Pressing ahead: Suttle-Straus makes major investment despite recession

Here is a case study of a sheetfed printing company's decision to purchase offset and digital equipment.

From President and CEO of Suttle-Straus John Berthelsen:

First, for the good of the company, the purchase couldn't wait, he said. The two presses identified for replacement were old enough that they should have been changed out two years ago, Berthelsen said, but he held off because of the downturn.
Second, the new presses were also relatively inexpensive.
"Press manufacturers are not selling a whole lot of machinery right now, so we got a pretty good deal," which also made it easier to take the plunge, he said.
The bigger of the two new presses is a Komori offset press that prints in six colors plus an advanced ultraviolet coating that creates special finishes and textures. It replaces an 11-year-old Mitsubishi offset press and is much faster and more efficient.
"It runs 16,000 pieces an hour instead of 13,000 an hour," Berthelsen said.
This traditional type of press, because it's bigger and more expensive to set up and run, is used for large jobs in which the image being printed doesn't change, known as a "long, static run," Berthelsen said.
For shorter runs - or a long run in which the data vary from piece to piece, as in personalized direct mail - a digital inkjet press is more economical.
But because digital presses run off computerized technology, they need to be updated frequently, and every new version "just leap-frogs" the older one in capabilities and advances, Berthelsen said.
"It's bigger, better and faster," he said of Suttle-Straus' Kodak NexPress 3600 digital imaging system, the second new piece of equipment installed last month. Berthelsen described the digital press as similar to a "really high-end color copier."

From Madison.com