Opening a new Chapter in Book Printing
Quebecor World and the Océ VarioStream 9210
Visionary book printers around the world are transforming the book publishing supply chain using digital technology to print books in increasingly short runs. Faced with customer demand for just-in-time printing, higher print resolution and excellent halftone quality, Quebecor World recently added an Océ VarioStream 9210 digital printer at its Dubuque, Iowa plant. The result: the company has been able to exceed customer expectations for quality in short-run books and increase its share of the short-run book printing market.
In 1954, a Montreal-based commercial printing company opened its doors with a single printing press. Today, Quebecor World is North America’s second largest printer and second largest book printer. With nearly 23,000 employees in more than 100 facilities throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and South America, Quebecor World serves six primary business segments. These include magazines, catalogs, retail inserts, directories, commercial printing, direct mail, and book publishing. In each category, the company's value proposition is based on an appealing combination of geographic reach, capacity and advanced technology to streamline processes, trim costs and accelerate efficiency.
These competitive advantages are particularly relevant for the book publishing industry, which wrestles with costly returns, unwieldy inventories, and demand for shorter runs. As digital technologies reshape the publishing supply chain, Quebecor World is on the front lines of the revolution with the gold standard of digital book printing --the Océ VarioStream 9210 continuous feed printing system.
Today, the printing giant produces books in virtually every category --adult trade, children's and educational books, mass-market paperbacks, cookbooks, maps, diaries, calendars, professional and religious books, technical manuals and even hardcover coffee table books.
Challenge: improving the quality of solids and halftones
Gary Durand, Executive Vice President of Operations for Quebecor World's book manufacturing division covering adult trade, educational and specialty books, notes, "there continues to be pressure to minimize costs, reduce inventories and maintain or improve print quality. It was exactly this mix of requirements that led to the selection of the Océ VarioStream 9210 over the several other digital printing systems that were available. Especially in the educational market, where halftone and screen quality are essential elements of text, we found that Océ could deliver the required graphic arts quality on a day-to-day basis.”
Gary Armstrong, Vice President/General Manager of the Quebecor World Dubuque facility concurs. “We are experiencing growth in a very challenging market. With the Océ VarioStream 9210, we are better able to react to critical delivery schedules. The ability to upgrade to color printing with minimal additional cost will help us stay abreast of the ever-changing demands of the book publishing market.”
The solution: the Océ VarioStream 9210 continuous feed printer
While Quebecor World had experience with a variety of digital printing systems including Océ devices, it was apparent that their clients were demanding significant quality improvements. After researching the current status of available technology, the team selected Océ technology for product testing at its Customer Experience Center in Boca Raton, FL. The objective: to achieve a very high level of halftone quality with the ability to handle high-resolution work like textbooks, direct mail, manuals and applications with photos or images and develop a fast, efficient workflow. Convinced that Océ VarioStream 9000 technology could deliver the speed and quality its customers were demanding, Quebecor World chose the Océ VarioStream 9210 based on its ability to produce quality with the look and feel of offset continuous tone.
The system was installed in the Dubuque plant in June 2008 with Océ PRISMAproduction™ output management software and was up and running soon after. The Océ VarioStream 9210 system is part of the Océ VarioStream 9000 family, the industry's first platform to deliver cost-effective black & white, spot color, and full-color printing in a single device. Created specifically for high-volume, speed and/or color-intensive, single-pass duplex applications, Océ VarioStream 9000 systems print black & white jobs at black & white costs, with flexibility to add one, two, three or more colors as requirements change. The unique color-on-demand concept leverages the Océ Job Appropriate Color® strategy, enabling customers to use just the right amount of color to achieve the business objective of each job. The Océ VarioStream 9210, which prints 852 monochrome images per minute, comes with a GraphicArts option that enables modulation of individual dot dimensions to create as many gray scales as the human eye can detect.
The print operation today
Today, the digital book line at the Quebecor World Dubuque plant runs three shifts a day, 24 hours a day, five days a week, depending on demand and cyclicality. Average run lengths range from 200 to 400 books. According to Durand, "educational textbooks account for 80 to 85 percent of our work in the Dubuque facility. The rest of the workload is adult trade and specialty publications. Digital and shorter runs are a growing market for us and for our customers.”
Given the popularity of the new press and growing volumes, the company has deployed new electronic front-end capabilities to tie its digital print capabilities at Dubuque and other facilities to its entire platform of service locations throughout North and South America. "We expect digital printing and publishing to play a bigger role in our market mix," says Durand. "Digital print solves a critical need, because it gives publishers a quick and cost-effective way to produce shorter runs. This is especially relevant in the educational textbook market. When state and local budgets are squeezed and it comes down to a tradeoff between new teachers and new textbooks, you can pretty much count on volumes going down. That's when digital makes more sense than ever."
The result: improved halftone quality and customer satisfaction
Implementing the Océ VarioStream 9000 continuous feed platform has delivered significant advantages. With the graphic arts print quality on the Océ VarioStream 9210, Quebecor World has been able to deliver industry-leading quality with halftones and solids for shorter runs. As a result, they've been awarded more volumes from existing customers and signed a multi-million dollar contract with another new customer. "We've seen tremendous improvements in both quality, and in customer satisfaction. In terms of productivity, we've reduced downtime significantly, which makes a big difference," says Durand. "Our operators are pleased—they especially like the system's reliable workflow, ease of setup, consistent quality and reduced waste. More important, our customers are very pleased—the work we're producing on the Océ device is exceeding our customers' expectations."
"We were at a critical juncture where we needed to improve quality so that we could grow our digital business," he adds. "To do that, we had to make a key equipment move. That's a goal we've definitely accomplished. Since installing the Océ VarioStream 9210, we've expanded our shorter run book printing business by 20 to 25 percent."
Durand believes digital technology will help fuel further growth. "Technology is critical in this business. If you don't have the right technology, you simply can't play. Our customers know the equipment that's out there and they expect us to have it. They want to work with a true, full-service provider. With Océ, we can offer the digital capability with the quality customers want." As for the future, he notes, "our goal is to broaden our market base to balance out our portfolio of customers and printing applications to fully use the new technology. As we do, the challenge will be going from our sweet spot of a couple of hundred books down to one-off or five-off in a competitive fashion. This is something we're currently working toward. With the Océ VarioStream 9000 system and Océ PRISMA® software, we're headed in the right direction."
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About Océ
Océ is a leading international provider of digital document management technology and services. The company’s solutions are based on Océ’s advanced software applications that deliver documents and data over internal networks and the Internet to printing devices and archives -- locally and around the world. Supporting the workflow solutions are Océ digital printers and scanners, considered the most reliable and productive in the world. Océ also offers a wide range of display graphics, consulting and outsourcing solutions.
Océ employs around 23,000 people, with 2008 revenues of approximately $4.3 billion, operates in more than 90 countries and maintains research and manufacturing centers in the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Romania and Singapore. Océ North America is headquartered in Trumbull, CT, with additional business units in Chicago, IL; New York City; Boca Raton, FL; Salt Lake City, UT and Vancouver, BC. North American revenues represented approximately half of Océ’s worldwide business in 2008, and employment is approximately 10,000. For more information about Océ, visit www.oceusa.com. Outside the U.S., consult www.oce.com.
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