InfoTrends’ Survey on Digital and Conventional Printing

As seen in the chart, high numbers of short runs are a top concern for all converters, whatever their specialty. Again, the chart is based on total responses, whether ranked 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. When looked at by the number of times each response option was chosen as "1," the rankings of individual response options is about the same—except that short runs climbs to the second highest position. Why are short runs such a big pain point? A key reason is that they spur other top concerns. Job changeover time, which ranks first overall based on total responses, is a bigger issue for short runs than long ones, and the same is true for media waste. Meanwhile, as noted earlier, short runs are what brand owners increasingly want so they can be both lean and target markets. For these and other reasons, short runs rank highly as a pain point and contribute to converters' top concerns about their conventional press technology and total cost of operation.