Every four years brings us a U.S. election, the Olympics, the World Cup, and drupa. And make no mistake. Drupa is every bit as exciting as those other ones. This year was no exception. Around 391,000 visitors from 138 countries attended the two-week long “Messe”, which featured 1971 exhibitors from 52 countries. Although attendance was down slightly from 2004, the mood was upbeat and festive.
If you have never been to drupa, it is difficult to comprehend the enormity of the event. The fairground in D√ºsseldorf is one of the largest in the world, covering over 2.85 million square feet (170,000 square metres). That’s more than 70 acres! With 19 halls (really 20, as Hall 8 is split into two separate buildings) and 1.8 million square feet of exhibit space connected by covered moving walkways, the fairgrounds have barber and beauty shops, restaurants and cafes in each hall, several banks, and both a hardware store and a grocery store. Understandably, it is virtually impossible to see everything one wants to—though I did make time to stop at the beach area between two halls laid out with umbrellas and beach chairs for people to relax in the sun.
This year’s drupa had two new features, including a special event aimed at print buyers. The “drupacube” showcased answers to the question of how print and online media can complement each other in the future. Inside a pavilion on the Rhine, the drupacube featured a variety of marketing-driven applications for printed products, de-emphasizing technology.
Making its second appearance was the “drupa innovation parc”, focusing on new technology. Building on its 2004 success, this year’s expanded “DIP”—it was nearly four times larger than in 2004—contained eight themed zones (including online communication, document management, and buyer integration) and provided a venue for 160 exhibitors. Although intended to support and promote young companies, it was also the home to new technologies offered by more established vendors.
The drupa innovation parc also provided the venue for the popular “Red Sofa” sessions—interviews with industry executives including HP’s VJ Joshi, Bernhard Schreier from Heidelberg, Guy Gecht of EFI, and Xerox’s Ursula Burns. (All the interviews are available online at: http://tinyurl.com/3hhkob .
In addition, the Print & Media Congress offered a number of “Compass Sessions”— two-hour intensive workshops on a variety of issues, including digital workflow, PDF, automation, JDF/CIP4, colour management, printed electronics, and packaging.
Another popular feature was the “Highlight Tours”, each of which focused on a different aspect of the show and ushered attendees from hall to hall and booth to booth.
It is impossible in a short piece to cover even a fraction of what any individual could take in at drupa, let alone the entire show. So let this article be your own personal “highlight tour.”
Even with everything else going on, drupa is still principally a press show. For 50 years, printers have been coming to drupa to see the latest developments in presses.
Every offset press maker has upgraded their presses, both through new offerings and significant improvements to existing lines. Each manufacturer emphasized a number of common themes, including innovation, integration, service, and sustainability. The new offset presses cut make-ready and waste, increase productivity, ensure more useable sheets, and improve quality consistency.
Heidelberg once again had the largest presence, in their customary location in Halls 1 and 2, with 7800 square metres of floor space (about 2 acres) and 3500 Heidelberg staff. Heidelberg’s twin themes of “HEI Performance” and “HEI Value” were on display, and their exhibits were connected by a “HEI-way” (there was also a “HEI-School”). The centerpieces of the exhibit were the new Speedmaster XL 145 and Speedmaster XL 162, representing the most significant expansion of the company’s press line in a number of years. Of course, Heidelberg also had a full panoply of presses, 17 in all, with around 120 printing units, as it showcased its Speedmaster XL line developed for industrial operations with multiple shifts.
An important component of Heidelberg’s exhibit was its end-to-end integration. All prepress, press, and post-press equipment throughout both Halls were connected using its Prinect workflow software (see Graphic Arts Magazine’s June 2008 issue). All Speedmaster presses are equipped with a Prinect Press Center which combines press operation with colour and register control in a single, central console. A large screen gives press operators an overview of all press processes. The wallscreen also supports print approval processes.
Heidelberg dedicated Hall 2 to packaging, with offerings including a new Prinect packaging workflow, new VLF presses and existing 29” and 40” Speedmaster CD presses, and a variety of converting and finishing options. Although it wasn’t shown at drupa, board member Dr. J√ºrgen Rautert also highlighted the new LinoPrint inkjet system launched the previous month at InterPak.
The biggest news from the newly renamed manroland was perhaps its new name and logo. Two years have passed since they became independent of the MAN group, making drupa a good opportunity to change their name and logo. As befits the global market leader for web presses and second largest manufacturer of sheetfed presses, manroland had the second largest stand at drupa. With a floor area of 4000 square metres (about one acre) and a 1300 square metre gallery under the motto WE ARE PRINT, manroland focused on production efficiency and value. Manroland moved down-market with the 2-page Roland 50, a first for the company. At the other extreme, they introduced a 96-page LITHOMAN web press, as well as perfecting versions of very large format sheetfed presses. Improvements in automation included the InlineColourPilot that measures and regulates ink density of up to seven printing inks during production, their automated plate change system, printcom process system, and printnet networking system.
The Ryobi 1050 puts the small-press manufacturer squarely in the 40” format market. Rated at 16,000 sheets per hour, the 1050 will be offered in “S” (41.73 x 31.5 inch) and “XL” (41.73 x 33.46 inch) configurations. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Canada, where manroland distributes Ryobi presses.
Similarly, KBA, which bills itself as the “world’s oldest press manufacturer”, provided a number of announcements, both of new presses and productivity improvements on existing lines. The focus of much of their attention was on providing a more compact press design, automation, cost efficiencies, improved print quality, and ergonomics. Long known for their large format presses—they announced a very large format (142 cm) 4 over 4 perfector—KBA is now aggressively targeting smaller formats as well. Alongside its high-end medium- and large-format presses, KBA showed a pair of highly automated presses suitable for price-sensitive printers. The 20x29” Rapida 75 will be available in up to 8 colours and with automatic 4/4 perfecting. The 28x41.5” 5-colour Rapida 105 is available as a straight press with a maximum of 7 printing units plus a choice of coaters, and in a slightly larger (29x41.5”) version. KBA is addressing the need for greater productivity, especially for shorter run lengths, through improvements such as the DriveTronic SPC (simultaneous plate changing) system and the QualiTronic inline sheet-inspection system. Video-based automatic colour register control and a choice of professional closed-loop densitometry systems help minimize waste, make-ready times, and quality deviations.
Digital Presses
Drupa 2008 made it clear that “big iron” is no longer the only big game in town. After Heidelberg and manroland, Hewlett-Packard and Xerox had the largest exhibits.
On the toner side, Kodak, HP, Océ, Xeikon, Xerox and others showed significant new products and upgrades, with more speed, improved image quality and enhanced productivity.
HP Indigo celebrated the 15th anniversary of its 1993 launch at IPEX by introducing three new models. Adding to the HP Indigo 4000 and 5000 series presses, the HP Indigo 6000 and 7000 series presses offer increased productivity. The HP Indigo 5500, the company’s best-selling model, has been enhanced with a variety of options, including an additional feeder, an in-line connection to a UV coater, and a kit for enabling printing on thicker media. The newly launched HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press prints 120 4-colour, A4-size pages per minute and is targeted at higher production volumes than the 5500.
The HP Indigo WS6000 and W7200 presses, also launched at drupa, are web-fed digital presses. The WS6000 offers twice the productivity of the successful HP Indigo press WS4500 and is targeted at labels and packaging converters with significant volumes of medium- and short-run jobs. The W7200 press is for high-quality publishing, direct mail and transactional/ transpromotional offerings. Both are expected to be available next year.
Also celebrating 15 years of sales, although with considerably less fanfare, Xeikon emphasized “quality and speed in digital print” with the introduction of three significant new products. The Xeikon 8000 is by far the fastest full colour toner device on the market. Boasting true 1200 dpi at 4 bits per spot, the Xeikon 8000 has been developed to optimize print productivity and to provide fast, cost-effective, and eco-friendly printing without compromising on quality. Web-fed, it prints full colour multi-page documents at a top speed of 230 A4 pages per minute, or 13,800 A4 pages per hour. Similarly, both the 5000plus and 6000 presses have been given a quality boost with the 1200 dpi print head.
Xeikon also introduced a new 5-colour label press. The Xeikon 3300 offers true 1200 dpi at 4 bits per spot and runs at 63 feet/minute, making it the fastest digital 5-colour label press on the market. It runs a variety of substrates, including foils, self-adhesive films, paper and more, making it a good fit for many short-to-medium print runs or just-in-time jobs. With five colour stations, the 3300 can apply spot colours as well as an opaque white and special security toner.
Xerox also made a number of announcements, continuing their move toward a services-led technology company, with strategic bets in colour and production digital print and an emphasis on co-marketing. In addition to their distribution (and development) partner Fujifilm, Xerox featured a Heidelberg offset press in their stand, as well as workflow from both Fuji and Screen. The company also introduced an integrated in-line digital packaging solution for the pharmaceutical industry that can produce customized, variable data on each package. Jointly developed with Stora Enso, the solution is powered by the Xerox iGen3 110 Digital Production Press and consists of an Epic CTi-635 varnishing unit with both aqueous and UV-coating options from Xerox, a KAMA die cutter and a stacker-conveyer unit from Stora Enso.
On the new product side, the biggest announcement was the iGen4. Although it offers the same rated speed of 110 pages per minute as the iGen3, it is noticeably “new and improved”. Xerox expects the iGen4 press to deliver 25 to 35 percent more productivity by automating operator tasks, reducing the need to interrupt the press for adjustments, lower maintenance requirements, a number of quality improvements, and decreasing overall operating costs. Xerox also made a number of improvements in the iGen3, including the Automated Colour Quality Suite Press Matching System, for new and existing users of the Xerox iGen3¬Æ 90 and 110 Digital Production Presses. These enhancements enable faster press set up, quicker time to production, greater colour stability, and automated Pantone colour matching.
Also of interest was the new 700 model Digital Colour Press. This is a small-footprint 70 ppm device that uses low-melt EA toner and delivers a matte finish to images. It packs robust production features such as coated paper handling, heavyweight media support, and feeding and finishing options at an entry-level price. It brings productivity, print quality and flexibility to print providers looking to adopt digital technology or expand their digital printing business.
As drupa is a show to highlight new technology, Xerox also showed the dual engine ColorConcept 220, a melding of two iGen3 presses to create a 220-ppm full colour perfecting press. The first engine prints the front and the second the back ( just as is done with the company’s Nuvera 288), making it the fastest, full colour cut sheet digital press ever shown publicly. The system also has a smaller footprint and is more compact than two Xerox iGen3s sitting side-by-side, which saves valuable shop floor space.
Xerox also used drupa to showcase their next-generation ink—“cured gel” ink, which offers more ways to print on many substrates.
Finally, Kodak emphasized what they call “offset-class output” in their solutions for conventional offset and inkjet and toner digital printing. They introduced a new NEXPRESS model, the NEXPRESS S3600 Digital Production Color Press, the fastest in its S-Series, with dramatically increased productivity. At 120 pages per minute (A4), the NEXPRESS S3600 allows print providers to achieve a higher level of productivity to produce more jobs per hour. Modular features of the NEXPRESS S-Class Presses include input feeder options with up to 11,000 sheet capacity, collation capability of up to five different media, and both cut sheet and roll fed paper on the same press. Output options support multiple high capacity deliveries, as well as inline or near line booklet makers. Along with the KODAK NEXPRESS Fifth Imaging Unit Solution, a near line KODAK NEXPRESS Glossing Unit can add a high gloss finish for surface protection and varnished look. NEXPRESS S-Series Presses can be upgraded on site to increase output speed, add colour imaging units and input/output options.
Inkjet
Drupa 2008 was billed as the “inkjet drupa”, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. It is clear that we have seen the future with these devices, as a slew of suppliers showed products, category demonstrations, and new technologies. Most are web presses, and most use thermal or piezo inkjet heads. And most are targeting, at least initially, just a few applications, particularly newspapers, so-called “transpromo” (transaction documents incorporating promotional materials), and books. Eventually, however, most expect them to expand into the broader commercial print market.
First, let’s look at those vendors who have presses that are available for sale and installation. The most mature is the Agfa :Dotrix, which has been for sale for a number of years. Although examples of broader graphics applications were available, the press was set up at the show for flexible packaging applications and folding cartons, for which it is clearly appropriate. The :Dotrix, built upon the iron frame of a flexo press, can have flexo units before the inkjet heads and UV coating and drying after them, just like a “hybrid” sheetfed lithographic press. Equipped with an inline sheeter that can cut its 28.5” web to various lengths, the :Dotrix, which is modular and upgradeable, runs on a wide variety of media at 24 metres per minute, and Agfa says it will increase the speeds to 30 m/min.
Océ expanded its high speed inkjet offerings with three new JetStream models. The groundbreaking series was launched in 2007 with a 492 feet per minute JetStream 1100 single-engine system and the Océ JetStream 2200 full colour, twin system. Now these models are joined by the new Océ JetStream 750, Océ JetStream 1500 and Océ JetStream 3000 systems. The series now offers high quality full-colour output speeds ranging from 675 to 2,700 A4 impressions per minute, with easy upgradeability throughout the family. The newly expanded Océ JetStream portfolio is positioned to meet customer requirements in terms of colour quality, speed, and duty cycles.
Perhaps the biggest changes in emphasis have come from Screen and Fuji. The two Japanese companies, long known as prepress suppliers, have announced their intention to enter the press market. The Screen TruePress Jet520, introduced in 2006, prints on a variety of stocks up to 20.5” wide. The roll-fed paper transport system affords faster turnarounds on high-volume projects. The Truepress Jet520 can print 210 feet per minute, the equivalent of 55,000 impressions per hour. As with many of these web inkjet presses, Screen focused their demonstrations on newspaper and print-on-demand book applications. Screen also showed a sheet-fed press, the Truepress Jet SX, as a complement to the roll-fed inkjet printing that is already available. It can output on A2-wide size paper, up to 530 x 740 mm. Screen says it can print not only on inkjet printing paper, but also on ordinary printing paper and thicker stock.
Another concept press was on the Fuji stand, The Jet Press 720, also a sheetfed inkjet digital press. Designed and built with technologies from across the Fujifilm Group—including those of FujiXerox and the inkjet head manufacturer Dimatix—its frame comes from a sheetfed press manufacturer. With a maximum sheet size of 720 mm by 520 mm, the Jet Press 720 offers a resolution of 1200 dpi at 4-level gray scale at 180 sheets per minute. Fuji is clearly targeting mainstream commercial applications. They claim a make-ready break-even of run lengths of approximately 2000 impressions.
Two other presses that caused a stir came from Hewlett-Packard and Kodak. The HP Inkjet Web Press is a digital printing platform based on the company’s Scalable Printing Technology. HP showed a 36 inch wide web at drupa, although the first announced product is 30 inches wide. It runs up to 400 feet per minute at 600 by 600 dpi, can print two-sided signatures, and is designed for production volume in the millions. Although the long-term objective may be general commercial applications, the initial target markets are those that do not require high colour coverage, such as books, newspapers, and direct mail. A key feature of the demonstration at the stand were the variety of finishing solutions from companies such as EMT, Hunkeler, MBO, Muller Martini, and Pitney Bowes.
Kodak Versamark showed its full-colour STREAM Concept press. The Stream technology uses a continuous inkjet system that is not limited to water-based dye inks, and can therefore print on a wide range of substrates. With a resolution exceeding 600 dpi and print speeds over 500 feet per minute, Kodak is looking to achieve “offset class” printing and is targeting high volume applications with monthly page volumes of 10 million or more. The press is for those who want to bring the benefits of digital print to jobs traditionally produced using offset presses. Kodak also demonstrated the Stream Concept Printhead, running inline on a Muller Martini press. Capable of delivering monochrome offset class variable data printing applications at up to 1000 feet per minute, the Stream Concept Printhead demonstration was intended to show the technology’s potential for hybrid printing and as a technology platform for future inkjet systems.
Wide format
Also on offer were a variety of wide format inkjet printers. One that was particularly interesting was the new Océ ColorWave 600, a wide format machine that uses TonerPearls jetted through an inkjet head,. Although targeted at CAD and other non-graphic wide format applications, where Océ is very strong, this machine offers interesting potential.
EFI’s VUTEk showed a high-speed, flatbed UV printer targeted at point-of-purchase and display graphics, printing at output up to 557 square metres (6000 square feet) per hour The Jetrion 4000 UV Inkjet System, a unique industrial inkjet printer, is now commercially available and is targeted at label converters for runs of up to 50,000 labels.
The largest array of wide format products was shown by HP. In addition to their Designjet line, HP is a major player in the super-wide category, with its recent acquisitions of NUR Macroprinters Ltd. and MacDermid ColorSpan Inc. to supplement the Scitex line.
Although there were a variety of other suppliers, one should pay particular attention to Fuji, which sells Inca devices, and to Agfa. While Agfa took pains to emphasize their commitment to prepress systems, introducing a revamped :Apogee workflow (see Graphic Arts Magazine’s June issue), new plates, and new CTP systems, inkjet dominated their stand and will clearly be a focus going forward, not only with the :Dotrix discussed earlier, but also the :Anapurna line and screen-hybrid :M-Press.
Postpress
Drupa is also the best place for those interested in postpress and finishing, as an incredible variety of products and vendors can be seen in one place. Innovation was present in abundance, as vendors offered in-line, off-line, and near-line production solutions designed to deliver the economic benefits of automation, shorter makereadies, and reduced labour. Finishing is particularly important as a way for printers to ‘add value’ to the printed product, and, I believe, represents the next wave of process improvement. As Heidelberg and others showed, the acceptance of JDF will increase the productivity of these systems.
Applications and Services
Another difference in this year’s drupa was the emphasis on applications and services. While it is impossible to cover all, a number of vendors exhibits stand out, particularly Heidelberg, Kodak, HP, and Xerox. All organized their displays around various applications and profit centres, rather than product categories.
Finally, I’d like to mention in particular one Canadian-focused service offering, from Fuji. “Getitfromtheexperts.ca” provides a customized and personalized response that highlights appropriate products and services, based on a short series of questions.
China
Another major difference in drupa this year was the increased presence of Chinese-based companies. There were at least 150 exhibitors from the PRC, and another 25 from Taiwan. It’s something to look out for in 2012.
Environment
While not the “Green drupa” that many thought it would be, every press conference mentioned the environment, although often as an afterthought. But all companies felt it important to highlight what they were doing to reduce the environmental impact of printing. As they say, “watch this space.”
For 14 eventful days, D√ºsseldorf was the centre of the printing industry, and it is absolutely impossible to cover it all or to summarize. I hope I’ve whetted your appetite for the next one—see you in 2012!
I’m just back from drupa. What an experience!
If you were ever at Graphics Canada (which is the largest show in Canada), drupa is about 20 times larger – nearly 40 acres in size! Admission was 56 euros and nearly 400,000 visitors went to check out the numerous exhibits.
As I mentioned, the first thing that strikes you is its size. Heidelberg alone had two acres of booth space and 3,500 people working their booth. MAN Roland had the next largest booth at one acre, followed by HP and Xerox, also with incredibly large booths.
From a Canadian perspective, aside from the regular international companies that we would usually see at Canadian trade shows, there was Dynagram, Engview Systems Corp., Escher-Grad Technologies Inc., ETI Converting Equipment and Polkadots Software Inc., all from Quebec. There was Gandinnovations, Graphic Whizard, Printer’s Parts & Equipment and Hostmann-Steinberg, all from Ontario as well as Canada Gateway Bookbinding Systems Ltd. from Manitoba. Winfried Gleue, president of Hosmann-Steinberg said that this was his 10th drupa – and it was the best drupa ever!
If you consider that there were about 2,000 exhibitors – 12 to 14 from Canada and about 125 from the USA, that leaves around 1,850 from the rest of the world, predominately from China and India. It gives us a good overview of our industry. Check out John Zarwan’s complete coverage of drupa ’08 on page 18.
Our condolences go out to Ultimate Technologies on the passing of their president and founder while at drupa. David Watson will be a huge loss to the industry. Our sympathies go out to his friends and family.
Finally, in closing, I have to say I was very impressed with the German hospitality as well as the efficiency of their transportation system. A similar system in our large urban cities would be a definite asset.
By the way, I’ve watched many of the Euro Cup matches and my pick at press time with 4 teams remaining is Russia to win it all. We’ll see how it goes.
Have a safe and relaxing summer holiday. And, as always, stay positive and stay focused.
This may be the last time...
With drupa finished for another four years, and the lazy—or at least slightly lazier—days of summer beckoning, it’s my pleasure to introduce our July/August double issue, which is full of some post-drupa reading which will benefit both attendees and those who didn’t manage to get across the pond.
I know it’s always tempting to just press on in the summers, but slowing down can mean a chance to reflect and refocus for the fall. Two articles in particular should help with that reflection, as both take a big picture look (though with lots of practical applications, too) at current industry trends and events.
First up, John Zarwan gives us his own personal “highlight tour” of his drupa favourites and things to look out for—if you didn’t get there, it’s the next best thing, and if you did, it’s worth comparing your own notes to his.
Secondly, summer is also the season for weddings, and Tony Curcio complements John’s piece with a look at one of the most-talked-about marriages of the summer (at least in the printing world...)—I’m speaking, of course, of the marriage of digital and offset technologies. It’s something we’ve been talking a lot about here at Graphic Arts, and we’re delighted to bring you yet another informative look at how you can be a matchmaker between these two seemingly antagonistic mates.
For more specifically focused pieces relating to Tony’s topic, check out John Anderson’s “Dig Deep”, on the importance of good information to variable data printing. As he reminds us, the days of consumers being impressed with merely their names and addresses personalizing their admail are long gone. Without good information, your investment in VDP technologies will not maximize your ROI.
Peter Dulis also digs deeper with his review of Canon’s “Insight Report: Digital Printing Directions”, released in conjunction with drupa. He describes a technology that some thought was “only good for quick and dirty printing”, but which is now a market leader in many segments. I’ll leave it to you to read the article and find out what type of print he’s referring to.
Finally, I must inform all of you that this will be my final issue in the Associate Editor’s chair at Graphic Arts Magazine, as I am relocating in the fall. I hope to pop back in from time to time with some articles, and I can’t wait to see what new heights the magazine will achieve under my successor.
So kick back on the patio or in the pressroom with your summer libation of choice and enjoy this issue until our September edition lands in your mailbox, with more of the breaking news and insightful commentary that you’ve come to expect.
All the best!
Many Canadian printers are now combining digital and traditional offset in their shops. And while this love affair will likely stand the test of time, it‘s the engagement period that might prove difficult.
Here it is in a nutshell: Traditional offset still rules, with about a 70% to 80% market share, depending on the shop and type of printing we’re talking about. But digital is closing the gap steadily. The heated manufacturer competition has spawned even more sophisticated digital machines offering many of the benefits of offset presses. As well, some innovative offset presses now boast good margins for short runs that would normally be done digitally. Manufacturers are also aggressively promoting some of their machines as complementing, rather than competing with, offset or digital.
In the final analysis, however, marrying offset and digital to improve your bottom line is very much a subjective choice based on your specific shop set-up, employee learning curve, budget, and current equipment.
For the trade printer, the digital era really began in full (and very speedy) colour in 1998 with the introduction of the HP Indigo E-Print 1000 6-colour and the Xeikon DCP/50D. Since then, the pace of digital innovation technology has been nothing short of phenomenal.
Last year, for example, Inca introduced the Onset, a revolutionary large-format UV digital flatbed printer that can handle print sizes up to 10.5’ x 5’ ft at speeds of up to 5,382 sq. ft./hr. The printer’s speed and quality is delivered by a massive array of 576 printheads comprising 73,728 inkjet nozzles. Holland & Crosby (Mississauga) and Artisan Complete (Markham) were the first and second companies in North America to install an Inca.
Depending on print-run size and workload, 5’ x 10’ posters ordered one day can be delivered the next. Because it’s digital, each sign can be customized. Plus, the Onset is much faster than current digital flatbed printers (4 to 6 times, depending on the type of job), so there are considerable cost efficiencies.
“We believe that a printer who can handle emergency orders almost overnight, with exceptional quality, the ability to customize, with extremely competitive pricing, has a tremendous advantage in the marketplace,” says Scott Crosby, Holland & Crosby, V.P. of Sales & Marketing.”
Artisan Complete says that the addition of the Onset complements its objective of implementing manufacturing principles, policies and equipment that are environmentally responsible through a reduction in the number of set-up sheets required, as well as using energy-efficient UV curable inks and technology.
So, here we have two leading printers with two separate visions, both looking to improve their bottom lines by adding digital.
Combining offset and digital in one job
Markham Ontario’s Bassett Direct has prospered by focusing on personalized direct mail. Its creations are mostly variable, done digitally on either a Xerox DocuColor 8000, Xerox iGen3, Xeikon 5000, or Xerox monochrome and 2–colour printers with MICR capabilities. However, in order to offer total service, the company needs offset presses in its equipment repertoire.
“In some cases, it makes sense to go conventional offset,” says President Rich Bassett. “For example, client campaigns can range from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand pieces. If the job has only static colour images, and if the quantities are large, we will print an offset template and digitally print the personalization in black. For Bassett, run length isn’t the only factor separating offset and digital. One project, for example, involved placing 2,500 variable images from a data file into the final mailing pieces. “You definitely couldn’t make that many plate changes using traditional offset.”
Bassett points out that digital presses are also ideal for applications where there are multiple forms, especially if the jobs involve timely information and quick turnaround. Having said that, he also has some clients that use offset exclusively. “Variable imaging is continuing to grow very rapidly, particularly in variable colour. However, there is a very large segment of the market that continues to utilize the traditional processes. Choosing the appropriate technology for the specific application is the key to successfully blending these technologies.”
Cober Printing of Kitchener, Ontario, founded in 1916, is a family run commercial business that employs about 70 people. The company has 2-colour and 4-colour 29” presses and 5-colour and 10-colour 40” presses. But it also has two Indigo presses—a 3050 (installed about 3 years ago) and a 5500 that they’ve had for less than a year. Digital has become a large part of their business and is currently their focus for the future.
“The combination of the two different presses has worked well for us,” says Todd Cober, Vice President of Sales. “In the beginning, we did mostly short-run static work but now it has grown. Today, a large percentage of our work is web-to-print of variable. We found quickly that we needed to acquire some new finishing equipment...Both press types work well together and we find ourselves printing many jobs where part of the job goes offset and part goes digital (e.g. English offset, French digital)...also...to be truly successful at it, we need to almost make digital its own business and workflow,” Cober adds.
Generally speaking, if a job is a short, static run, and he needs to make the decision between offset or digital, he finds that the transition point is 1000—1500 digital sheets. Above that number, it is more economical to go offset.
Finishing can have a lot to do with where the job runs also. Cober is running higher sheet counts on the digital side because it’s cheaper to finish. For example, if he has 150 copies of a 100-page book, he will run that digitally (almost 4000 sheets).
“We do this because it’s far cheaper to finish this on one pass in a booklet machine than it would be to do large setups on large folders and stitchers,” he says. “Another example would be a collated piece. Being as we can print in collated order, we will run larger sheet counts on the digital side to eliminate the need for collating in the finishing.”
As far as quality, Cober feels that the quality of digital for most applications is more than sufficient. “Generally speaking, the average person can’t tell the difference...where we find that digital is not at the same quality level as offset, is not in the quality of print, but in the range of substrates. With the large offset presses, you can run onion skin to thick cover and with digital you’re much more limited.”
His company’s growth in the digital market has been huge over the past three years. “We intend to keep growing our digital business with new ideas and technologies,” he says. “It’s exciting from a printing perspective in digital because we’re not just putting ink on paper, we’re actually adding value to that paper! We’re selling a product or a solution, not just print. We’re selling a way for our clients to make more money with their current marketing budgets. It’s exciting to be able to go to a client with new ideas that have nothing to do with how a piece looks, but more how it functions as a profit creator,” he adds.
HP’s 7000 competes with offset
“The growth of digital has been exceptional and digital machines are now challenging traditional offset in terms of economics,” says Danny Ionescu, VP, Graphic Arts, HP Canada. “We have quite a few customers now who have both technologies, but are starting to see an increased migration of offset users to digital.”
HP’s newest Indigo, the 7000, competes with offset in many categories.
“Our Indigo 7000 was designed from the ground up to compete with offset in...speed and ease of workflow,” says Ionescu, also noting that HP has invested significantly in its print servers in the past 18 months in order to help customers manage data.
“One of the biggest problems in incorporating digital with offset is a production bottleneck in the amount of data that needs to be processed,” he says. “Our line of Smart production servers allows us to go into a client’s shop and give them a personalized, ‘scaleable’ server based on their individual needs and internal set-up that allows for future growth.
The 7000 contains many innovations, such as ink cans that are triple the size of previous models; you can change print cans on the fly without interrupting the run. Recycling costs are reduced because the machine uses 50% less imaging oil. There’s also lower electricity consumption per printed page, the ability to print on recycled paper, and the elimination of make-ready waste (as compared to conventional offset printing) and, of course, the ability to print the precise quantity required. But what positions this machine with conventional offset is when it comes to run problems and its high-production support.
“To maintain production efficiency, if a run problem occurs, the machine will perform a self-diagnosis and pinpoint the trouble area,” says Ionescu. “We’ve even put in place a webcam at the press operator’s site so he can view the problem area immediately. If the problem persists, the press itself will automatically place a phone call to the HP Indigo Support Line—and send all relevant data to the attending HP technician about the press, so the operator doesn’t have to waste valuable time. The operator can, if requested, let the technician view the trouble area via a mobile webcam.”
One of HP’s customers, Eastwood Printing Inc. of Kitchener, Ontario, has been in the commercial printing business for 27 years. The company recently moved into digital by installing a press from the HP Indigo lineup to work alongside its offset Komori and AB Dick machines. “The HP Indigo 5000 has given us much more flexibility,”says owner Rick Devries. “We can now serve any client requesting virtually any type of printing job. The short-run digital really complements the offset jobs we produce on the Komori. We now have variable printing options for mailing campaigns, versioning for manuals, and so on. It’s really opened up many more markets for us.”
Canon’s imagePRESS compliments offset
Canon takes a similar approach, saying its flagship digital model is the perfect complement (rather than competitor) to offset. Canon complements offset with its imagePRESS C7000VP. As the flagship model in its imagePRESS family, this digital press will simplify operations, maintain print speed, ensure outstanding image quality and produce results comparable to offset printing, says the company.
It is capable of printing true image resolutions of 1,200 x 1,200 dpi at a speed of 70 pages-per-minute on letter-sized paper. It can also handle a wide range of paper sizes and weights – up to 13” x 19.2” and 110 lb. covers.
The press uses an oil-free V (vivid) toner consisting of tiny particles containing micro-dispersed wax that applies evenly and lays flat, resulting in sharp images with the look and feel of offset, says Canon. It has an input/output paper configuration of 10,000 sheets.
“The imagePRESS C7000VP was developed with three key ideals in mind: image quality, productivity and media handling,” says Mason Olds, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Imaging Systems Group, Canon Canada, Inc.
The press offers a wide range of features and capabilities ideal for three market segments: commercial printers looking to expand their services, quick printers who want to increase production volume, and in-plant facilities that need to maintain control over colour printing costs, quality and turnaround time.
MANRoland offers a changeover
Offset printing giant MAN Roland has what it calls a digital “changeover” machine in the form of its DICOweb that offers offset printing without the plates. It’s a high-end web offset press designed to produce high-quality print in short runs with fast job turnaround times. It‘s also capable of speeding from job-to-job in less than ten minutes and only two of those minutes are required for imaging the press.
An exclusive manroland design utilizes laser imaging heads and a patented thermoplastic transfer medium to apply the job directly to the DICOweb’s image-carrying cylinders. Then, when the print run is completed, the image is automatically erased to ready the cylinders for the next project. This unique ability to image, erase and re-image jobs results in significant productivity gains, not to mention its 30,000 impression per hour run rate.
As I said earlier, this machine is really more of a digital changeover device than a press, since it actually earns money through efficient changeovers. Its advanced mechanical features improve printing performance. With a seamless cylinder, you’ve eliminated vibration—one of the main enemies of speed and print quality. The machine’s modular nature also means that, in the future, shops will be able to switch to different cutoff sizes and even different print processes to better accommodate their customers’ needs.
Manroland researchers are already studying the development of ferroelectric image carrying cylinders that incorporate the principle of U-memory ceramics. That would give users the ability to swap-out variable data elements within an image on the fly, while retaining the main fixed elements of the job. The advancement would cut down on the time and expense of re-RIPping entire pages to produce one-to-one and variable data products.
Profitable short runs on a Heidelberg
Offset leader Heidelberg has introduced an innovative alternative to digital—offset printing based on its new Anicolor technology that enables even short runs to be produced cost-efficiently.
The main argument for using digital has always been the fast and cost-effective production it offered for short runs. Offset, until now, has only made economic sense for longer runs. But the company’s new Speedmaster SM 52-4 short-inking press with Anicolour technology is changing all that, making much shorter runs cost-efficient.
For example, runs as short as 250 sheets can be printed economically because of its short make-ready times, the option of using conventional printing plates, and the small amount of paper waste generated.
Compared to conventional offset printing, a press with Anicolor technology generates up to 90% less paper waste, plus, an average of just 20 sheets are required for inking up. In fact, with a typical job mix, the Speedmaster prints more cost-efficiently than a high-end digital press from as little as 250 sheets, says the company—assuming a single-shift operation, 5-day week and a typical mix of run lengths. Also, because the press’s inking unit doesn’t have any ink zones, it can be set up in less than 7 minutes.
Thanks to minimal make-ready times, the machine is ideal for web-to-print applications. It enables the time and cost benefits of online ordering and automated job processing to be matched or even increased. For instance, invitations and business cards in runs of just a few hundred sheets are just as straightforward as typical 4-color commercial work in longer runs, such as brochures or flyers.
Komori joins the speed race
Speaking of offset getting more sophisticated, Komori introduced its Lithrone SX40 at drupa 2008 with a host of upgrades designed to further improve print quality and job cycle times. Again, speed is the key.
For example, the press has a new maximum running speed of 18,000 sph. New higher speed and fully automatic plate change with non-stop plate removal, helps increase the speed for job-to-job changeovers.
The press can change 6 plates in approximately two minutes, enabling, along with KHS-AI, a 35% reduction in job-to-job-changeover time. From the end of production on one job to an ‘OK sheet’ for the next, you’re looking at just over 6 minutes.
Workflows to match
The multiple workflows required to mix offset and digital can lead to bottlenecks and errors in prepress and file preparation, so it’s crucial to understand and adopt a workflow that ensures smooth, efficient, error-free production. Kodak and Xerox, for example, have developed workflows that are easily integrated.
Kodak’s Unified Workflow enables an offset printer to grow into digital print, including variable data, all within one workflow. FreeFlow from Xerox combines a number of integrated, automated, and modular workflow solutions and, it can also be added to existing offset workflows such as Kodak Prinergy and Heidelberg Prinect without changing existing production processes.
What does the future hold?
In the May issue of Graphic Arts Magazine, columnist and wide-format printing specialist Peter Dulis revealed that, next year in North America, approximately 53 trillion documents will be printed. Despite the fact that only 9% will be digital, the numbers continue to rise—faster than traditional offset. According to one North American study done by InfoTrends, the industry should expect 91% growth in full digital transpromotional output from 2006 to 2009—from 1.62 billion images to 21.72 billion.
Concurrent with digital’s dynamism, offset machines are also climbing on the sophistication ladder, and now have features that make web-to-print, variable printing, and short runs just as profitable as if they were done digitally. Other offset machines have been designed to blend seamlessly into shops using both technologies. So where will it all end?
Well, perhaps at some future point, when many of us reading this have gone to that big bindery in the sky, sophisticated printing machines will incorporate both technologies from their inception, bringing further cost advantages to the industry.
What is fountain solution?
The dampening system on a lithographic sheetfed press applies a water-based dampening or fountain solution to the printing plate before it is inked. Dampening solutions keep the non-image areas of a plate moistened so that they will not accept ink, and are applied to the entire plate.
The non-image areas of the plate, which are made that way by adsorbing a thin film of gum arabic to them during platemaking, are hydrophilic (water loving) while the image areas are hydrophobic (water repellent). The desensitizing film on the non-image areas wears off gradually as the plate continues to run on press, so the chemicals in the dampening solution replenish the desensitizing film. Ink, plate, press speed, paper, temperature, and relative humidity are the principal factors that influence the need for various dampening solutions.
Fountain Solution
Fountain solution is a water-based mixture specially formulated to dampen lithographic printing plates before they are contacted by the inking rollers. In concentrated form, it is commonly referred to as fountain concentrate, fountain etch, or just etch. Most fountain concentrates today contain synthetic desensitizers. Very few manufacturers still use natural Sudanese gum arabic because of its cost. The term dampening solution is used for the diluted etch.
Fountain Solution Ingredients
Fountain solutions are usually sold as concentrated solutions that are diluted with water to the proper concentration. Most one-step concentrates already contain a natural or synthetic gum, an alcohol substitute, and other essential ingredients, and simply require being diluted with water. With two-step concentrates, the first step generally contains all of the ingredients except the alcohol substitute, with the alcohol substitute added as part of the second step. Although this extra step might be an inconvenience, it permits the press operator to control the alcohol substitute concentration better.
The proper mixture of chemicals in the solution is critical for quality printing. Though there may be many chemicals that make up a given manufacturer’s dampening solution concentrate, the general ingredients common to most are described below.
Composition of a Fountain solution
Fountain solution composition varies for a number of reasons. Most dampening solutions, however, are acidic, with a pH of 4.0-5.5 being typical. The dampening system itself also influences the composition of the dampening solution. For example, some dampening systems require a specific percentage of alcohol (or alcohol substitute) due to the method of applying the solution to the printing plate. Sometimes, in a conventional dampening system, the use of such an additive improves print quality although its presence in the dampening solution may not be essential.
In general, a dampening solution will consist of the following ingredients:
What is pH?
pH 5 solution = 10 X more acid than a pH 6 solution pH 4 solution = 100 X more acid than a pH 6 solution
What is conductivity?
I hope this has given you a good overview of the necessary parts in a good fountain solution, and I leave you with some of the advantages of modern fountain solutions: prevention of printing plate surface oxidation; prevention of foaming in printing fountains and in dampening systems; curing of micro scratches on plate surfaces; lubrication of blanket surface; resistance to change of acidity in fountain; formation of protective film on plate surface; clean roll up; and minimum start up waste.
In connection with drupa 2008, Canon Europe has released a 51 page report which predicts an industry shake-up.
The year 2020, says the report, will see the end of declining print runs
There will be a renaissance for the small printer due to innovations in workflow and technology
Diminishing print runs will force the print industry to expand value-add services
The report, titled “Insight Report: Digital Printing Directions”, is an independent study into the future of Professional Print commissioned by Canon. It was researched and written by Professor Emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Frank Romano and a team of graduate students.
The report’s authors interviewed 600 printers globally, and looked at the professional print marketplace now as well as making projections for the future. A key finding was that digital printing looks set to lead the market by 2020, as it suits the continuing trend toward short runs and print-on-demand. In addition, the report predicts good news for small print businesses, as they will undergo a renaissance due to advances in workflow and technology, including an increased acceptance of web-to-print technologies and hybrid workflows.
Not only that, but new, easy-to-operate machinery, investment in IT training and infrastructure, and hybrid workflow will lead to a mini revolution in the way that printers approach their craft. Copy shops and quick printers will, as a result, evolve their range of services to adapt to a new digital age, according to the key findings.
Not only is the year 2020 the era of digital, it is also significant as the year that print runs finally finish declining; threats posed by global competition and electronic media—including the internet—will finally come to the end of their influence on run length. Professional printers will see a stabilization of the market, as the print volumes that can be substituted electronically will have been replaced by 2020. To date, some western print companies have seen a decline of up to 40% in print volumes in less than five years, due to global competition and “new media” substitution that has eaten away at their traditional customer base.
Professor Romano says: “Not since the 1950s, when letterpress was first threatened by offset printing, has the industry faced such a radical shift in workflow processes and the traditional skills base. In 1951, an article in a British magazine said that offset lithography was ‘only good for quick and dirty printing.’ There were plenty of articles published in the 1990s that echoed this sentiment when digital printing was first introduced. Now, a little more than 10 years later, there is an awful lot more respect being shown for the technology.”
The report also highlights that as many as one in five print jobs will be for run lengths as low as one copy, again by the year 2020. More than half of all print jobs today are for less than 2000 copies.
David Preskett, European Marketing Director of Professional Solutions at Canon Europe, says, “with the changing dynamics of the modern working environment, printers have been forced to rethink their positioning in the Professional Print market. Whilst many printers report rising revenues, their costs are rising even faster. In a market where resources are becoming scarcer, they will have limited control of how to reduce their overheads. The Insight Report finds that the new landscape demands a new way of working. As printers make less money from ink on paper they, of necessity, are adopting new revenue opportunities, primarily in digital printing, finishing, and fulfillment.”
To download your copy of the report, please visit: http://is.gd/EZT
I’ve had a lot of questions about Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, so rather than present them separately I will present them together.
Connecting to servers is not simple, at first
With Leopard, Apple has simplified the way we connect to servers and other computers that have enabled file sharing. However the simplification has also confused a number of users.
In past versions of the system, you would connect to another machine from the Finder with the Go menu. You could either choose “Connect to Server” or press “Command K” on the keyboard. Then enter either the server’s IP address or local name. You click the “Browse” button, which took you to the “Network” window where Macintosh computers would be grouped under My Network and Windows computers would be grouped under the workgroup name.
There is a new “simplified” way to connect to remote computers. In the Finder, open a new Finder Window (Command N) where you will see a list of resources on the left. (If you don’t see the list on the left press the white lozenge in the upper right corner.) Normally the list shows “Devices”, “Shared”, “Places” and “Search For”. Under the “Shared” items you should see the various computers and servers that appear in your network. To connect to another computer, simply click on the name. If Guest access is turned on you will instantly “Connect as: Guest”. However, Guest access is usually limited.
To connect as an authenticated user with more privileges, you can click the “Connect As‚Ķ” button in the upper right. Then you will get the familiar login prompt. You then enter your login name and the password on the remote computer. Now you have more privileges than a guest.
Mysterious Black Boxes abound
A user recently reported that she had black boxes appearing in her QuarkXPress document and that it had spread to the Mac. The real culprit was Universal Access’s Voice Over feature. In order to make Macs more accessible, Voice Over reads dialog boxes and menus to users with impaired vision. To aid the user, the feature also adds black boxes around the currently active area.
The mysterious black boxes appeared when the operator pressed “Command F5”, which in the past was the QuarkXPress short cut key to “send to back” and move a selected object to the back of a layout. In Mac OS X 10.5, “Command F5” turns on Voice Over. To get rid of the black boxes simply press “Command F5” again. The “Send to Back” command in QuarkXPress is now “Shift F5”.
Fixing printing with QuarkXPress and Acrobat Pro
It may seem that printing in Leopard is not ready for prime time. Many users have found that in order to get QuarkXPress to print in Leopard they have to make a PDF and then print the PDF. Printing directly doesn’t work for them...but then there are others who cannot print with the Adobe PDF virtual printer. Apple has also changed the printing functions in Leopard—the PPDs that control how printers are sent files have been moved, causing confusion.
Released before Leopard, Acrobat Professional initially was not compatible with Mac OS X 10.5. Adobe has since released version 8.1.2 of Acrobat Professional. Run, don’t walk to install this update and your PDF printing problems will vanish.
Additionally Quark has made their “Quark CUPS Filter” available to fix printing issues with their QuarkXPress application. Installing this patch and restarting the computer will correct many issues that prevent pages from printing directly.
Suitcase Con-fusion
If you are planning to or if you have upgraded to Suitcase Fusion you may be surprised to find that many of your fonts are “Missing” or cannot be “previewed”. There is an issue with the database or font vault that Suitcase uses. This problem most often occurs when you use the Migrate option to move to a new Mac.
Before you move to the new Mac, download the “Export Suitcase Sets” AppleScript from squarecirl
ceconsulting.net . It will allow you to export your Suitcase vault and then import it onto the new Mac.
The tools to automate your workflow are better than ever. Countless announcements from drupa followed the same underlying theme—workflow automation.
Automation pioneer David Watson, founder of Ultimate Technographics, will be missed after his passing at drupa this year. He introduced Impostrip at drupa in 1990 and this year was announcing a line of products to automate every part of the industry.
The Ultimate Lineup has packages specifically for digital printing, with features including PDF optimizing, Barcoding options, Digital Book and Card Stackers, and OnDemand imposing. For offset printing, there are modules offering Page Pairing, Proofing, and Smart Marks and ganging features. Ink Ready is a module for creating CIP4 PPF files, and the product levels are based on press size so you get all that you need. Ultimate has newspaper printing covered as well. The product has page pairing, which supports multiple editions and has options for web growth and fanning to compensate in prepress for imperfections in the web press.
Ultimate announced their work with other vendors to provide JDF connectivity with digital in-line and near-line booklet finishing equipment. Lastly, there is software available to impose XPS native pages, which you may remember from a previous article are native print files from machines with Windows Vista and XML capabilities.
Use the Ultimate Impostrip On Demand plugin for PowerSWITCH 08 or use the built-in hot folder feature to place folders in PowerSWITCH workflows. The new PowerSWITCH 08 has launched and the open source product, now from Enfocus, has many powerful new features to create automated workflows.
Switch 08 is a major upgrade for the whole Switch group of products. Tools for scheduling, prioritizing, and timing have been added to increase the capacity of equipment and balance loads. Improvements have been made to the already powerful FTP and Email tools to allow for timing and control over file removal.
Along with the addition of the Ultimate Impostrip On Demand plugin, there is an EFI ColorProof XT Configurator that can configure BestColor proofs based on metadata passed from the file. Many of the existing tools have been updated as well.
Currently there are a large number of vendors working together to allow you to pick and choose exactly what you need to automate your processes. We all share the same dream of a platform that is open and to which vendors can bring the very best of their products as users need them. Gradually, we will automate each process, fitting it into the workflow; we will add pieces each day, week, and month, making it better and better. You can realize this dream if you just look at the products around you and see that there are vendors working together to help the industry automate.
Find out more about Ultimate Technographics and their products at www.imposition.com and visit crossroads.gradual.com to see the who’s who of vendors supporting this dream of automation. SWITCH 08 products are available for a free trial at www.enfocus.com.
There are a number of reasons why digital and offset don’t work together more often. The speeds, costs, and production of both processes are completely dissimilar, and there are few areas of overlap—except for variable printing done on offset pieces.
The higher cost per unit of variable data printing is often outweighed by a greater return on investment (ROI), which can be as much as three times greater than that of a traditional static-printed page. Specific and targeted prints are thought to be far more effective, more appealing, and more able to draw in consumers than their mass-printed counterparts. Printing variable elements on offset-printed pieces is a hybrid printing technique with much potential, but too often it fails—not because of the technology, but because of the data we are putting into it.
As the old adage goes, “garbage in, garbage out”. Companies frequently “data mine” in an attempt to extract subtle nuggets of information from extensive generic databases. While the effort is commendable, the results have been dismal. One major problem with data mining is that none of the information discovered is truly factual. The inferences made about what men, women, teens, seniors, Ontarians, and Canadians want are just that—inferences. Pre-existing databases were not set up to be used for variable data print. Data may also be out of date or contain conflicting information from merged databases.
The solution to such database problems may seem to be creating new data yourself, but do you remember the last time someone called or emailed asking you to take a survey? Did you do it? I didn’t think so. The largest problem with getting new information is that, in an age where an increasing amount of personal information about us can be located on the Internet and the incidence of crimes such as identity theft and fraud are rising, people keep their information close to their chests. Consumers are simply reacting in a logical way to the environment that they find themselves in.
Faced with survey non-completion, companies can choose instead to keep tabs on consumers with or without their knowledge. Websites make this particularly easy, as companies can see what you looked at and bought, when you bought it, what else you looked at, and much other information. However, website tracking may alienate patrons concerned about their privacy. Being open about tracking may lead the odd customer to browse elsewhere, and secret tracking can become the target of legal action if there aren’t proper disclaimers.
So what is the best course of action for making your variable all it can be? I have always been a proponent of honesty as the best policy. Try sending an email or letter to all your loyal customers, informing them of your desire to serve them better by making sure they only receive the information they want in the format of their choosing. Use a one page multiple choice survey to start and then adapt it as need be. Offering small, nominal compensation for the completion of the survey isn’t a bad idea either. If people don’t fill it out, you’re no worse off than you were before you sent it out. If people respond, you are getting the best kind of information possible with the potential of getting more. Just don’t ask too much too soon, or too often. The perception of “company that cares” can quickly turn to “company that’s prying.”
Without information well-suited to the devices we have, variable data printing will not live up to its potential. While it may be years or even decades before we finally come up with the absolute best technology and data—and the programs to make them work together—we can still harness what we have now to the best of our abilities. So start digging deep into your data!
As always, send questions and comments to johnathonanderson@graphicartsmag.com.
The internet is here to stay. While that statement is far from revolutionary, it has taken printers some time to accept and deal with the repercussions of that fact, and then to move on to exploiting the web’s advantages.
Printers are now offering many types of e-print solutions. Business models similar to Vista Print’s have been very successful, driving profits during these difficult times. Increasingly, we see the industry open to various means of delivering the printed product to consumers. Advances in digital print have been great enablers in this change. And while we quickly catch up on e-commerce solutions, Japan has given birth to a whole new beast—m-commerce (Mobile Commerce). New internet-based business models are a step in the right direction, but the shift to mobile commerce cannot be ignored. As a result of a cutthroat market, telecom has emerged with high value-add cell phone solutions. These solutions are creating new revenue streams for advertising.
We know that e-mail in the business world has long drifted away from the computer screens and onto the Blackberries of constantly on the run professionals. However, with the evolution of 3G phone standards, we have the ability to do much more than text on our phones today. Leave it to Apple to create a device that behaves like an entertainment centre—housing music and movies along with the usual business blah blah blah (I’m speaking, of course, of the iPhone). The result, as believed by the Gartner group, is that by 2012, 50% of traveling workers will not take a laptop with them on business trips, preferring to use a PDA phone instead, and in particular the Apple iPhone. Generally, both the desktop PC and Laptop are in decline as Internet devices.
Media will of course go where the people are. If end-users are on their phones, instead of the Internet, that is where spending dollars will drift. There have been two very broad trends emerging in advertising over the past several years. There is a convergence of campaigns, with increased pressure for individual companies to manage everything from PR, to print, to web. Secondly, there is a much higher emphasis on ROI, with measurable results preferred.
M-commerce has the potential to replace many business models across various sectors while satisfying the above trends. For example, in Japan, your phone has become your wallet, allowing you to pay for various items with the device directly. 3G phones allow users to surf the Internet on their phones at much higher speeds. This means fewer coupons and commercials in their usual form, and more of them on your phone, in the near future.
A perfect example of the ways that m-commerce may affect print is ticketing. With better technology, and improved security, ticket delivery can be sent directly to your PDA. Further adding value to this function is barcode technology. The same technology that allows you to scan a skid of paper or a job docket is now letting people in to see their favourite band. This has been the case for many years of course. The key point of difference is the ticket—there isn’t one anymore—your phone is scanned directly.
The evolution of ticketing has long been moving away from traditional printing. Many companies eliminated printed tickets by enabling users to print their stubs from their home ink jet. The purchase of tickets for entertainment and travel has also moved largely online. Today the top five ticketing companies in the world have already launched, or are just about to launch, their mobile ticketing services.
The actual transaction occurs on the phone directly, without the customer needing to use a computer. In Canada, Rogers Wireless has recently partnered with Live Nation to allow users to browse the ticket database free of charge, and purchase tickets for delivery directly to the phone. The delivery charges for the mobile tickets are only $1/ticket.
According to Juniper Research,
What is a printer to do?
The last thing we want to hear about is yet another market moving away from print. Short and long term solutions are necessary. In the short term, we need to add value back to the printed ticket. Some ideas include partner coupons. A good example of this is the Pizza Pizza slice you get if the Raptors score over 100 points. You take your ticket and walk into any Pizza Pizza location to redeem your prize. Notably, the value-add for the customer (Raptors fan) is through third party advertising (Pizza Pizza). This value add is a result of little value existing for the ticket issuing company—for this company tickets are just another added cost.
In the long term, we need to provide mobile solutions in the same way we have adopted solutions for the Internet, which may mean further prepress sophistication. Since Europe and Asia are currently the main markets for mobile ticketing, we can use this lag time to gear up our capabilities—training staff on software such as Adobe’s Device Central CS3, which allows for mobile content generation.
When mobile commerce arrives, we should be ready—because though it may not be printing, it sure is profit.
RACAD’s GoPrint2 Print Driver poised to change the way printers do business online
Innovative, revolutionary software eliminates many of the obstacles associated with traditional methods of processing jobs
In a way, it’s like having your own print shop located in the business offices of every one of your clients. It’s also a very clever way to promote your services online, basically without lifting a finger.
In April of this year, RACAD Tech Inc. of Toronto (www.racadtech.com), a leading provider of internet-based solutions, and more recently, a developer of cutting-edge software for the web-to-print industry, launched GoPrint2, an online custom-branded print driver designed to streamline the processing of orders.
Bottom line here: the technology represents substantial time and cost savings for printers – and toss in promotion of a printer’s overall business as a bonus.
“Print service providers are well aware of the obstacles and bottlenecks when it comes to receiving, preflighting, approving, proofing and sending out jobs,” says Reuben Ben Quesus, President and CEO, RACAD Tech. Inc.
“Our software is really a breakthrough in helping them save substantial time and money by streamlining job processing. There really is no such tool on the market today. It’s definitely a new way of doing business online, one we feel offers huge benefits to small, medium-sized and large printers alike.”
The technology itself is really quite fascinating, and in fact, places some of the responsibility for processing jobs on the client – if you call pressing a few buttons actual work!
Client-installed
Basically, the GoPrint2 print driver is installed by one of your clients. Once it’s installed, that customer can send files directly to you just by pressing “print.”
When he or she does this, GoPrint2 automatically creates a print-ready PDF and opens a proof window for your client to view. Once the customer approves the document on the screen, the job is submitted directly to you without the need for a separate submission tool. It’s almost as if they were printing to their own desktop printer at work, except that the file is sent directly to you in an instant. An automatic e-mail verification is sent to the user, and all you need to do is the printing.
“All a client really needs to do is press a few buttons and then go and pick up his or her printed product,” says Ney Bendayan, Vice President, Operations. “This is also an ideal way of creating an effective webfront that isn’t going to cost a printer a small fortune. And the best news of all – the software can be totally personalized. Printers can incorporate their contact information, e-mail, logo, FTP details, overall design – whatever they like, in real time. This is really bonus promotion for a printer’s business online,” he adds.
From a marketing point of view, this indeed is a tremendous benefit. As each printer registers and provides their company name and other details, the information is integrated seamlessly into the GoPrint2 software and the personalized company information is attached to each product they produce, thereby promoting the printer online at the same time. The company information can also be updated in real time. There are no up-front costs because there are no installations, monthly or licensing fees.
“E-enabling graphic communications companies and printers, regardless of size, is not an option, it’s a necessity,” says Quesus. “Right now, many print service providers have been hesitant to adopt web-to-print technologies because of the cost, time investment and IT knowledge traditionally associated with these solutions. This driver gives printers a simple, easy-to-use and affordable solution.”
Accommodating large files
Recent updates of the GoPrint2 tool include a desktop icon used for file submission to a desired print producer. The icon, sitting directly on the user’s desktop, continuously promotes the business (as it’s also customizable), and features a “drag and drop” option. In other words, clients simply drag their files into the destination box, and within seconds of approval, the job is delivered to their chosen printer. The difference between the “Drag and Drop” option and the print driver, is that the desktop icon feature allows documents in their native file format to be sent to the printer, and accommodates any file size, no matter how large.
“Having our company’s icon (shortcut) right on my customer’s desktop, has benefited both of us tremendously,” says Isaac Osiel, owner of Source Imaging in Toronto.
“Sometimes I need to receive files in their native format. This feature also gave me the exposure I needed and the communication piece necessary to facilitate file submissions to me. I found it so convenient that I’ve also told my suppliers to utilize this feature.”
One of Canada’s largest print providers, Print Three, adopts the new technology.
One printer that definitely wasn’t hesitant about incorporating this new technology, and is currently reaping the benefits, is the Print Three chain.
“We chose the GoPrint2 Driver because it gave us everything we needed. It was easy to set up and it gave us a Print Three branded way to further tie our customers to us,” says Nick Daunt, Director of Major Accounts & eCommerce.
“We branded our GoPrint2 driver, ‘Print It @ Print Three’. Now, Print Three customers across Canada have a direct, Print Three branded link to their preferred Print Three centre on their own computer. No more struggling with converting to a format the store can use, finding out if the e-mail attachment ever got to the store, and if so, whether there were any problems with the file.
Our customers expect quick, high quality turnaround of their work. In a busy shop, it might sometimes take an operator several precious minutes, if not hours, to open and assess a file submitted remotely by a customer. Using ‘Print It @ Print Three’ in conjunction with our custom FTP web-to-print solution, the file gets to us securely every time. And because of the built-in preflight capability, the customer is notified of any issues or problems with the file even before our print centre knows about it.
The truth is, we believe that having this branded space integrated into our customers’ everyday desktop workspace is priceless. We always seek to position our technology tools as ‘smart’ ways to enhance efficiency for our customers and make it easier to do business with Print Three – Smart Document Centres.
Our tag line is ‘The Intelligent Way to do Business’ and we think that investing in the GoPrint2 Print Driver was an extremely cost-effective way of furthering this message and delivering additional value to our customers at the same time,” he concludes.
OEM licensing agreements with Xerox Uruguay and Gravent S.A. Argentina
Besides Print Three, RACAD Tech. signed two international OEM license agreements in May of 2008. One with Gravent S.A in Argentina, the largest paper distributor in South America, and the other with Xerox Uruguay, to distribute the GoPrint2 print drivers. Both companies saw the added value to their companies through the effectiveness of the product, as well as the continuous promotion of their companies through the customizable print driver. RACAD has similar agreements in the works.
Currently, RACAD is offering a free 30-day trial to companies interested in trying the software. You can download your customizable print driver now and send it to your clients at no expense to you or them. The GoPrint2 print driver can be accessed at
www.goprint2.com, and is also available in Spanish.
GoPrint2 Print Driver - Summary of benefits:
Does this question ever cross your mind when you are sitting waiting for Sally the marketing manager or Susan the sales rep to arrive at a meeting? It crosses my mind, and it sure bothers me.
Time and again, meetings are delayed while the chairperson waits for late participants to arrive. As time goes by, the chair becomes impatient and then degrades one of the already-present attendees by having him act as a “hound dog” who trundles off to find the absentee team members and bring them to the meeting.
Delaying the start of a meeting by waiting for people is the first step in poor meeting execution and often leads to an ineffective meeting.
What does such a delay say to those that arrive on time?
The late person is so important that the balance of the attendees must wait for his arrival and aren’t nearly as important to the company.
The meeting isn’t so important that you have to be there on time. Other activities can take precedence. Next time, no one will worry about being a little late.
Who cares about the cost of keeping people waiting? (An interesting exercise is to calculate the hourly cost of the delay by multiplying the hourly salary cost of all the people waiting by the time the meeting is delayed. It may not seem like very much, but if you further multiply by the number of meetings that are allowed to start late, it becomes an appreciable sum.) What would be the reaction of the tardy employees if they had to pay the waiting cost of those that arrived on time?
Conducting a meeting successfully
Once you’ve dealt with the tardiness issue, there are a number of other actions you can perform to assist in creating a successful meeting.
Arrange the agenda in an order that will contribute to success.
Start with an issue or issues that are likely to get unanimous support. This will create a positive environment for the participants.
Set a time for the meeting to end. A pre-determined end time should always be adhered to. If this discipline is followed, individuals can arrange their schedules accordingly and will not have to disrupt a meeting by leaving early.
Set time limits for each issue to be discussed and ensure that the participants adhere to the limits. If a meeting starts falling behind its schedule, ensure that the participants realize the meeting will either run beyond its predetermined end or some issue(s) will not be dealt with.
Pre-set time limits for each issue will ensure that unimportant issues do not take up an inappropriate amount of time and thus deny important issues the time that is necessary to properly address them.
Arrange seating in such a way that dissidents do not sit together and detract from the meeting with negative whispered comments. If people have comments to make, demand that they be made in the open in order for everyone to hear.
Set rules about distractions. Cell phones and other electronic devices should be banned from meetings. Their presence and use distracts both their users and the other participants. If the issues being discussed at a meeting are important, then the attention of the participants should be retained at all times during the meeting.
Count the votes for an issue before a meeting. In many, if not most, businesses, formal votes are not taken. However, the support an issue garners could be seen as a vote. It is important that as many negative aspects as possible are eliminated before an issue comes to an open forum.
Stick to the issues
Tempers can flare in meetings, depending on the issues discussed and the forum in which the meeting is being conducted.
When attendees are angered, they tend to attack each other (usually only verbally). The damage that occurs as a result of such attacks frequently lasts beyond the life of the issue that led to the confrontation.
The person running a meeting should insist that differences of opinion be centred on the issues and not on the proponents of the different points of view.
If a meeting is becoming disorderly, the issue causing the problem should be tabled for further review and research. This should be done before positions become so entrenched that there are no means to reach agreement either at the meeting or in the future.
Develop action plan
Develop an action plan for each issue discussed at the meeting. Participants will then feel that something has been accomplished and that there has been some value to the meeting, even if it was half an hour delayed.
How often do you attend a meeting and then begin to forget about its contents once the chair announces the meeting is adjourned?
“Too often,” is my answer to that question.
Many managers find that they have so many matters demanding their attention that once a meeting ends, its content moves to the bottom of the pile and they address the next problem facing them.
If meetings are to be effective, it is important that when a meeting’s time has elapsed, the chair does not allow the meeting’s importance to end as well.
The chair needs to see that three things happen following a meeting’s adjournment:
i) Minutes of the meeting need to be sent out promptly.
ii) An action plan needs to accompany the minutes.
iii) A follow-up plan must be implemented.
Minutes of the Meeting
It amazes me whenever meetings occur without the prompt follow-up of minutes that describe what took place and what was decided. The lack of minute preparation occurs in the private and public sectors, in social and in business environments. It is a common deficiency and it is an impediment to action following the meeting.
Minutes provide a record that can be referred to in the future. Without minutes, a great deal of time is frequently spent at subsequent meetings trying to recall what was agreed upon in a prior meeting. This leads to false recollections, misled attribution of responsibility, and the avoidance of accountability.
It is important that minutes are circulated shortly after a meeting has been held, preferably within forty-eight hours. Distributing minutes of a meeting promptly allows the meeting’s participants to review the minutes while the meeting’s business is still fresh in their minds. This enables them to respond quickly to any matter that has been recorded in a way contrary to their understanding.
If a meeting participant disagrees with something that has been included in the minutes, this disagreement should be dealt with promptly and not be delayed until the next time the committee or group meets.
Action Plan
Even when minutes are issued to the participants, frequently they are not accompanied with an action plan. Unless expected actions are clearly defined within the minutes, a plan should accompany the minutes. The plan should include a number of items:
i) A clear description of what is to be accomplished.
ii) Clear identification of the person(s) given responsibility for the task.
iii) A scheduled date for completion of the action.
iv) A communication or reporting plan outlining how the participants will be informed of the progress or completion of the action.
Follow-up
Another frequently-occurring shortcoming is lack of follow-up regarding decisions and initiatives. This lack of follow-up is one of the reasons that many people fail to see the value of meetings. They view them as a ceremony that has to be endured rather than a vital part of their management responsibilities.
Recently, I was reviewing with a senior executive the way she spent her working time. She lamented the fact that she had to spend a day a week attending the weekly meeting of an affiliated organization.
Aside from losing her time attending the meeting, she did not perceive any purpose to her attendance other than the fact that the President of the affiliated organization (her President as well) wanted her to attend. She apparently was given few assignments at the meeting and there was little or no follow-up on the matters being discussed.
When the Chair of a meeting institutes a regimen of follow-up on meeting decisions and allocated responsibilities, meetings will move quicker, more things will be accomplished, and the whole process will be more meaningful and provide greater added value to the participants and the organization.