Offset and digital printing are linked ever closer. Hybrid newspaper printing offers many advantages. This goes far beyond inkjet imprints and the insertion of digitally printed newspaper supplements. Entire production lines containing both offset and digital printing presses are set to increase the economic viability of print production.

Hybrid developments can already be found everywhere, especially in the automotive and commercial vehicle sectors. The crucial advantage of this approach is the flexible selection of the most appropriate technical solution, such as the use of electrical engines or combustion engines depending on the specific application. However, nowadays the same flexibility is also required when it comes to the production of print products, using the same printing system to produce multiple products at the lowest possible cost. manroland web systems is the first printing press manufacturer to offer hybrid newspaper press systems. In addition to the established print finishing systems for digitally printed newspapers, manroland web systems also focuses on its expertise in workflow integration, for example with the DigiLink module.

DigiLink allows planning of offset and digital productions from a central workstation, including parallel monitoring of production during printing and in the mailroom. With this unique capability of integrating various print systems with a shared data base, the German printing press manufacturer aims to advance the development of hybrid newspaper printing systems. In line with this strategy, a number of new business and publishing models offer companies numerous opportunities for economic newspaper production and market diversification.

Integrated Inkjet caters to creativity, whether in the information and entertainment sector or the development of business models. Made famous by the Springer publishing house and its daily pass for the Internet version of the German Bild newspaper, the imprint of highly variable inkjet data in ongoing newspaper production has been proven effective. The contents may include lottery numbers, current news, QR codes, or area-specific personalized advertising. As an OEM partner of the Kodak Stream Inkjet technology, manroland web systems can equip and integrate inkjet functionality into web offset print systems of all major manufacturers. The scope of services ranges from providing inkjet print heads up to comprehensive project management for fully automated solutions. In this case, the inkjet module is completely integrated into the press control system.

Fully digitized – completely digitally pre-produced advertising and newspaper sections are inserted into offset newspapers. Dynamic, time-saving job changeovers contribute to the economic production of these short-run advertising, topical, and local supplements. Local journalism is upgraded not only through pre-printed sections; some publishing houses have also started to digitally print entire local issues of newspapers. This pays off for small print runs and offers a logistic advantage: in vast countries, the product reaches the customer quickly while lowering shipping costs.

Division of labor – digitally pre-printed reels are processed into advertising and newspaper products in web offset presses. The process allows for flexible scheduling of the reels’ digital pre-print and ensures optimum utilization of the digital printing press’s capacities. Precise register stability is a prerequisite to allow the offset printing press to produce first-rate quality from the prepared reels. manroland web systems’ specialists handle the technical coordination of the digital offset workflow.

Continuous hybrid workflow – the combination of a digital printing press with an existing or new web offset printing press is known as a genuine hybrid system. The outcome: perfectly efficient newspaper production. It offers the best cost per copy ratio for every requirement – purely offset printing for high print runs without job changeovers, hybrid productions for part editions of the daily paper with short production cycles and variable formats, and purely digital production for print runs starting from a single copy. The hybrid mode in particular offers a wide range of options – changeovers from one edition to the next are eliminated, for example for a daily where the 4-page jacket for various editions is printed digitally. This lowers the required time, plate, and paper consumption. The lower press speed of the digital printing system is balanced out by eliminating downtimes for changeovers between editions.

The ROI for the digital investment in a hybrid system can be achieved within a few years, especially if additional print orders are produced during the day. Here is an example of the cost structure: for a daily with around 15 editions and 8 digital print pages and around 150 to 5,000 copies per edition, hybrid production can be more economical than purely digital or offset printing. manroland web systems also offers consulting services with suitable calculation models to determine the individual break-even point for the respective product structure.