Climbing the mountain

Over the past decade wide-format digital print technology has moved from being the preserve of the biggest companies in our industry to becoming a staple facet of sign-makers across the spectrum. And for those who do not own a wide-format piece of kit, they almost certainly buy trade banner or poster printing services from those with industrial production capabilities.

The choice of manufacturers is also second to none for almost any other industry, with well established top marque names such as Durst and EFI now doing battle with up and coming contenders. These include names such as Swiss-Q-Print—distributed in the UK by Spandex, Gandy Digital—which launched its new Pred8tor flatbed range at Drupa 2012, and Galaxy Printek Europe, which launched its low cost per square metre super wide machines at Sign and Digital UK 2012

Super wide-format machines, or grand-format as they are sometimes known, are considered generally to be in the 3.2m plus bracket. There are also some manufacturers that have developed 2.6m wide devices, colloquially termed ‘baby grand’, which target the middle ground of those who want to step-up production capability, but do not necessarily need the full might of a super wide option.

These behemoths of the industry come with a price tag though, as the wider you go, the exponentially more expensive they become. For instance, you may assume that the 3.2m version of a top-end printer that costs £40,000 and is 2.6m wide, would be in the region of £50,000. Unfortunately this is not generally the case, and super wide prices can sometimes be as much as two or three times the cost of their wide-format counterparts metre-for-metre.

It is interesting therefore that super wide-format machines are now following the same pattern as their wide-format brethren have over the last ten years. They have been taken on-board by all the biggest sign-makers and are now permeating there way through the middle-ground of the industry’s most profitable companies.

“Being able to move into super wide-format depends on the orientation of your business. In terms of 3.2 and 5m roll-to-roll machines, they really have come a long way in the last few years. An impressive facet is also the ever- improving cost per square metre of printing,” enthuses Mark Rowland, HP’s Scitex regional business manager for Greater Western Europe, UK and Ireland.

This is a view shared by EFI’s Vutek marketing manager, Adriana Puccio: “The key demand we see from our customers is for higher quality print regardless of the application or viewing distance. They also want to be able to achieve faster turnaround times. To address this need we have created opportunities with options such as our GS series of printers that allow them to win new business and simply be more profitable.”

Indeed, EFI has been creating new technology at a predigous rate, recently launching the 3.2m EFI R3225 bundled with its proServer, Print MIS and ERP solutions. HP also boasts an impressive portfolio of super wide options in its Scitex range for both flexible and rigid applications.

Indeed, its six-colour flatbed Scitex FB7600 can output at 500sq m/hr, uses UV-curable inks and can handle upto 25mm thick media at 1.65 x 3.2m. 

HP’s Roland continues: “I would expect a good 3.2 or 5m billboard printer to be producing around 180 square metres a litre these days. In light of this and the way print technology has developed, it is possible for even the most modest print-service-provider to invest in technology that significantly increases their footprint in the market place. The choice of machinery is also not just about what applications it can achieve, its most importantly about getting a cost per square metre that allows PSPs to transform their business.”

On this point, Puccio makes an interesting argument, explaining there are a number of variables for sign-makers to consider over and above the output required to get a good return-on-investment for super wide kit.

“I hear people say 1,000 to 1,200 square metres per month would be a minimum, but I don’t think that’s always going to be right.”

Puccio continues: “It really depends on the printer, its quality and its speed. It also depends on your applications and on the margins you make on each job. If you believe that printers should be producing volume at low margins, those numbers might be correct.

“We encourage our customers to focus on the growth areas of print, so make more money with fewer square metres. For instance, I was speaking to a customer who has a GS3250LX, our top-of-the line printer, which uses cool cure LED curing.  He says it is not a problem if he doesn’t utilise his printer to capacity. Rather, he wants to have spare capacity for when high-margin jobs come along.”

HP’s Roland adds: “Technology evolution has been a real leveller in the market. I can honestly say that finance willing any member of the industry can invest in super wide technology and that we are experiencing a trend which is seeing much smaller companies invest.”

EFI’s Puccio says her sense is that this trend has been growing steadily for the last five years, driven by an evolution in print technology. She also highlights that when EFI launched its QS3220, they saw a host of smaller sign-makers invest in the technology, with this being repeated with the launch of its QS2Pro and R3225 .

“It gave sign-makers a price point where it became affordable to bring digital production in-house with greater productivity and the quality their customers would expect.  As all VUTEk printers, the QS series offered great versatility in applications enabling customers to go after high-margin new business,” explains Puccio.

This is essentially because as the efficiency of the technology is always improving, its costs are coming down and thus the return on investment is much quicker—bringing super wide technology within the reach of a far greater swathe of sign-makers, as Rowland contends.

The drive for these sign-makers to invest in super wide is many have had to buy in print when there wide-format capabilities have been overwhelmed. This results in margins going through the floor, and so many have made the choice to invest in super wide to keep more of the profits for themselves, confident of a fast growing demand for the output of 3.2m machines.

A changing market

One manufacturer which has been pursuing this growing demand for super wide-format is Agfa Graphics, which has a fairly large stable of nine super wide-format options spanning the spectrum of printing applications.

Its M-Press range hit the market about six years ago and became one of the first industrial inkjet options, with the latest incarnation of the M-Press Leopard’ sitting at 1.6 x 3.3m. The company’s M-Press sales manager, Dave Gray, explains the core markets that Agfa is seeing develop for its range: “We started off seeing screen-printers invest in our super wide ospectrumptions, primarily in the point-of-sale market place. This has now evolved substantially as costs have come down in two important areas. That is the cost of the capital investment and the cost of ink per square metre. So now super wide has also become a big appeal to those companies previously just involved in litho printing and lamination along with the medium to large sign-making companies.”

With this in mind, options such as Agfa’s sheet fed 1.6 x 3.3m flatbed Leapord can handle substrates which are 50mm thick and can either be hand fed or purchased with three quarter automation. The machine uses 64 Piezo drop-on-demand Agfa UPH grayscale print heads.

Grey continues: “We can also stand by our claim that the print quality of options such as the Leopard are top-end, as using greyscale heads we even exceed the ISO standards for litho. The choice to keep the machine at four colours was also to ensure that the ink costs associated with 6-colour models were not incurred by those looking to reach more industrial levels of output.

“A trend we are also certainly seeing is that more medium-sized sign-makers, say with four or five members of production staff, now have the capability to invest in models such as the Leapord. This is because it has come within the reaches of their investment capability.”

These views are also shared by distributors that are heavily involved with the sign market across the board such as Hybrid Services, the exclusive UK and Ireland distributor for Mimaki. The firm has created some solid super wide-format technology and as Hybrid’s marketing manager Duncan Jefferies points out,  many successful wide-format operations have found a step up into the big time has found them competing with, ‘some serious over capacity’ and shocked at, ‘markedly different’ margins.

Jefferies believes many sign-makers should take a more gradual approach and move from wide-format to the afore mentioned ‘baby grand’ options around the 2.6m mark, such as its JV34260.
This machine gives the capability to turn exhibition panels through 90 degrees and print across the width of the printer, a great leap forward in terms of productivity.

As with Grey, Jefferies emphasises that even with baby grand, ‘peerless print quality’ is a must as it is aimed at the higher end retail signage and outdoor graphics market. Essentially though this 2.6m level is top of the spectrum for a ‘local market’, with super wide print needing to be generally sold into the national and even international markets to really make it pay.

Jefferies continues: “I have just come from a customer who was talking to us about the Olympics, and the gut feeling is that much of the super wide work has gone off-shore. This is because of the extremely low prices that these projects were expected to be produced at, it was not financially viable for many UK-based sign-makers and print houses.

“On the other side of the coin is those companies which are engaged in lower volume work, but because of the areas they service, require a certain size of output. So to make that up-shift from wide-format to super wide people really need to look at their market place and what they are seeking to achieve. The excitement at the moment is around areas such as textile printing for soft signage, point-of-sale work and even growing areas like room dividers for retail, exhibition and entertainment spaces.”

A key advantage many of Hybrid’s super wide customers are seeing is that for applications such as soft signage, the bigger the print, the less sowing and welding is needed. This reduces turnaround time, labour costs and even wastage—markedly improving the margins on this type of work.

Jefferies counsels caution though, in that large work volumes for bigger applications need to be in placed to achieve these savings.  The important element to remember here is that the bigger machines can still run smaller-format work, but enhance the capability to bid for much more lucrative contracts.

Hybrid’s flagship super wide machine is the 3.25m JV5320 soft signage printer, which has either solvent or dye sublimation ink options. The latter allows for direct printing to transfer paper, flag material, mesh and polyester fabrics. Jefferies emphasises the strength of this machine is its flexibility to print a large range of applications, as Mimaki’s customers can diversify and pursue different areas of signage demand as need dictates.

Jefferies continues: “We are seeing super wide start to break into the middle-ground of the sign industry and there are cross overs all around really. We are seeing people who have invested in JV5320s, where that is the smallest machine they now have, but they are doing this because they are protecting business and retaining that ability to say ‘yes I can’.

“So they may have a big Agfa Mpress Leopard or a Scitex for volume sheet poster printing and rigid work, but they are also being asked, ‘ can you do me some fabric signage work?’. So rather than saying no, they have invested in a printer and a press that could easily be a £160,000 investment. But that has protected the top 10 percent of their business, given them a relatively good margin area and kept that customer with them—rather than buying in trade print or saying ‘no you will have to look elsewhere’.”

The message here is that it is so crucial to retain customers in light of the fact that it is so difficult to
win new ones. Jefferies also highlights there is growing demand for dye sublimated fabric printing, and so options such as the JV5320 are a growing sales area for Hybrid—even seeing some medium and large sign-makers investing in two or three as demand has risen.

Super wide ambitions

The enthusiasm which emanates from Jefferies about the potential of super wide machines, if all the right elements are in place, is reflected by Fujifilm’s European group marketing manager Tudor Morgan, who feels the market is both open wide and yet difficult for new comers, as he explains: “The most important element for sign-makers with wide-format kit to think about is there is a change happening in the market place.

“When you look at who originally invested in super wide it was specialist customers who have since branched out. They have now purchased wide-format kit to capture more market share and the super wide sector has reached saturation point. As a result of this saturation, the selling price of print suffers.”

Morgan also highlights that tightening legislation over a number of years in the area of emissions is impacting printing technology such as solvent ink, which utilises volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The result of this trend, described by Morgan as a ‘tipping point’, is a drive towards UV and LED curing technology with their associated fast printing speeds, impressive colour gamut and wider material application possibilities. As a result the company has recently launched new super wide options such as the 3.2 and 5m Uvistar Pro8, featuring a top speed of 300sq m/hr, four and eight colour switch options as well as its patented parallel drop size technology.

Another changing area is in the contracts for changing billboard signage—the most lucrative area for super wide print. Previously the advertising site owners such as JCDecaux and Clear Channel could subcontract the printing and installation work out with no vulnerability to on-site accidents, but today EU law has made these site owner liable.

Morgan adds: “A secondary trend which has arisen from this move to UV and LED is the increased usage of polyethylene (PE) for banners—this is because you can recycle it, unlike paper and paste or PVC.

“PE is also stretchy and has better strength than paper, and so with the use of a tensioning frame on a banner sight makes installation much easier and makes the aesthetic of the graphics look hugely better. The other thing is that, in terms of on-site health and safety, it wins hands down, as you simply winch the frame down, put in the graphics and winch it back up, without using ladders.”

Morgan’s belief is this move to PE could be a very good thing for the market, as with all these plus points it is being sold with a better profit margin per metre. The big signage buyers are also reportedly happy, as PE used with tensioning frames offsets the liability risk and improves their environmentally-friendly chain of custody credentials.

With this in mind, a very large and as yet untapped market is going direct to large branded chains such as IKEA, B & Q and Homebase, which have very large expanses of unbranded building siding. With the low cost of framing systems, they could feasibly be persuaded to install them on their buildings. A contract could then directly be put in place with a sign-maker to then do PE banner printing to brand that dead space and pull in more consumers.

A final boost for the super wide sector, according to Morgan, is a growing demand for ‘augmented reality’ signage, which he believes will ‘re-energise the market’. This is where a quick response (QR) code is printed to a poster, banner or street billboard, allowing smart phone users to scan it and be taken to interactive marketing content on a website. An example would be a Star Wars 3D film poster that, when its QR code is scanned, gives you access to download exclusive interviews with the stars—or even gives you access to download a Star Wars game for your phone.

“I really think augmented reality is the new horizon, as it is making print far more attractive to marketing agents again as an advertising medium over LED or LCD digital signage. This turns a super wide format printer from a machine into a self-sustaining business,” says Morgan.

Essentially technology such as QR codes turns the Great British consumer from a passive observer of advertising to an active participant by engaging with the brands content and disseminating it again via social networks. Morgan even hints at unpublished research figures which show that consumers are now actually seeking out augmented reality to discover its content in large numbers—a marketeers dream.

Wide open spaces

Speaking to well-versed printer manufacturing heads, the consensus on the super wide-format market is that thorough research is needed before moving into it.

“When you go to a sign or wide-format show, customers are now always very well versed in all the technical aspects of the machinery. So that is not an issue, but every company thinking about buying super wide kit needs to do a very thorough return on investment calculation and find an exact cost per square metre. Many businesses I speak with still do not do this, but to make any headway in such a competitive sector it has to be done properly,” says HP’s Roland.

He adds: “This needs to be more than just the break even point. It has to go down into, what will be the actual cost per square metre including financing, labour, insurance, servicing costs, consumables and the inks. With this done the cost per square metre for a new super wide machine should be significantly lower than what they are currently running.”

These criteria become even more complex when you think that from ink drop size to speed, the technology you but will start to become outdated. Roland advises that, in light of this, such investments need to be thought of as less of, ‘into a printer’ and more of, ‘into a platform from a manufacturer that is dedicated to upgrading your device’. He outlines that with manufacturers such as HP, once you have bought a machine, then you can ‘move forward and move up’. This is because it brings upgrades to systems and supplies them to customers, meaning a brand new printer investment from scratch is not needed—this is in addition to the development of a range of printing and business software solutions.

EFI’s Puccio agrees that this ‘upgrade’ element is vital for today’s manufacturers: “In addition to making sure that our systems provide top quality output, are highly versatile and can cater for a very wide array of applications to improve profitability for our customers, EFI’s VUTEks are also upgradeable to keep customers at the cutting edge for years to come.

“For instance, customers who bought a GS printer in the last year can now upgrade to higher quality print capabilities with our greyscale technology.  Another example is the introduction of our flexible UV inks for a wider colour gamut, better consistency and perfect matching, or the constant development of our software for greater automation and integration from web, to print, to final delivery.”

Keep climbing

It is arguable that the signage industry’s biggest revolution to date has been wide-format digital print technology, turning even the smallest sign-writers and fabricators into mini-industrial production houses—capable of producing thousands of posters, banners and displays every year.

This revolution, over the last ten years especially, has been a huge boost to the wider industry.

This has brought in revenue from additional markets that has been re-invested into new technology, such as super wide-format printers and finishing devices—further supporting the speed of its growth and the capabilities of sign-makers.

Super wide print technology is still beyond the reach of many in our sector. But for those who can climb up to the investment level needed to purchase a machine, the opportunities are certainly there for the taking.