Getting Into Offset Next Year

Hello everyone,

First time poster here at CPF but have been reading a lot for the last few days.

We are a wide format print and signage company. Our business model is the whole package, when a customer comes to us and he doesn't have anything we create everything from their name to slogans, business cards, posters, flyers, billboards, car wraps...you get it, the whole thing.

Right now we have some $100-200k of offset print per year which we are outsourcing. We work with one of the biggest offset companies around, extremely competent, fast and we have a great relationship with them. But we also believe that we're leaving a lot of money on the table as margins around here are very high.

We are mainly interested in a B3 machine as that is where most of the work goes and B2 mostly handles posters and such. For small orders of those we can just print them on our wide formats and any large quantities get outsourced. We also bought a DocuColor 250 both as a companion for the future offset but also so we can handle smaller quantity orders right now and don't have to wait for anyone else. It's not always just about the money, it's about time and finding competent outsourcing partners these days is very hard.

As far as the press itself goes, I was looking at the Ryobi 3304 and I like it a lot, though it's a bit too small for our use, but it seems like a very nice machine.

We have no experience in operating a printing press as far as that goes but we have a very keen eye for color management and as far as technical knowledge goes I've built a CNC router myself and we service our wide formats mostly ourselves so we should be able to get it going in a few months after the press arrives.

Do you have any recommendations for a B3 press ?
As far as price goes we are mostly interested in a 4 color machine as we have been told that operating 2 color machines requires a lot of skill. Also while we would like a machine with auto plate loading if budget doesn't permit we'll have to learn to live without it, for starters. What kind of price range should we expect for a B3 press with and without auto plate loading ?

As far as finishing equipment goes, other than the standard guillotine, folder, binder we also absolutely need a coater. How does coating work in this regard ? Do you connect the coater directly to the printer or is it a separate unit ?

Any other equipment you would recommend/that we need other than what i said above ?

Sorry for the many questions at once, I'm sure that I'll have even more as I learn more about the whole process but that's it for now.

Thanks in advance

 

Two things I forgot to add.

As far as CTP goes, for the first few months we will probably outsource it. I'd like to know though, how much does a CTP for B3 cost ?

And the other thing I wanted to say. It's not just about money. The company that we do most work with is located a pretty distance from us so even though they're extremely competent and fast, logistics wise it can be problematic. We've tried working with local companies and it's been the worst experience of our lives. Every single time they couldn't get the colors right and they're always pushing deadlines, the only thing you can count on is delays and excuses. We simply want to have the flexibility of doing it in house and not having to wait for anyone.

 

Hi there,

I'll try to keep it short, so the main points stand out.

- Make sure you have all of the costs calculated. The local shops you say are not very good are possibly that way because they have not calculated the costs and are forced to make do with bad equipment or inexperienced personnel.

There are a lot of costs associated with offset you have to account for:

1- Consumables such as Blankets, Ink, Fountain Solutions, Press Chemicals, other Misc. parts. You will need to know where you can get them from, how quick, and how much!

2- Maintenance costs of replacing needed parts, taking note of if you can even get parts in your area for a specific machine.

3- Waste costs. If you do not have an experienced personnel, you will be looking at significant waste costs while you battle the learning curve. Even intelligent people willing to learn will make quite a few mistakes at the beginning. (if you choose not to hire an experienced operator keep in mind that you must ALWAYS be very carefull around the press, since something as simple as dropping a pen by accident when you walk over the press can costs thousands of dollars and costly down time).

4- Utilities. Electrical bills will jump significantly. This is expected of course, but something to be considered.

Color management: Having a keen eye is important. Remember that color management will start in your pre-press and run all the way through your print process along with the materials you choose.


As far as a coater: The coater is an option you can buy, that will come with the press. If you want a coater, it needs to come with the press. You might see a press for sale with a description like : "5 color SM with coater". If you get a coater, you also need a functioning dryer to dry the coating.

Printing has a lot of learning that is involved, from the chemistry of it, to the technical aptitude required as well. As far as recommending equipment, i'll let someone else comment on that, these are just a few of the things you need to consider. Hope this helps,

-K

 

First of, thanks for replying, it's much appreciated.

I first want to say...we are doing this under the premise that the printers in our market have a 50-100% margin on their products. This I've been told by several people that work in the industry and a good friend that also owns a press house.
If it were some other industry I'd have a hard time believing it but it's very similar in the wide format print industry so I'm not that hard a sceptic in that regard.

I also happen to know why the local companies suck. The one we work with has been in the industry for 16 years. The problem in our market is that insolvency is running rampant. Most companies are hurting so bad for cash flow that it's ridiculous. When you have a problem like that all sorts of other problems arise. Here's one example...I order a print job with you, you have no money to buy the paper, of course you can't admit that so you say that you're working on the job but it got stuck for some reason. You are basically waiting for some money to arrive so you can go out and buy the paper. This takes a few days, then you get the paper and start working on the job. You don't have time to get the color management right because a 100 jobs are waiting so you just do it any way you can. Of course since you screwed up people will return the jobs and you're at an even greater loss then and it's a self perpetuating cycle. You can't hire more people because you don't have the money and even more importantly your print masters don't have the time to teach a rookie....

I could go on but that's the basic idea. As far as quality goes, as long as I do the prints there isn't really a whole lot that can go wrong. Basically I'll sit by it and work on it until I get the desired results, doesn't really matter to me if it takes till midnight, I'll get it done properly.


Finding a machine with a coater is probably gonna be more difficult, I hoped that it was a separate unit. I imagined that you would find a machine you like and then you find a coater and somehow connect them and that's it. That's a bit of a bump on the road.

As far as the waste stuff goes. I do expect that it's gonna be pretty high at the start. I'll do more research about the waste I should expect and the local margins. As far as paper goes we already have a connection with one of the biggest distributors around here since we work with them for our wide format business so I'm pretty sure that we can get a decent price for the volume we are going to buy.

If it turns out that the margins are in the ballpark of what I was told can the waste really add up to that much ? Can't be 30%, right ?

I was also told that there is a local print master that we could get help from if we get stuck. An old chap that's been working with Heidelberg's his whole life so if we really get stuck he can probably help us out and we also know and are good friends with a few other people from the industry that are willing to help.

I'll try my best to research the points you raised and proceed from there.

If you have the will and would care to go on about some other stuff in this direction I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

http://www.colorprintingforum.com/4...ng-offset-printing-house-10865.html#post40447

That link has a few good points in the discussion about equipment considerations. Remember, this is a public forum and these are only expressed opinions!

One quick point about your waste:
- This would hopefully improve over time of course, as your process comes together and is learned. But every new operator goes through a lot of waste! I can't provide specific margins though (our accounting department does all of that) I can only tell you from a machine operator's / manager's standpoint.


- If you decide to learn the press yourself, posting technical and operational questions here on the forums is a great place to get quick tips. Usually you can always have an experienced operator or two give you some good feedback, in addition to your contacts you already mentioned.

Feel free to post again if you have any specifics you would like to get comments on,

-K

 

I read that post before I registered

Speaking of which the forum seems kind of deserted, what's going on ?

I definitely want to learn it myself. Firstly because my mind seems to be wired to this sort of thing but also because I am best capable in our company on instructing others.

As far as specifics go.

I'd mostly like to hear your opinion on the old vs relatively new.

That's been jumping around in my head a lot. A "war hero" of the trade told me that a Heidelberg or a Roland should be the way to go and that the year of the machine (in Heidelberg's case) doesn't really matter as long as the machine is manufacturer refurbished and that we should be on the lookout for such machines mostly.

I have this debate with myself of the opportunity cost of getting an old machine and starting work earlier or waiting and getting one from the 90s or 2000s. I would very much like to have auto-plate loading and some other stuff that comes with newer machines but I could probably learn to life without if, if I had to.

I'd love to hear your opinion on this one.


Related to this I'd also like to hear what you think how much it would cost to get ourselves setup with the standard stuff. So a B3 press with a coater (this is a must), a guillotine that's at least 1m (B2 wide), the reason for this is so we can cut the B2 sized paper that's abundant here to our needed size. Other than the press, coater, guillotine we also need a perforator, a numbering machine, stitcher, folder and all of the other standard stuff. I'm trying to come up with the difference in a relatively new vs old press and how much of a price difference there would be.

As said this is in the early stages for us, we are just only contemplating what we need, how much it will cost and so on. We are looking at B3 because on it we can do 80% of our work and hopefully avoid the enormous upfront cost of a B2 press. As far as I'm concerned we would never need anything bigger but the future is long so who knows.

 

We are mainly into long run printing and have been for many years. if we could make 50 - 100% profit i would not be working anymore. to be honest we are working on the 30% that is after everyone is paid and bill, wage, leases etc.

dont forget if you make 70 % on every job, that doesnt nessecerily mean at the end of the year you will make 70%, if you have down time, or a quiet month every year your 70% soon gets eaten up.

I think you do have enough work to justify this step but i would seriously consider if you have enough money to throw at it to make it work. you can get an offline uv coater however im unsure as to the price of these.

 

Yea I was thinking margins per run, not on a yearly basis.

Right now I'm trying to figure out a ballpark figure of how much the setup would cost and from where we would get it.

All of this is in the early stages so I'm trying to hoard up as much information as I can so I'm reading up online and talking to the printing people I know just to make an educated guess on the what's and how's.

One thing here is that we don't have some grandiose ambitions with this. We mainly want to serve our existing clients and be able to do it quickly, with a high quality and consistency, and of course to make a buck while doing so. If things go like this in the next few years we are probably looking at quarter of a mil or more in offset work so this is definitely something we're seriously considering in the next few years.