New Optimism About Paper?
By Ed Avis
Hard-copy prints have been the bread and butter of the reprographics industry since its inception, and for two decades people have been saying the end of paper is near. Many signs have indicated that that prediction is accurate, as any repro shop owner who survived the recession can attest.
But giant Hewlett-Packard has just invested millions on launching a new printer aimed at the AEC hard copy market, and the latest IRgA survey shows that half of members are enjoying growth in their printing business.
So who’s right? Is paper dead, or is it about to hop out of the grave and run a few laps?
Trending Downward
There’s no question that paper printing in reprographics has dropped dramatically. The “good old days” of a general contractor ordering up dozens of massive sets of paper drawings for all of its subcontractors and other stakeholders has largely passed. Now it’s much more common for drawings to be created, stored, edited, and viewed digitally.
Paper’s greatest advantage is that many people still prefer looking at something crisp and tangible, especially when they’re on a worksite. But even that advantage is being threatened by increasingly better tablets and other digital viewing devices. Consider the “All PDFs Created Equal” campaign that launched about a year ago. Its aim is to create a standard for PDFs that will allow architects, contractors, and others involved in construction to more easily share digital documents, with the ultimate goal of eliminating paper from the jobsite.
“The reality is that the industry has been gravitating towards the paperless jobsite for a long time, and finally all of the pieces are aligning to make it a reality,” said Kyle Hughes, a senior project engineer at Skanska and co-chair of the campaign, in an interview about the project last summer. Read more about this program by clicking here.
But Some Signs Point the Other Way
The “All PDFs Created Equal” campaign has the backing of nine major general contractors, so it’s no joke. And other initiatives and technologies that promise to make the AEC world totally digital are constantly showing up. So is the undertaker throwing dirt on paper’s casket?
Not so fast, says HP. The company just announced a wide-format version of its PageWide single-pass inkjet technology with an elaborate announcement event in San Diego. The presentation was aimed squarely at AEC paper printing, albeit with a focus on color output. Read more about the launch by clicking here.
“We certainly understand that some segments will go more digital, but there’s definitely a longevity to paper printing,” says Jamie Sirois, an HP DesignJet segment manager. “There’s something about having that physical piece of paper in your hand. I would go to conferences and people would say, ‘No I’m not going to hand over a pad to every worker on the site, they still need a plan.’”
Some quantifiable data also point to a continued pulse in paper. The IRgA Index, a new quarterly survey of the reprographics industry, asked members whether their large-format monochrome printing business was up, down, or flat during the first quarter of 2014, and 50 percent of the respondents reported that it was up. Only 11 percent reported a decrease. The survey also showed that color CAD output is up among 55 percent of respondents and down only in 4 percent.
Clearly the IRgA Index data are influenced by the improving economy and consequent growth in construction, so the data may be skewed. Future surveys may smooth out the effect of the stronger economy and reveal a more general downward trend in paper consumption, but that remains to be seen.
“Certainly the amount of paper has gone down, but we’ll never be paperless,” says Mike Cully, president of AIR Graphics in Boston. “There are a lot of smart people in HP, and I’m sure they did a lot of research [before launching the PageWide printer].”
It Matters
Trends in AEC paper consumption clearly matter to reprographics shop owners. Most have moved into other areas – such as large-format color printing, digital document management, and 3D printing – in order to reduce their exposure to AEC paper printing, but most repro shops still depend on paper output to keep the bottom line strong.
With that in mind, please share your own comments and experiences with paper consumption trends in the comment section below. The more information IRgA members share with one another, the better.