RCS has the only two Scodix1200 inkjet digital embossing systems in the UK. After almost a year’s use, managing director Mike Todd tells us about his experiences.

Last year RCS in Retford, Nottingham – shire, became the first UK user of the Scodix1200 digital embossing system, a UV cured B2 format inkjet that creates raised effects and textures in clear polymer. Since then it has put in a second machine and it likes it enough to be considering a third. Even so it remains the only UK user of this Israeli built system, though there are others in Europe and North America.
Scodix’s UK distributor is image2output, which sold and supports the RCS units.
Digital Printer’s December 2010 issue had a cover produced on a Scodix system. It included the story of RCS’ first installation, although the timings meant that our cover was actually printed and coated in Israel.
Almost a year on, we asked managing director Michael Todd about his experiences with his pair of machines.
First, a recap. RCS is commercial printer whose turnover is generated through a network of resellers, offering them what it calls
the Reseller PrintPlugin Programme. It says this gives the type of all-round service and sales and marketing support normally
available to only franchisees, but without asking for binding contracts or re-branding their businesses. The print services on offer are detailed in a catalogue, and ordering can be though a web to print system.

The RCS print facility in Retford has offset and digital presses, plus full finishing facilities
for a wide range of job types.

‘Since we took delivery of our Scodix machine interest and sales has been very encouraging,’ Mr Todd said.
‘From a standing start at the beginning of the year digital embossing now accounts for almost £30,000 of additional turnover and that is increasing dramatically month on month.’
Digital embossing was introduced to resellers in the 2011 catalogue. This year has seen an increase in the number of resellers, Mr Todd reported: ‘We had a very successful campaign and many more trade customers have come on board this year over last. There a number of factors which will all have contributed but, of course being unique in being able to offer digital embossing was a huge incentive to choose to use RCS.’ The type of applications on offer range from business cards though to prestige folders and book covers with embossed effects. ‘Postcards have definitely proved the most popular product, volume wise,’ said Mr Todd.
As this is a new concept for designers, they also need to learn of its potential as well as the working methods to achieve the
desired effect. ‘Preparing the Digital Embossing separation can be quick or time consuming depending on the effect required,’ explained Mr Todd.‘Much of the work we do is simply raise text or highlight photos.’ This is simply done in the artwork by creating a separate layer with anything raised filled be reversed out of that where needed. ‘More involved effects, such as halftones and patterns can take longer, but they are not difficult,’ Mr Todd said. ‘We have created two advice videos showing how to do a simple but effective design, and a more involved one.’ These can be viewed at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXtj20E9W-Y&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CFBMx0sSWc&feature=youtu.be
Although the nature of the Scodix process, being an inkjet, means that every copy can be different, including personalised and variable data, so far most of the customers haven’t really grasped this, Mr Todd said. ‘Just like digital printing the real excitement of digital embossing is to have a variant on every sheet, such as a different name embossed. Unfortunately, also like digital printing, the imagination of clients is not up to the capabilities of the equipment. More often than not it is the case that all the prints are exactly the same on a run. When we do variable embossing it is really special for each person to receive a completely personal and unique piece. The largest run we have done is 50,000 but it is more normal to do 500 to 1000.’

Likewise, most of the work embossed so far has been printed by litho, he said. ‘However we are seeing a rise in the amount of digital work to be embossed. Particularly with our premium products like hard backed digital books. We produce lots of samples because we believe that to see digital embossing is to understand it and to love it.’ It’s also bringing in new work and adding value to existing types, he reported.

‘The embossing machine is certainly driving clients we would not otherwise have seen to us. It is also certain that jobs we would have got anyway are being ordered with a higher value (with the extra of the emboss). The split is 80% added value to existing work and 20% new work.’ We’ve spoken to one or two other printers who liked the idea of digital embossing but were worried about the costs of the ink compared to a non-raised digital spot varnishing process such as MGI’s JETvarnish. How does RCS find it? ‘The cost of the ink is certainly an
issue but it is hard to say this process is expensive compared to that when the two things are completely different,’ Mr Todd
feels.

‘The ink for embossing must be different to the ink for UV varnishing because a different effect is being achieved. The cost of the emboss effect may put some people off but there is clearly a market because after six months we were hitting capacity constraints on one machine and needed a second.’ With a year’s experience under his belt, we asked Mr Todd about the reliability of the machines, and their good and bad points generally. ‘The good points of the machines are clearly their uniqueness in what they can do,’ he said. ‘There are issues around the sensitivity of the embellishment to the surface tension of the substrate but these are being resolved with small improvements. ‘The machines installed quickly and were up and running within a few days.

Regarding ongoing uptime there have been issues and this is inevitable with a new machine. We understood that we were taking a machine in development and that we were at the ‘bleeding edge’ of technology. However we are producing commercial work every day and Scodix and its UK agent image2output are exceptionally proactive in helping us with problems. Reliability is not an issue at the moment.’ So is there anything that could be improved? ‘The resolution of the bitmap produced and then rendered in Scodix embossing is not as high as we would like,’ he said. ‘This sometimes leads to ‘pixelisation’ of the embossing edges. This problem is being addressed in the next upgrade of the software, due shortly.’ The decision to order the second 1200 was a combination of needing the capacity, plus having redundancy in case one machine went down. ‘We absolutely guarantee dispatch times and this is something our clients rely on. The thought of having no embossing capability, if one machine goes down, is not a position we wanted to be in. There is no chance of getting it done elsewhere – for obvious reasons. If volumes keep increasing as they have we may at some point need to consider a third machine.’

 

RCS now has two of the Scodix1200 inkjets in operation, and is considering a third.

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