Treballs Gràfics, a company that from the first day of its foundation has been clear that its vocation was to cover the entire range of services around the printing process, reducing intermediaries, errors and costs, and also achieving greater control and speed in projects that are commissioned. It has a staff of 70 workers who keep the company in service 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In its printing room we have two Komori (one with five colors in 35 x 50 cm format, and another with five colors plus acrylic varnish towers in 70 x 100 cm format); a MAN Roland (eight colors in 70 x 100 cm format), and a GTO (two colors, 35 x 50 cm), all linked to the prepress by a CIP3 system, and managed by a Kodak Prinergy workflow.
The reason for our visit, during which David Martín, Technical Director of Treballs Gràfics attended us, was the recent installation (number 10 in Spain, but first in Catalonia) of a digital printing machine MGI Meteor DP60 Pro, which, together with the Komori, is distributed in our country by the WTO signature.
Extensive investment program
How could it be otherwise, the conversation began by talking about the situation of the graphic market, how difficult it is to make investments and the need to find new outlets by offering more services and applications to customers.
Treballs Gràfics has carried out investments worth six million euros in six years. "A huge investment to work with extremely low margins that force you to produce unbelievable productions. It is unfeasible. The return on investment is too high a risk ”, says David Martín. “We are doing things that are not normal and we have to get out, we have to look for other ways and one of them is digital printing. We have started applying it to substitute a little for short runs in offset and that is why we speak of a hybrid offset company. We have digital and we have offset, but digital printing covers a lot. The problem I see is that, as there are more and more offset companies like us, that we are including digital printing in the offer, what will happen to this? Will what happens in offset happen? "
Inclusion of digital technology
Certainly, it is a fear that we have exposed on several occasions, although, and this is what we indicated to our interlocutor, digital printing offers many opportunities to innovate, to offer a portfolio of services that offset cannot develop. "What we are doing in principle is to make it known that we have digital printing since until now we have outsourced it, but it is not the same. We offer digital printing with quality and offset prices, although, in most cases, our sales representatives do not comment on what technology the order will be printed with, unless it is convenient to clarify it, in the same way that we almost never tell clients. clients that we always print in stochastic screen or 70 screen. What the client wants is for the job to go well. For a matter of productivity, we opted to work a lot with the stochastic plot, analyzing it well, adjusting the parameters well and always working with the stochastic plot, we hardly change, and we are doing very well ”.
We think that there should be very few printers that work with the 100% with stochastic screening since it is a technique that many printers look at with respect and others, when using it only sporadically, find it cumbersome and expensive. By making this printing mode a standard, Treballs Gràfics has overcome these problems. Now with the newly installed MGI Meteor DP60 Pro, installed by OMC, the company, in addition to quality, is offering an immediacy that was not possible with the stochastic plot. "Now, in the middle of August, we have made a client 10 catalogs. He needed to present one urgently and we have taken care of him. In addition, we have told you that you can change whatever you want, texts, images, graphics, once you have submitted it”.
Digital world: huge possibilities
David Martín is very clear that with the adoption of digital printing he has opened a wide range of new possibilities and applications to the company, but “Without neglecting offset, because offset will always have its market, it will never go for quality jobs, and as we have positioned ourselves with the stochastic weft, we intend to have the volume of jobs that require this very high level of quality”. What happens is that, with the excessive competition that exists in offset, unpleasant situations arise. "We are encountering things that have never happened to us before. If we have less turnover, if profitability goes down, and we also have defaulters, and on top of that the banks stay closed ... Of course, if they don't pay you there comes a time when you've spent all your money and you can't do more, and if the Turnover does not rise and profitability does not rise, here we are caught. This is one of the reasons why, instead of stopping and going backwards, we are going forward, we are going to invest in new technologies, new options to have more profitability on work”.
Choose MGI technology
Naturally, before deciding on the MGI Meteor DP60 Pro, David Martín was analyzing other possibilities. "As we have a great relationship with OMC due to offset machines, we spoke with them and they offered us the possibility of having a digital machine that is very versatile and works with high quality. Given the good existing relationship and the tranquility in terms of technical service, we bet on them willing to see what this machine was capable of. Prints with a microtoner so fine that it appears liquid, which gives great quality”.
In a display of demand, the Technical Director of Treballs Gràfics had the same document printed, on the same paper, on different machines in the digital market, including that of MGI, and also in offset. "When presenting the tests, without saying anything, to the commercials, all chose the one made on the MGI machine, except one who chose the offset test. In other words, in quality it has nothing to envy to the other machines and the technical service deserves all the confidence in me. In addition, what has the machine distributed by OMC that the others do not have is the variety of formats. We have the 33 x 102 cm one, which fits very well with the work we do. The possibility of printing on any paper and also on plastics, or the introducer for printing envelopes are other points of differentiation”.
Despite the few months that OMC has taken over the distribution of MGI machines in Spain, there are already 10 that are in operation and four more that are about to be unloaded and installed. The one at Treballs Gràfics is the first in Catalonia. "We are quite launched, although we like to be faithful to our collaborators, we are always open to trying to improve in service and technology. For example, in offset today all machines print well, so it is the technical service that is very important. We work 24 hours a day, we cannot rely on a technical service that closes at six in the afternoon and does not open until nine the next day. All machines have good things and not so good things. If this would be possible, I would like to have a rehash with the best of each one and the technical service of OMC”.
"Another advantage we offer", Intervenes Enric Cuixeres,"It is the possibility of choosing between working by clicks, that is, paying a little per copy, or not, and buying the consumables separately, as is done in offset. This is very much appreciated by conventional printers since the pay-per-click thing is not clear at all. So far all the machines we have sold have been without pay per click”.
Treballs Gràfics, which already has a well-deserved reputation for the quality of its work and its seriousness in service, knows that this is not the time to rest on its laurels and has embarked on the path of investing in modern and versatile technologies. Despite the short time, the experience is proving to be most rewarding.
