A serried rank of Mimaki printers producing sportswear

From the key criteria behind nearly every new wide-format printer coming to market springs the promise of productivity. Even at the lowest investment point, throughput rates are deemed as important as quality and, at the higher end of scale it is speed that tends to dominate. In design and manufacturing terms, the upper echelons of today's platforms have a tough job; even if some specification sheets veer on the optimistic when it comes to numbers, there is a general assumption that engines in this category must crack along at a brisk pace to earn their keep.

But how important is speed when it's removed from the other attributes incorporated into a printer? And, in practical terms, how can the rates of a single high-end machine be quantified against the overall productivity of a cluster of more modestly-priced platforms? So, is it always wise to invest in one industrial-strength engine, or does it make more sense to go for two or three (or more) lower-end systems that, between them, churn out the same amount of throughput?

Decisions about numbers of printers can be defined by workflow as much as by floor space, job preferences, operators and, even, a building's power supply. We have seen a tremendous upsurge in machines which are, to all intents and purposes, designed to challenge screen printing and offset in terms of run suitability and speed. Although variable data and general personalisation offers a huge benefit when weighing up digital against analogue, there are companies out there who simply produce standard runs in standard volumes.

However, businesses wanting to output a whole lot of different applications on a plethora of materials might find a single machine restrictive. The dependency on the type of workflow can make the idea of running several, perhaps lesser, printers in convoy a more logical and sensible production method than chopping and changing for low volumes and one-offs on a system which is happiest being left to run unattended. Software makes a difference to the efficiency of print engines, with RIPs able to drive multiple platforms facilitating batching and queuing to ensure that production is optimised with minimal operator intervention.

Operators might argue that, with more than one machine in their charge, it's difficult to attend to each in a satisfactory manner. But the other side of this coin is that if rolls or sheets need to be changed and the engine isn't running hell for leather, there is adequate time to move between each unit and set up materials necessary for different jobs or the same order across different media.

In the old days, before we got pretty slick with colour management, one of the hazards of running multiple units was that it was nigh on impossible to match settings from printer to printer. The RIP might be feeding the right information across, but each machine had a habit of behaving in an arbitrary fashion, offering up slight colour variants which were enough to see a final order rejected. Today that shouldn't be a problem, thus lending weight to the argument that not everyone might benefit from a single high-end printer, finding more productivity when running multiple systems.

In terms of maintenance and service, top-notch print engines are probably far more costly overall to look after than a collection of lower-end units. If a company has several engines from the same manufacturer then it's highly likely that deals can be struck and, of course, anyone running several systems knows that, if one unit goes down, all is not lost.

There is no concrete solution to the question about the best way to maximise productivity; different PSPs have a variety of modus operandi and much is dependent upon how a company has been set up to execute its wide-format production and the configuration of its printers and other equipment. Smaller businesses on a growth trajectory are probably more likely to continue investing in low- and mid-range platforms; those with a history of high throughput, including those converting from analogue to digital processes, are more likely to opt for high-end solutions.

In a practical evaluation it would be fascinating to run a true comparison of throughput between a single industrial-strength printer and several more modest units to see which comes up trumps in throughput terms. In the real world this would be pretty difficult to achieve; the results boil down to application type, versatility requirements and run length and, of course, no two production environments are exactly the same.