Purchasing new equipment for any business requires careful consideration. While some companies find it easier and more affordable to outsource projects to outside providers, there are certain circumstances in which it is more efficient for businesses to make investments in equipment that is vital to daily operations. For a company that frequently produces high-volume print jobs, it might be time to consider investing in a digital printing press. But, what questions should be answered and factors considered before this happens? Here's a list to get you started:

Do You Currently Outsource?

In an effort to avoid investment costs, many companies opt to outsource high-volume print jobs. While this does help save money in the short term, consistently outsourcing projects merely spreads the cost of initial investment out over time. A company eventually spends the same amount of money, or even more, over the long run.

Another disadvantage of outsourcing is the lack of control on turnaround times. Working with a print company to complete a print job can result in delayed turnaround times on your project, and higher costs. Your printer likely has dozens of other print jobs filling their queue - placing you and your print project at the mercy of their schedule.

Do You Need Customized Print Jobs?

Few companies produce the same exact version of a catalog, brochure or instruction manual over and over again. Many companies create unique versions of these branded tools based on audience, product set or region the product is being sold in. This is where digital printing can really make an impact for your company. Digital printing allows the user to create these unique pieces without any additional setup costs. Variable database software used in digital printing allows you to personally address each individual customer, but also allows personalization based on more advanced details, such as last purchase, preferred product, etc.

Do You Run A Lot of High-Volume Print Jobs?

Many companies decide to use in-house printers to complete print jobs of any size. These standard office printers are not designed to effectively and efficiently produce high-volume projects. Investing in a digital press is money well spent because these machines are designed to handle large print projects.

Rather than clogging up the in-house printer with a job that could take an hour or more to print and require supply replenishment midway, a digital press allows everyday jobs to continue uninterrupted on the office printers while producing high quality products at the same time.

Do You Need Higher Speed, Better Quality and More Paper Options?

As just mentioned, your standard office printer isn't designed to handle high-volume projects that call for specialized paper, quick turnaround and/or quality graphics on the final product. Digital printing presses are designed, first and foremost, to deliver accurate color variations and shades courtesy of digital readings. 

Digital printers provide an extremely accurate proofing process. You can make highly detailed samples of a print project quickly, preview the final product and then start a high-volume project based on that sample.

These machines can also handle a wide variety of print materials, allowing companies to easily switch between newsletters on Monday, tri-fold brochures on Tuesday and new product manuals on Friday. 

Analyze Your Printing Costs

For businesses conducting a number of high-volume print jobs, a digital printing press is not only more efficient, it is more cost-effective as well. Traditional offset printing presses, for example, have high setup costs and are only affordable for large printers. A digital press can handle print jobs, regardless of size, on an affordable scale because setup costs are nonexistent.

Whether a company relies upon an outsourced offset printer or uses in-house devices, it is worth taking the time to analyze your current printing costs. You may find the time to invest in a digital printing press is now, in order to save time and money down the road.

Don't Think You Can Afford it?