Commercial Printing Makes an Impact

It's in-with-the-new as manufacturers accommodate increasing requests for non-traditional products.

The pleasing aesthetics belie the confounding aggravations behind producing and selling commercial printing. But the customer is always right and industry professionals love a challenge, a symbiosis enabling the dominance of commercial printing among industry trends.

Manufacturers are discovering that it's simply not enough to sell on quality, which is pretty much a given at this level of production. And instead of satisfying application requirements—as is the case with traditional products—the ability to accommodate customers' business practices is determining success for commercial printers.

Improved target marketing, cost containment issues and demands for quick turnaround are impacting everything from the size of the run to how the ink is dried.

Presses

Through acquisition, Royal Oak, Michigan-based Arbor Press has diversified its capabilities, establishing a commercial printing division seven years ago in response to growing demands for these products.

Sales representative Jim Laurain pointed out that, "Now if a customer needs 2,500 pieces for a stuffer and then 25,000 pieces for a trade show, we can use the same file to create the same piece and just transfer it between equipment depending on the size of the run."

Laurain noted that long runs are being replaced by multiple short runs as companies hone their target marketing techniques.

"Customers are getting leaner and meaner with ordering. What were once 10,000 piece orders are now reduced to four lots of 2,500 which are run monthly," he said, and Arbor Press looks to its Heidelberg Quickmaster DI to address the needs of this quick turnaround, short-run four-color process printing market.

"With traditional lithographic printing, it can cost $1,000 just to get on the press," Laurain continued, "but with the Quickmaster DI, we can have the job out the door for $600."