In late December 2007, Unicom Graphics—the largest privately owned printer in Alberta—acquired three new digital colour printers. This digital threesome has been seamlessly integrated with the company’s offset press environment, and digital volume is soaring, revenues are expected to climb and Unicom reps are proud to call themselves a “hybrid” operation.
Calgary-based Unicom has 105 employees and was founded in 1991 out of a merger between two sets of business partners. Unicom’s three new printers (an imagePRESS C7000VP, imagePRESS C1 and imageRUNNER C2880i, all from Canon) complement the firm’s existing equipment, which includes a six-colour MAN Roland 500 press and an eight colour Man Roland 300 press. But it’s the new equipment, particularly the C7000 that staff is really excited about.
“I don’t think I’ve encountered a new device going into our plant as easily [as the C7000],” reports Kevin Henderson, manager of digital imaging and direct mail at Unicom. “We had our production people actually operating the machine before the technicians had installed it entirely … it arrived here between Christmas and New Years. It took about a day to uncrate, and by the second or third day we were running jobs on it.”
Unicom was the third company in Canada and second in the western provinces to install a C7000 (which Canon has been shipping since July 2007), Henderson adds. The machine offers consistent print speed at 70 pages-per-minute (ppm), up to 1,200 by 1,200 dpi print resolution, and is used by Unicom for commercial printing jobs.
The C2880i and C1, meanwhile, are primarily used for proofing. The 2880i manages 28 ppm for black-and-white copies and up to 26 ppm for colour, has a 600 dpi by 600 dpi printing resolution. The C1 has 1200 by 1200 dpi copy/print resolution and a copy/print speed of up to 14 ppm in colour and 60 ppm in black and white. Both machines took about “half a day each,” to uncrate, says Henderson.
Digital volume on the C7000 has been impressive: “We are now at 3.5 million copies, as of November 1,” says Dean McElhinney, general manager at Unicom. Total volume for 2008 is predicted to hit 4.2 million copies—“an increase in the 25 to 30% range,” notes McElhinney.
“We do a lot of variable imaging on the C7000,” he continues. “A lot of short-run brochures and things like that, where people need something for that sales meeting next Friday, and with offset we can’t get it to them until Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.”
Workflow has been integrated so well, the company can print magazine covers on its digital equipment and magazine pages on offset simultaneously. Running digital and offset together is the hybrid workflow. The firm relies on a Heidelberg Prinect automated workflow for its proofing, platesetting and offset purposes.
“We use [Heidelberg] workflow software for either our digital or our offset,” explains McElhinney.
Unicom first went digital in 2001, after it acquired three black-and-white digital printers from Konica-Minolta. The company later shifted to three Canon monochrome digital printers—two imageRUNNER 110s and one imageRUNNER Pro 7138VP—that were installed between 2002 and 2006. Unicom upgraded to colour, in the form of a Konica-Minolta 8050 colour laser digital printer and a C500 colour laser digital printer, but staff still wasn’t satisfied.
“We purchased the 8050 but it could not keep up to our volume so Konica added the C500 on a pay per click only. These machines would not keep the registration or colour consistency we demanded,” explains McElhinney. “It was just really hamstringing us—we would run a decent job, the client would like it, and we couldn’t reproduce it … if we tried to do some follow-up foiling and embossing, it didn’t hold the tight registration.”
“When the Canon C7000 came out, we looked at it, and really like the registration. And we liked the way it handled heavier stock,” continues McElhinney.
In late 2007, the decision was made to lease the C7000, along with the C2880i and C1. Inventory was sorted out and now Unicom has three colour and three black and white digital printers. Productivity has gone up, thanks to the latter.
“When we had the smaller [Konica] colour boxes, we were doing about 250,000 clicks a month of colour,” says McElhinney. “When we put the Canon [C7000] in now we’re at about 350,000—so we’re up 25-to-30% and getting busier.”
Annual revenue for Unicom is around $14.5 million. “We’re thinking it’s going to remain fairly stable. We’ve noticed sales staying static right now. Our sales used to be more commercial print and that volume has changed to the hybrid work and direct mail, so we’re seeing a shift and hopefully we can turn that into some growth over the next two years,” says McElhinney.
He admits there was a little bit of “culture shock” when the company installed its three new Canon printers. The company hosted “some lunch and learns” to acquaint the staff with the new digital machines, says McElhinney.
“Like any new equipment, when you first put them in there are growing pains … with digital equipment, there is much more downtime [than offset]. And that’s hard for offset background people to understand, but it’s the nature of the business … that’s probably the biggest single thing when you get into [digital] is how often you see the hood up on a piece of equipment,” he continues.
Unicom’s customers have also been on a learning curve. “When you say ‘digital’ everyone thinks ‘overnight’,” says McElhinney. “The thing about hybrid printing that people don’t understand, even though we’re going to use the C7000 and that really speeds things up, the back end processes don’t change … that’s one of the things your reps have to be talking to the end-client about. Yes, we’re really going to speed up the front-end process—we can run shorter quantities—but the traditional work, let’s say we’re going to emboss a cover or foil it, that doesn’t go any quicker.”
Unicom’s customers, on both the traditional and digital front, seem satisfied. “Unicom prints all our bottle labels. They also print our annual report, business cards and other brochures and POS material for our sales team,” says Jessica Barrie, advertising manager for Calgary-based Big Rock Brewery. “They are a great partner.”
While Big Rock’s material is primarily printed on offset presses, all the work Unicom does for Columbus, Ohio-based International Bingo Supply (IBS) is done digitally or by a hybrid process.
Unicom prints “about a million” double-sided paper bingo tickets and “a couple hundred flair cards” (which explain how the game is played) per month for the company, says IBS vice-president Steve McCoy. “I’m just real happy with them. No complaints. They take care of me.”
Despite their success with the new three Canon printers, Unicom has no intention of going all digital any time soon.
“I think we’ve blended it in fairly well,” says McElhinney. “We’ll definitely be a hybrid shop.”
While happy to be hybrid, McElhinney says printers ignore digital at their peril.
“Other printers are getting into [digital] and some aren’t. I think the ones that aren’t into it are going to have a long, bleak future, because that’s where the industry’s headed,” he states.
Nate Hendley is a Toronto-based freelance writer.
