Setting Up A Sheet Fed Digital Press Follow

There are two main types of digital presses that Midnight supports, those being Sheet and Roll types. This article focuses on the setup of Sheet Fed digital presses.

Digital presses in Midnight support many different types of pricing models. This include Click charges, Ink charge by Area, Ink charge by Volume, and Ink charge by piece.

The setup screen from all presses in Midnight can be located in Admin>Print>Press Standard. You can click on the press name of an existing press to edit it or click on the quick-links menu to Add Press Standard.

 

Press Standard Header

The controls at the top of the screen allow you to Copy a press, cancel any edits, or submit your changes. The setup fields functionality is as follows.

• Press Type: This dropdown allows you to select what process the press uses, you can choose from the following options. For the purposes of this article, we will be concentrating on the Digital Press Type.
  • Offset
  • Digital
  • Wide Format
• Material Type: In Material Type, you have two different selections that will impact the setting available in the details sections. For this article, we will be concentrating on Digital Sheet material types.
  • Sheet
  • Roll
• Press Name: This lets you name the press being setup
• Minimum Cost: This setting allows a user to define a minimum cost for the press when used in a print calculator.
• Active: The active checkbox lets a user define whether that press is available to select in the system or not.
• Update All Templates: This button, when clicked, will update all templates that use this press with all the updated press details in the current saved setup.

Press Details Sheet

To set up a press for Digital Sheet use the following available fields. This section will give an explanation of what each of those fields is used for.

• Default Run Type: To ensure a Digital Press has a default value for the run type we let you choose whether you want 1-Sided or 2-Sided by default. This setting can always be changed when doing an estimate.
• Hourly Rate: This is the hourly rate used to calculate the press cost when using the calculator. We generally recommend that this value is a fully burdened hourly rate, this might include the labor cost to run the press, lease for the press, maintenance contracts, mortgage, insurance, utility costs etc...
• Base Run Rate (Impressions Per/Hr): This run rate is generally defined by your base average impressions per hour for this press. In the case of a digital press, this would be how many sheet sides can you print in an hour.
• Spoilage %: This setting allows you to define a default spoilage % rate for the press
• Run Sheet Width: This setting indicates the MAX run sheet width allowed on this press
• Run Sheet Length: This setting indicates the MAX run sheet length allowed on this press
• Sheet Margin: This setting (in inches) is used to define the unprintable area along the edge of a sheet on a digital press. Typically .125" or .25" depending on the press. This setting is used when calculating imposition.
• Registration Marks and Size: This setting is used in the imposition calculation to automatically account for the space taken up by registration marks. This setting is rarely used.
• Setup/Consumables: This setting allows a user to set a charge either by job or by piece that will be applied whenever this press is selected.
• Setup Time (min): Press setup time in minutes
• Setup Sheets: number of sheets the press will consume on every job during setup

Clicks

• Click Setup Checkbox: if this checkbox is selected then the press will use click charges for costing, if this option is selected you must have at least one entry in this grid. This can be used independently, not at all, or along with ink setup for press costing.
• Click Setup Grid
  • Name: Name of click charge i.e. color, black ect...
  • Click Area: This field is just information to let you define what area this click charge is associated with, there is not currently any functionality associated with this field.
  • Rate: Click rate in dollars or fractions of
  • Edit: Standard Edit functionality
  • Delete: Standard Delete functionality
  • New Click Rate: To create a new click rate fill out the fields at the bottom of the grid and click the blue disk save icon.

Ink Setup

With the advent of high-speed digital presses, there became a need to accommodate these presses with the addition of the ability to cost ink in addition to clicks in a digital press. The Ink Setup has four options; None, which should be used when no ink calculation is needed and 3 other selections detailed below for different ways of accounting for ink cost.

Ink Setup Area

The Area option in the ink setup allows a user to calculate ink cost based on the square inch. This grid has 4 columns detailed below. This will calculate the square-inch cost for the printed area of a job based on your selection int he calculator.

• Name: name of the ink option
• Cost Per Square Inch: this allows you to define the cost per square inch in fractions of a dollar
• Edit: Standard edit functionality
• Delete: Standard Delete functionality
• New Area Option: to add a new entry into this grid fill out the fields at the bottom and click the blue disk save icon.

Ink Setup Piece

The Piece option int he ink setup section allows a user to define the total ink cost based on the piece by size. The options in this grid are as follows.

• Name: Name of Piece option
• Piece Size: length and width of piece
• Coverage %: default ink coverage for this option
• Cost Per Piece @ 100%: cost per piece at 100% coverage
• Edit: Standard edit functionality
• Delete: Standard Delete functionality
• New Area Option: to add a new entry into this grid fill out the fields at the bottom and click the blue disk save icon.

Ink Setup Volume

The volume option for ink setup allows a user to setup all the available inks that are used on that printer and the user can define the coverage for each ink on each job that is estimated. The options for the volume grid are as follows.

• Name: Name of Volume Option
• Cost Per/ml: Cost per milliliter for the defined ink
• Coverage/ML (in sq inches): coverage in square inches for each milliliter for the defined ink
• Default Coverage: default coverage for the defined ink
• Edit: Standard edit functionality
• Delete: Standard Delete functionality
• New Area Option: to add a new entry into this grid fill out the fields at the bottom and click the blue disk save icon.

Run Rate Table

The run rate table allows a user to define a modified run rate based on the quantity of a job. This run rate will override the base run rate in the details section. This run rate might also be modified by the Inventory Item run rate factor percentage. The fields in this grid are as follows.

• Quantity: Defines the quantity at which the run rate changes
• Run Rate/Hr: impressions per hour for the selected quantity
• Edit: Standard edit functionality
• Delete: Standard Delete functionality
• New Area Option: to add a new entry into this grid fill out the fields at the bottom and click the blue disk save icon.