Sometimes things just have to move fast, such as advance samples of displays needed for store trials, internal presentations or trade fairs. Other times only a small print run is needed, in some cases involving unusual materials – there are a variety of reasons why short run digital production can work.

For several years now the STI Group has been offering its customers the option of digital printed POS solutions - from paper, card and corrugated board to aluminium dibond, acrylic, wood and cloth. Demand has been rising sharply. To reflect this increasing popularity, short run digital printing for the D-A-CH region has now been bundled into the display competency centre in Grebenhain. The group's plants in Hungary and Poland also possess the technology needed for efficient creation of small print runs.

Individual large-format printers can print directly to rigid materials in sheet sizes of up to 1650 x 3200 mm and up to 20 mm in thickness. They can print to corrugated board as well as a broad range of other materials, including plastic, wood, metal, ceramics and textiles. A 6-colour drop-on-demand ink system is used to achieve 600 dpi resolution at speeds of up to 150 m2/h. The high-quality, high-output digital printing is supplemented by a high performance plotter capable of adding shape to a broad range of materials. The result: high productivity, high quality, short delivery times.

Digital printing from the roll

A latex roller print machine capable of printing to fabric panels, paper and rolled materials at up to 3.2 m in width provides for an even larger portfolio of possibilities.

Break-even point compared with offset printing is fluid

It's difficult to determine exactly where the break-even point falls for short run print productions, since the type of display, complexity of the components and language variant all play a role. It's not at all unusual for digital production of 200 floor displays to work out cheaper than offset printing production, and a parallel campaign involving 40 units with different specs to be cheaper using the offset process.

Customers of the STI Group have the best of both worlds, since they can take advantage of the company's broad product portfolio, global production and mastery of a wide range of technologies and select the most effective and efficient production process on a project-by-project basis. In many real-life cases the initial samples are produced digitally, following by offset or flexographic printing of the end product – or base elements created in offset with digitally printed country or campaign specific posters added in afterward.