By David Murphy, RISO

All good business managers try maximize their efficiencies and lower their operating costs. One way for transactional print providers to do that is to use the appropriate printing device for the appropriate application. Choices abound: Inkjet or (toner-based) Electrophotographic (EP)? Continuous-feed or cut-sheet? High quality or low running cost? Durable or affordable? Since there is no “one size fits all” imaging device, print providers usually need more than one type of technology on their production floor. One might need a cut-sheet inkjet solution to complement a continuous-feed inkjet solution. Or if most of the transactional volume is currently in monochrome, it could be best to slowly scale into a full color offering with a fast, durable, affordable inkjet or EP cut-sheet color printer.

Consider a transactional service bureau that is producing 10 million total impressions per month, all in black and white, using continuous-feed EP. They want to move into full color, but are reluctant to spend a half million dollars or more up front on a full color roll-fed inkjet press. Since all roll-feed full color print engines are based on inkjet technology today, the most beneficial approach is to gradually scale into color with several cut-sheet inkjet printers. Why? Because unlike EP, high-speed full color inkjet will closely match the look and feel of (future) roll-fed inkjet output.

With each 150-ppm cut-sheet inkjet printer that they acquire for as low as $50,000, they can reliably produce 500,000 color impressions per month. Over time more of these printers can be purchased to match output capacity to actual demand and growth. With four of these devices, they have a $200,000 investment, 600 pages per minute, and the realistic capability of producing two million color pages per month. For the ink coverage required on most transactional documents, their total operating cost per color page would be around a $.01 to $.015. As they add additional units, capacity and redundancy are clear production benefits.

Scalability is a major component of any low-risk growth strategy. Color is where the market growth is, but the costs can be daunting for some especially on EP engines. Full color transactional output is clearly on the radar screen of service providers whose current core offering is monochrome. The path of least risk for full color variable data and transpromo can be a cut-sheet inkjet printer with a lease cost of about $995 per month.
David Murphy is VP of marketing, RISO Inc.

Did you know? Printing 150 full color pages per minute at monthly duty-cycles of 500,000 impressions, RISO ComColor cut sheet inkjet printers are the answer for growing print service providers who need affordable and scalable full-color printing. By investing in increments of $25,000-$60,000 for each unit, transaction service providers can match full-color production equipment investments to actual sales growth—conserving capital and matching business risk to actual business growth.

About RISO, Inc.
RISO, Inc., headquartered in Danvers, Massachusetts, is a wholly owned subsidiary of RISO Kagaku Corporation, Japan’s leading manufacturer and distributor of production inkjet printers and digital duplicators (previously called Risograph).

To learn more about RISO’s ComColor series, visit www.brainshark.com/riso/mvto or www.newinkjet.com or call 1-800-876-7476.