In May, Goss International added a new single-width press – the Magnum Compact – to its already broad portfolio of newspaper presses. Does the market need another single-width press? What is special about it?
According to Eric Bell, Director Marketing Services for Goss, “the Magnum Compact makes offset cost-competitive in extremely short runs and in multi-product production environments”.
Instead of ceding the field to inkjet presses that are preparing to conquer the short-run newspaper market segment, offset is preparing to defend its territory. It is not any longer defined as a production process for long-run, mass productions only.
“Despite recent advances,” Bell says, “inkjet still results in a higher cost per copy than can be justified in many market segments. Our vision with the Magnum Compact is to lower the break-even point for offset to under 1,000 copies by applying targetted automation to dramatically reduce makeready times.”
The new presses for short-run newspaper productions – whether they be injket or offset presses – reflect the serious intentions of the manufacturers to provide the market with products offering sufficient flexibility to meet the changing needs of newspaper printers.