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When it comes to printers and printing equipment, the general thought about new products has always been focused on "faster, bigger, better" and for good reason. the first things you'll notice is some of the new tags throughout this issue at the top of all the feature articles, making it perfectly clear from the start where it fits into the wide-format market.
Business owners are never looking for a piece of equipment that will be slower than their current equipment. They want higher productivity. They want to run more jobs and projects through a printer, not less. More means more money.
A machine featuring a wider print area can give printer operators more options when it comes to media sizes, perhaps even running two smaller rolls side-by-side instead of one large roll. Or maybe those extra few inches can help open the door to a new market that the smaller printer just wasn't meant to tackle.
And as for better…who wants something that doesn't work as well as the old equipment, offers a lower resolution, smaller printheads, is less durable, less flexible, or just less? Honestly, I have yet to hear someone say, "Gosh, I really wish I still had my 8-track player" when they have a brand-new iPod in their hands.
But how do you put productivity or usability into cut and dry facts or figures? Yes, you can talk about feeds and speed—and that's usually what ends up happening—but productivity and usability involves more than just specs. It involves workflow—and how it affects people, departments, and other jobs and projects within the business.
I had the opportunity to see some of that first-hand when I was invited to Océ North America in Chicago for a Productivity Challenge. Getting a demo of a printer is much different than the hands-on running of a printer—which I knew, but it's always different when you actually do the work yourself. After getting a thorough overview of several systems, we were given assignments—jobs—to complete. Running these systems side-by-side—identical jobs on several printers—was certainly a unique experience. Every system was different—from job submission, print spooling, processing times, queue times, system feedback messages, warm-up times and stand-by modes to print finishing options, media handling, roll change-outs, multiple roll options, media loading and unloading, and the ability to run jobs concurrently.
It was certainly a learning experience for me to be able to work with these systems hands-on—and one that I'd love to get the chance to do again. But make sure you jump over to our website at www.wide-formatimaging.com where you can read a little more about my experiences in Chicago.
author: DENISE M. GUSTAVSON