the matter: is being an early adopter a bane or an opportunity? Put simply is beta better?
For manufacturers, beta testing is a necessary evil. Putting something through its paces in an R&D environment with engineers on hand is one thing, letting a jobbing printer loose on the new machine is an entirely different but incredibly important exercise.
"If you're developing a machine, you have to see how it performs in real life not just in your factory," explains Steve Cavey UK marketing manager for B1 and B2 products at Heidelberg. "You have to push it to the limit and run it hard. You need genuine feedback."
This feedback can cover anything, from minor changes to major design tweaks. "You could be talking about wash-ups on the machine and how efficient they are, whether the timing is correct, whether or not you need to increase the amount of solution. Or it could be about the ergonomics of the machine. Would something be better if it were repositioned? Every detail that a customer feeds back to us is important," adds Cavey.
Home territory
Like a number of fellow overseas manufacturers, Heidelberg prefers to beta test its machines close to its German manufacturing base due to the sheer amount of monitoring needed on a new press or indeed on a new piece of software.
"This kind of testing would be too dangerous in the UK," explains Lance O'Connell, business manager Prinect workflow and CTP at Heidelberg UK. "You can't have customers with stuff that perhaps doesn't work properly straight away."
Instead in the UK the firm uses 'concept customers' or 'early adopters' who take kit after it has gone through the beta stage. One such company is Colourstream in Derby, which has a number of bits of Heidelberg kit including Prinect.
"When we get clearance from Germany that the software is at a suitable level we install it at Colourstream before we install it anywhere else," explains O'Connell.
Heidelberg also uses an unnamed UK printer that feeds back to the R&D team in Germany what features it would like to see in future versions of the company's software. O'Connell says that it's very much a partnership arrangement between the two companies. It's an approach that's also favoured by UK manufacturer Inca Digital.
"It is a partnership because you're asking them [the customer] to work with you to refine your product," explains Heather Kendle, Inca's director of marketing.
She says that the key responsibility placed on the tester is to feed back what the machine can and cannot do, so when the machine is being put through its paces performance information is logged and meetings between the two parties regularly take place so that issues can be flagged up with engineers on hand to quickly resolve any issues.
"Even if this information is just subtle things around how the software works, it's very useful to us and leads to changes to the specification of the machine," adds Kendall.
It's clear that benefits can be derived from beta testing from the manufacturers' point of view and by those companies who buy the market-ready version of the equipment, but what about the printers who take part in the testing process? What are the upsides for them?
No free rides
There are numerous advantages to testing, but if you think that you're going to get a new piece of equipment dirt cheap or even gratis then think again. "The old theory that beta sites are a good way of getting equipment for free is not the case anymore," says Ralph Hilsdon, director of commercial system sales at Agfa's Belgian HQ. He explains that this historic arrangement is no longer sustainable because the customers were agreeing to the beta test for the wrong reasons so manufacturers were not getting the kind of feedback that they needed. But that's not to say there are no financial benefits to be derived from participating in a beta test. Hilsdon cites the possibility of delayed payments for the equipment in addition to free training, installation and enhanced levels of support.
Then there's the chance to play with technology that's not available to anybody else. "They get the product early so they get the chance to get accustomed to it before anyone else and steal the march on their competition," says Heidelberg's O'Connell. "Take the example of CTP. The early adopters were making ready quicker and were benefiting from the reduced chemical costs."
That's not to say that there aren't risks involved. With any new product there will inevitably be teething problems, which will in turn probably mean significant downtime. When beta testing, failsafe measures always need to be put in place to ensure that a company can still meet its business demands regardless of whether or not the new machine experiences problems. This is an area in which the manufacturer is usually more than willing to lend a hand by coming up with a contingency plan.
"We always put a workflow beta in place in parallel with the existing system," says Agfa's Hilsdon. "There always has to be fallback and we offer a great deal more support to a customer to ensure that they're never let down. The bottom line is it's difficult to find good beta sites so the last thing you want to do is scare them off from doing the next one."
What about the argument that the beta model will be different from the finished version and that the tester will have a piece of equipment that's outdated?
O'Connell says that this may well be the case, but the competitor doesn't get to have hands-on experience of using the product for the year that the tester does and as his colleague Cavey points out: "If someone takes the beta and it changes within a year or two then most of the changes are upgradeable. Most of the time the changes are to the software so this can be retrofitted."
Kendal reports a similar scenario at Inca with regards to retrofitting spec changes and counters that while testing may benefit everybody else "it also benefits the tester as well".
Even if some changes are not retrofittable the key point is that while the tester's machine may not have the latest suction feeder or software upgrade they will have had time to adapt their business to that piece of equipment, which means that they will ultimately be ahead of the game on sales and also on return on investment. So while beta may not be better for everybody, for the majority of testers it's a worthwhile endeavour that keeps them one step ahead of their rivals.
