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Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 8050 Color Copier
Cahill Printing is ready to meet the new needs posed by the emerging color print-on-demand market with the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 8050.
The Client
Cahill Printing
The Situation
Cahill Printing’s rich legacy began over 100 years ago when Ed Cahill’s great-grandfather began printing newspapers for the Western Newspaper Union in his facility just outside of downtown Chicago. The printing tradition has been passed down from generation to generation and as times have changed so has the business.
The Challenge
Over the last few years, Cahill Printing had been seriously looking to supplement its fleet of offset printing presses – Heidelberg, Hamada and Miehle – with a color digital imaging system that was capable of servicing the growing color print-on-demand market – a market whose retail value is expected to grow to $32 billion in 2007, according to a study by InfoTrends/CAP Ventures. The company had considered color production machines from Canon and Lexmark, and came really close to buying an HP device but one major element was missing – the ability to handle cover stock.
Then, in June 2003, Ed Cahill, president of Cahill Printing, received an invitation to attend the Konica Minolta ColorFORCE Tour from Regal/Gateway Business Systems, a Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. (Konica Minolta) dealership based in Chicago. During the tour’s Chicago stop, Cahill participated in a first-hand demonstration of Konica Minolta’s new bizhub PRO 8050, a 50-ppm color MFP designed for cost-effective, professional, on-demand color and monochrome printing.
“I walked into the mobile product demonstration center with my own print job and asked for it to be performed on the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 8050. I brought the job back to the office and put it through the lamination process. I was awed by the reproduction quality,” said Cahill.
The Solution
After a few more months of outsourcing the smaller color print-on-demand jobs, and gaining further insight into the potential cost savings and ROI to be derived from adding the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 8050 to his printing business, Cahill made the call to Regal/Gateway Business Systems and the device was brought on board in October 2003.
“The bizhub PRO 8050 is a more solid production unit than those available from the competition. The jobs produced on the machine look like they come from a four-color press, and the machine can handle 140 lb. index/93 lb. cover stock through its large capacity and bypass trays. For these reasons, I was sold,” stated Cahill.
The Proof
As soon as it was installed, the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 8050 began proving its worth. “The first job we performed on the bizhub PRO 8050 was a copy job. All we had to do was place the document on the glass and hit a few buttons. The machine stored the 50 pages and printed them in order. The reproduction was high quality; we were truly enthralled. We were also really impressed with how fast the machine can scan and copy. This powerful combination is a rare circumstance in this industry,” said Cahill.
The Results
The addition of the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 8050 production printing system had an immediate impact on Cahill Printing’s business. The company is now accepting more small (100–2,000 piece range) color, heavier stock jobs than before, including business cards, four-page flyers, postcards imprinted on both sides, stationery, book covers and brochures. Cahill had turned down the majority of these smaller jobs in the past or parceled them out to other vendors because it was not cost-effective for the company to produce such little quantities on its offset printing presses.
“With the bizhub PRO 8050, the doors to the color print-on-demand market have been opened wide for us. We can now produce short-run, digital four-color cheaper than we could with any of the available litho printing methods. Our new color printing system is even cheaper than direct to press. The bizhub PRO 8050 allows us to turn out short-run jobs such as business cards and brochures, quickly and efficiently, and make money in the process,” commented Cahill.
In addition to its print job production role, Cahill Printing has found the bizhub PRO 8050 to be a valuable asset for print job proofing due to the advanced capabilities of its Konica Minolta IP-901 Fiery® Print Controller. Specifically, the printing business is utilizing the IP-901’s Command Workstation™ functionality, for efficiently managing and manipulating digital print jobs, and its Color Profiler™ feature, for creating ICC profiles that accurately describe the color response of the printer.
The addition of the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 8050 marks another chapter in the history of Cahill Printing. With the addition of this new groundbreaking technology, Cahill Printing is ready to meet the new needs posed by the emerging color print-on-demand market.
“It is also going to allow us to sell new printing ideas into our existing account base. We have been waiting for years for someone to produce a machine like this. The benefits of this machine have exceeded our expectations,” he added.
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