The contest in the digital printing world: toner vs. inkjet - what successful companies say

For commercial printing, there are two main types of digital printing technology - toner and production inkjet machines. Toner-based systems are widely used, and the quality of inkjet output has met the expectations of most print buyers, so which system is more suitable for business is an easy question to ask but difficult to answer. Among them, cost, performance and meeting customer needs are all influencing factors.https://www.risedongsheng.com/

Goodway Group

As a general-purpose commercial printer with a particular focus on the needs of colleges and universities, the Goodway Group of Massachusetts uses a range of equipment, including offset, color and black-and-white toner equipment, as well as sheet-fed production inkjet and wide-format inkjet presses. About 70% -80% of the company's total output over the past 5-7 years has been digitally produced, according to President Mike Jenowski. 

The Burlington, Massachusetts-based company's digital equipment includes 1 Canon varioPRINT i300 sheetfed inkjet press, 2 Xerox iGen 5 toner-based machines, 1 Canon imagePRESS C10000VP toner press, 1 Canon Monochrone varioPRINT 6250 and 2 Canon wide format inkjet presses.

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While Goodway Group's digital portfolio is quite diverse, Mr. Jenowski says the majority (60 per cent) of the company's digital products are produced by inkjet. The company's VarioPRINT i300 proved its worth within about a month of installation, five years ago. "It's coming to the end of its life cycle and we're going to reinvest in inkjet presses. It's been a great investment for us and a'game changer '," he says.

Inkjet technology is performing so strongly, so why does Goodway Group's toner system maintain its importance? The first reason is print quality, says Mr. Jenowski. The quality gap between iGen and offset presses is small, he says. "For the untrained, you can't tell the difference." Toner is also the company's first choice for some variable data jobs, as well as jobs with fewer than 500 pieces, especially when different papers are used, most commonly including training or classroom materials.

The benefits that make inkjet the choice for some jobs, often speed and cost per sheet, as well as other factors, including production schedules, pricing and substrate requirements, may drive some jobs, Jenowski said. Switch to inkjet printing.https://www.risedongsheng.com/

When asked how he sees the company's digital equipment portfolio changing over the next five years, Jenowski insists toner equipment will still play a role. However, as inkjet quality improves, he believes that advances in inkjet technology may obsolete some toner equipment from a color perspective. As a result, the original 60%/40% inkjet to toner mix ratio will change. This is very beneficial to inkjet systems, especially when B2 format sheet-fed inkjet systems come into play.

Looking at the wider business sector outside the Goodway Group, Janowski said he believes press manufacturers are investing far more in R & D in inkjet technology than in toner-based systems, and he believes inkjet technology Adoption will continue to maintain strong momentum.

PrintMail Solutions

"We provide critical and secure communications for banks, credit unions, and printed and mailed statements for tightly regulated venues," said Gretchen Reynolds, vice president of strategic partnerships at PrintMail Solutions. The solution is based in Newtown, Pa., and Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition, she said the company provides marketing communications and digital elements for these clients.

The company's production is 100% digital, and the equipment consists of 2 Ricoh IP5000 continuous-feed inkjet presses, 2 Kyocera TASKalfa sheet-fed inkjet presses, and a set of mainly Canon 6000 toner systems (mainly for MICR printing). Renault said that while most of the machines the company uses are toner-based systems, about 90% of the company's 352 million prints each year are done through inkjet systems. Going forward, she said the company hopes to use these systems for different types of jobs and invest more in marketing and sales.https://www.risedongsheng.com/

Asked if the company's toner/inkjet portfolio would change in the future, Renault said it was "pretty much the status quo - and MICR shows that", plus a handful of customers who prefer toner-based printing.

For PrintMail Solutions, she thinks high-speed inkjet is a good fit: "For us, transaction printing is very simple printing, and the inkjet technology is excellent." Another inkjet advantage of PrintMail Solutions is that there is no need to produce pre-printed housings. The company has produced 1,000 different housings at one time. By using an inkjet press, there is no need to maintain housing inventory - which is also a benefit when regulatory changes require revisions.

Looking at industry trends, Renault believes inkjet production will continue to grow, while toner production will continue to shrink. "The barriers to entry and costs of inkjet have really come down," she noted. Medium-sized companies are now able to successfully switch to the technology, if they have not already done so, thanks to the advantages of inkjet printing. For the commercial sector, she said the move to inkjet is often application-dependent, but "in our business printing space, there is no one who does not use a high percentage of inkjet."https://www.risedongsheng.com/

A final thought is that she is curious about the future plans of other printing companies to use toner equipment, and believes the technology could be more attractive if the cost per click can be harmonized to be closer to the cost per page of inkjet. "If toner equipment is more economical, then they will have a place."

HardingPoorman

"We've been in digital printing for a long time, and we've always had toner equipment," said David Harding, chairperson and chief executive of HardingPoorman. Over the past decade, the Indianapolis, Indiana-based company has purposefully expanded beyond commercial printing to include fulfillment, mailing, wide format, storefronts, promotional products, apparel and marketing services.

Digital equipment on the company's production floor includes four toner-based Canon machines (including color, black and white and MICR), a toner-based Ricoh color press and a Canon varioPRINT iX series inkjet press. Digital products account for about 8 percent of HardingPoorman's total output, which David Harding points out is about the national average (about 10 percent, according to I.T. Strategies). Nonetheless, he revealed that digital jobs rose about 25 percent last year.

While the company's toner/inkjet mix is about 50/50, Harding believes that mix will change: "I believe it will take a while, but inkjet will surpass, and eliminate, our toner equipment." He also believes that, over time, it will also replace HardingPoorman's sheet-fed offset equipment. "Inkjet technology has gotten better and the systems we use are more reliable. Same with toner: it has improved." Customers are equally receptive to inkjet, toner and offset output, he says.

David Harding says MICR printing still makes toner systems critical to the company. Beyond that, he says the company "does a lot of processing instant and personalized print jobs, but both types of machines can handle those issues." Harding points out that the reason for the decline in the appeal of toner-based printing is click expense, which often leads to larger jobs moving to the company's Canon inkjet presses. As a result, HardingPoorman's main driver for expanding inkjet applications is cost, not quality.

Going forward, Harding believes that inkjet can eventually replace the toner machines used by Harding Pullman. In addition to what has already been discussed, he believes that the higher productivity of inkjet printing systems will allow companies to shrink their production footprint, which will ultimately allow them to save money when renting or buying buildings: more revenue per square foot of space. "Equipment automation and smaller equipment footprint will lead to this," Harding concluded.

Choose toner, or inkjet?

For many print service providers facing technology decisions, which technology to invest in is application-based, and rightfully so, says David Zwan, chief adviser at Zwan. If there are many pages and a lot of prints, it could be the production of inkjet. On the other hand, he says the cost of capital could prompt many companies to move to systems based on digital toner. In terms of the number of machines in the printing business today, he thinks about 30 per cent are inkjet machines. In terms of pages produced, inkjet systems account for more than half.

Due to the low entry cost of toner systems, Zwan said toner is widely used in the basic commercial printing market and is of very good quality. He sees many companies sticking with their toner systems rather than looking for a broad replacement of toner with inkjet.

For inkjet systems, Zwan said the increase in the number of sheet-fed printers on the market is leading to wider acceptance of the technology. Most commercial print providers are familiar with sheet-fed printing compared to high-speed, web-fed inkjet systems. While the machine uptime of inkjet systems is particularly attractive, the disadvantage can be the higher ink prices.

When asked about the key factors that print service providers wanting to invest in which technology should consider, he did not give a simple answer. It must include the product to be produced, operating costs and printing costs. Sustainability is also increasingly valued for those seeking capital investment: "People are really starting to pay attention to it," Zwan noted.