The holiday season is fast approaching as we get ready to close out 2008.

How has this year been for you? To say “interesting” might be an understatement. We have seen governments change and then change again. Oil prices hit record highs followed by drastic declines.

As the financial crisis speeds across the globe, fear permeates almost every media headline. These are interesting times to say the least, but it’s very important that we keep some perspective – when times get tough, the tough get focused and get going.

The sky is not falling. Let’s look at some facts about Canada. Canada’s banking system was rated number one in the world by the Economic Forum followed by Sweden, Luxenbourg and Australia. The United States was ranked 40th, Britain 44th and Algeria came in last at 144th. The Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, stated: “Canada’s economy, and the balance sheets of its government, business and households are in better shape than those in most other countries to deal with the financial crisis.”

The housing market is also solid. Take Edmonton in September of 2008 as an example. It boasted the second highest number of houses ever sold in that city. Mortgage rates are also low. Sure, the stock market keeps bouncing in all directions, giving the media something to report on. All economies have their cycles – that’s what makes them stronger than the one before.

Keep it all in perspective, use this time to restructure and streamline your opertations and decide what market you want to focus on. Then go for it! It’s very easy to complain, but you must dig deeper and find something pleasant and positive to talk to your customers about. Negative conversation never helped anyone.

Please check out our Graph Expo review on page 30 and our Print World review on page 24. This being our last issue for 2008, we look forward to bringing you great features in 2009, beginning in February with “10 tips for surviving a recession in the print industry” and “Future talent – where will the next generation of talent come from?”

I would like to wish all of our readers, advertisers and their families a very happy Christmas and a bright and prosperous new year.

As always, stay positive and stay focused.

Joe Mulcahy

While on an average December day one might have several dozen conversations about various things, this year it seems the topics are split down the center between the doom and gloom of the recession and the holly-jolly of the holidays.

This leads me to believe that things are not as bad as they could be‚Ķand at the end of the day, eggnog and fruitcake will distract us. Now, I know some of you are screaming at my ignorance as you read this – especially if you are one of the newly unemployed post-Grafikom shut-down – but I have always said that you can never underestimate the power of positive thinking. Downturns in industries lead to brighter tomorrows. We twist and turn to make things better during hard times, thus making us great when times get better. Forced improvement can be very positive. Having said that, while we all know things are “interesting” to say the very least, I refuse to be grumpy during the holidays, so here I go with my unbearably happy jingle!

This past November at Ryerson, we celebrated Graphic Communications Management Awards Night – a pleasant evening enjoyed by students, their families and industry professionals who sponsor scholarships of merit and achievement. It is a wonderful event to watch as excited future printers take the stage to receive their awards and shake hands with their sponsors. Even better are the faces of proud parents, many of whom have grown up in the graphic arts business themselves. We congratulate you all.

Shortly after the awards night, we were off to Print World. My experience at Print World this year was fascinating. I think I anticipated a lot of the doom and gloom conversations. Instead, I was greeted by vendors who are enthusiastic about the future. It seemed like ideas were floating around freely. One gentleman said to me, “the time to complain has come and gone, now it’s time to get creative.” I think we all need to have a quick cry once in a while, but once we do, it’s time to move forward.

This month’s issue features a couple of new authors along with our veteran writers. The magazine’s own Brian Collins takes you through his experiences at Graph Expo, while Nicola Kidd and Nathan Witt discover the world of t-shirt printing. This month’s “My Customer Asked Me” question was on the topic of paper (or the lack thereof), answered by our newly-found paper expert, Magda Stolarczyk.

As always, we are thrilled to have Gail Nickel-Kailing share her ideas. She discusses the benefits of working with a trade printer. We know that when commercial printers offload work to their channel partners, the first ingredient must always be trust. Nickel-Kailing highlights some of the benefits of such partnerships to include extending your product offering, testing new processes and drawing on process expertise, and most importantly growth without the risk of investment in additional capacity.

Generally, as we enter a time of hardships those advantages are highly attractive. As we continue to move forward the way to success will be through this style of distributed innovation. At the heart of this model is an industry that comes together to work more efficiently and produce better results.

As you take time out this holiday season to unwind with family and friends, try not to think about work!
We hope you enjoy the issue.

Natalia Gilewicz
natalia@graphicartsmag.com

To the trade only
What does the term “to the trade” mean to you? My first thought was the small sign I saw tucked into the corner of a furniture or fabric showroom in a merchandise mart signifying that business was conducted only with retailers and interior designers – not the end customer. It said “do not enter” to me, a consumer.

After speaking to a number of companies who consider themselves to be true trade printers, it was made clear to me that there is a sharp distinction between a trade printer – “to the trade only” – and a commercial printer who sells both to end users and to other commercial printers at the same time.

According to The New Business of Distributing Print, sponsored by Print Education & Research Foundation (PERF), an auxiliary foundation to Print Services Distribution Association (PSDA), the trade association for print distributors and trade manufacturers, nearly 2/3 of companies who describe themselves as trade printers also sell direct.

For purposes of this article, we are going to define a trade service provider as a printer, laminator, finisher or bindery that sells only to other commercial printers or channel partners such as brokers, distributors, agents or resellers.

Trade relationships
Relationships between trade service providers and their customers generally fall into two categories. The first, and probably most common, is a transaction relationship; you might call it job work or spot buy. For a commercial printer with an immediate project, a trade partner is there to fill in on short notice and at the right price. In this case, the relationship is based on price and ability to deliver, and the trade printer and commercial printer may work together only once or on an irregular basis.

The second type of relationship is built around a trade printer as a supply chain partner to a commercial printer or broker, distributor, reseller or agent. The term “partnership” is used here to mean a close working relationship; and the trade printer has a vested interest in the success of his commercial printer partner. The commercial customer might supply the paper, develop the specs, and their job planners will work closely with those of the trade printer. Both partners may even implement complex job engineering and logistics management on larger, more complicated projects.

Trade printers have invested in equipment that their commercial printer customers can’t easily buy, such as a 10-colour press. In essence, the trade printer is selling time on his 10-colour press to his commercial customers. As a result, the commercial printer can offer a much wider range of products without having to make a major – and potentially risky – investment.

Through these relationships, trade printers can offer their commercial print partners knowledge of production processes, better technology infrastructures and best of breed practices to deliver quality production needed within the time frames required.

Several trade printers I spoke to reiterated that while as much as half of their business comes from transaction customers, you can “only chase price for so long.” Long-term relationships are extremely important.

Technology integration
Close partnership between a trade printer and commercial printer or reseller can incorporate some pretty sophisticated integrated technology. Web-to-print and online estimation are two common “customer-facing” applications.

Online estimation
There are arguments for and against automated online estimation and pricing. I spoke to trade printers on both sides of the discussion and there are legitimate reasons for each approach.

Online estimation pushes a large part of the responsibility to understand the job and its specifications onto the channel partner. If the buyer is a commercial printer, an online estimating tool can be very effective; after all, who knows better about print processes than a commercial printer?

However, if the buyer is an agent, distributor or reseller, he/she may not be as knowledgeable about the processes and able to use an automated system as effectively. If the buyer makes a mistake, the end result may be a job that could have been produced less expensively when estimated by someone more knowledgeable or experienced.

Because small commercial or digital printers and copy shops now have the opportunity to bid on larger more complex jobs, their trade printer partner can provide a lot of knowledge and support to help deliver those projects.

Whether price quotes are delivered automatically or through a CSR, the key is to turn them quickly so that the commercial printer or reseller can respond to his customer faster. Speed is of the essence when bidding on print jobs; the project most often goes to the fastest respondents.

Web-to-print
Some trade printers who specialize in products such as business cards, greeting cards, photo books and other items that can be templated, will offer web-to-print solutions and branded storefronts.

Using these storefronts, quick printers and small commercial printers can offer a much wider range of products as resellers and take on limited risk. The end user selects, modifies and pays for the product online, and the reseller receives a portion of the sale.

Benefits of working with a trade service provider
Partnering with a trade service provider yields a number of benefits to both commercial printers and resellers stemming from the fact that you can deliver print projects produced on equipment you don’t own.

Job in hand – no capacity
More than half of the work flowing into trade printers’ plants comes from commercial printers who simply don’t have the capacity to produce the job in the time frame the customer requires. Outsourcing to a trade printer – as a spot buy – is a common tactic to satisfying a customer.

On the whole, overcapacity is a problem in the print industry, why buy more equipment and try to keep it running when you can partner with a trade printer and use his/her equipment when you need it?

Expanded product offering
Customers who have a wide range of needs may buy from a number of print service providers – they act as their own general contractor to meet their various print needs. A commercial print partner can extend their own product or service offering by partnering with a trade partner that has different capabilities, thus, generating more revenue from existing customers or adding new customers.

Testing new products
By partnering with a trade service provider, a channel partner can test new products and build a new base without the risk of investment in expensive equipment. A commercial offset printer can test new digital offerings, a small format digital printer can test wide-format products or a printer can expand a wide variety of finishing and binding options. Should one or more of the new products or services prove to be profitable, the commercial printer can then invest in the technology knowing that it will be successful.

Tap into knowledge and expertise
A trade laminator or finisher has a huge amount of expertise around his/her service, after all that’s what his operation does all day, every day. A commercial printer may have some finishing equipment, but trade finishers are often faster and less expensive than in-house solutions.

Why? They are experts; they understand the processes completely. Trade service providers use “production-level” equipment that is faster and more efficient, and they can buy supplies and consumables at better prices because they buy in volume.

A relationship built on trust
Working relationships between manufacturing partners are by nature a delicate balance. The working arrangements can range from “casual dates” or “going steady” to “long-term engagement” and in some cases even “marriage.” All of those relationships require some level of trust between the partners.

One of the major concerns that a printer who is considering a trade partner raises is this: “Will a trade printer ‘steal’ my customer, and use our relationship to identify new prospects and then go directly to my customer, cutting me out of the relationship?”

A print service provider who promotes his business “to the trade” only has his/her reputation to speak for the company. Channel relationships are built on a foundation of trust and doubt and skepticism can develop because people have not always honoured that trust.

There are three key elements to building a trusting relationship:

• Trust is built over time
• A trade printer must be “faithful” and not do business with any client’s customer
• A broker, distributor, agent or reseller can’t “bait-and-switch.”

Over and over again, I heard the same message: there must be trust between the trade service provider and his/her channel partners. That trust takes time to develop, and it can be lost quickly.

For a commercial printer working with a trade printer, there has to be a very high level of trust. Press checks, for example, mean that a print buyer will be in the trade operation. The trade partner must know that the trade supplier is not going to call on his/her customer.

A trade supplier who focuses on channel partners wants them to be his/her sales force; the trade supplier doesn’t have the feet on the street to sell direct, nor does he/she want to.

On the flip side, I’ve heard stories of brokers or distributors who work with trade suppliers to engineer complex jobs, even to the point of developing prototypes, and then give the job to someone else. Resellers who practise “bait and switch” tactics to simply get the lowest cost and highest margin are burning their own bridges.

No trade supplier is going to develop a long-term relationship with someone who is clearly taking advantage of his/her knowledge and expertise for short-term personal gain.

Over and over again, it was expressed to me that printers who print for end customers and other printers are not true trade printers. It may be hard for trade suppliers to stand their ground as a wholesaler and sell only to commercial printers and resellers – and not to end users – in these difficult economic times.

That said, to keep the balance of the market, and to maintain that trust, the trade printer should not reach out to the end customer. If that decision is made, the trade printer is no longer “to the trade only” but competes on the “commercial printer” playing field.

The east may have lost this year’s Canadian football prize, but there was one big winner on Grey Cup Weekend – the printing industry!

While exact attendance figures were not available at press time, it appears that Saturday, Nov. 22 was by far the best day of the recently concluded Print World Show held Nov. 22 – 24 at Toronto’s Direct Energy Centre.

Showcasing the world of shorter-run printing, the majority of exhibitors were pleased with the large, continuous crowds from mid-morning Saturday until the end of the day. Sunday’s crowds were steady but tapered off later in the day, likely due to the 6pm start of the Grey Cup. Monday’s crowds saw more students and designers attend the show.

But, the important aspect of the 3-day event, says show manager, Sandy Donald, was the quality, not the quantity, of those who attended – i.e. the key buyers, decision-makers and industry movers and shakers.

“We’re extremely pleased that all the major press manufacturers were there,” he says. “We also had more overseas exhibitors than in the past.”

Chinese press manufacturer Hans Gronhi, for example, exhibited for the first time in North America. As well, this year’s Design City was the largest it’s ever been, with many exhibitors requiring larger areas to showcase their products and services.

Show officials limited the size of offset presses on exhibit to 29” (4-up to 6-up sheet size) and smaller over the total 125,000 sq. ft. of floor space.

Two new attractions this year were UPEX, a worldwide marketplace for pre-owned printing equipment and the International Pavilion, a special marketplace showcasing manufacturers and suppliers from around the world.

The Print Software Theatre was once again one of the show’s major returning attractions. Another special attraction, the Professional Seminar and Workshop Series, offered rare insight into topics such as how to produce colour-accurate work, how to sell design, selling to the new print buyer, assessing a printing company’s net worth and how to profit from selling printing on the internet.

HP Canada, for instance, showcased a number of recently launched key technologies. Making their Canadian debut at the show were the HP Designjet L65500, the first of a new category of large-format signage printers to feature HP latex inks and the HP Scitex FB950 printer, which provides high quality point-of-purchase/point-of-sale trade and event signage on virtually any rigid or flexible media. The L65500 outputs up to 104” at up to 1,200 dpi. HP latex inks on original HP media will last up to three years non-laminated and up to five years laminated.

Danny Ionescu, V.P., Graphic Arts, HP Canada, also shared the company’s go-to-market strategy for HP’s large-format signage and POP product portfolio. HP has established a Colour Elite Reseller Channel focused on the print service provider. These Canadian authorized resellers, including Access Imaging, Mondrian-Hall and Unisource, will provide pre-sales and post-sales support and colour management solutions to their customers as well as in-and-out-of-service work.

“Our focus as a company is on progressive, profitable printing,” says Ionescu. “Through this strategy, HP will work with our channel partners and our mutual customers to help them grow their profitability by delivering the technology, services and support they’re looking for.”

Tony Karg, senior director of business development & marketing (graphic systems) for Fujifilm was also pleased with the show.

“Given the challenging economic climate, we were pleased with the level of interest and attendance at the show. We found that Fujifilm’s message of being the key technology supplier of offset, digital and display graphic printing solutions, while leading by example in environmental sustainability, resonated well with show visitors,” he says.

“We had good crowds for Saturday and Monday, with only a few hours of good traffic on Sunday. Print World is a worthwhile investment for Fujifilm to highlight its commitment to our customers and to the Canadian market. In our opinion, we have to reach out to them and demonstrate how Fujifilm technologies add value, reduce their costs and help grow their business volume,” he adds. “That means exhibiting at trade shows in Canada, and backing our solutions with our local sales and Canada’s largest technical services organization.”

KBA Canada was the first booth to catch your eye as you passed through the show’s main entrance – but it was two of the company’s breakthrough presses that kept turning heads. “We were very pleased with the show,” says Lawrence Robinson, V.P. of sales for KBA Canada. “Most important, we received a tremendous amount of interest in our Genius as well as our Rapida presses. In fact, over 30 visitors specifically expressed a keen interest in the technology behind our Genius 52UV,” he adds.

The Genius 52UV has a maximum production speed of 8,000 sph, but what visitors were primarily interested in was the quality and cost efficiency when printing sensitive substrates such as film or hard plastic. Basically, the press incorporates some unique features that allow printers to capture new markets by establishing a reputation for creating imaginative products from all kinds of non-absorbent materials.

“Print World 2008 provided us with a great opportunity to present our vast portfolio of equipment and consumable products, especially to the small-format printer,” says Brian Ellis, director of marketing for Heidelberg Canada. “While the participation was not as robust as other years, I firmly believe that this was a reflection of the current economic climate. However, many optimistic customers still took the time to meet with us and invest in our prepress, press, post-press and Saphira consumable products,” he adds.

Millenium Printing’s, Neeraj Gupta felt the show was an excellent opportunity to re-establish ties with former customers as well as to meet existing and new clients. “A lot of people have heard our name but have not met us in person,” he says. “We stressed the fact that our company has always been dedicated to working as a team with our clients and that their needs come first.”

At its booth, Millenium was giving away a very innovative promotional calendar. Every single page had a different finish (UV, raised printing, die cut, embossed, etc.) and doubled as an ideal promotional catalogue for its printer clients because it had no identifying Millenium logo.

Watch out for print finishing equipment supplier Sydney R. Stone & Co. Ltd. to add a new, youthful energy, enthusiasm and increased level of technical expertise to its sales and service repertoire. New owners Dylan Westgate and Michael Steele felt that they got some good, quality leads from the show. “There was a large cross-section of visitors and plenty of interest, especially in our creasing equipment,” says Westgate. “We know the equipment inside-out, plan to see to more industry people and definitely increase the quality of our after-sales service.”

Tom Reilly, V.P. of marketing for Gandinnovations, echoes the comments of many exhibitors at the show. “It wasn’t so much the number of people who visited our booth, but the quality,” he says. “Our booth attracted some serious buyers, so the show overall was very productive from our point of view.”

Reilly cited the Jeti 3324 AquaJet (a 3-metre, water-based, dispersed-dye digital) and the 3348 Jetspeed (a UV roll-to-roll digital), as two machines that turned a lot of heads at its booth. Increasingly, print shops are looking for more output capabilities such as imaging onto metal, wood and glass, in addition to the more traditional vinyl, canvas and other flexible synthetic materials, the company notes.

Bowe Bell+Howell Canada (BBH), selling solutions to the print/mail market in Canada for over 50 years, showcased products from its traditional line such as its Phillipsburg Mark II inserter, as well as solutions from its partners Buskro Inkjet Systems, and Duplo Print Finishing products. BBH is also sales and service providers for Buskro and the full line of Duplo products.
“We had a very good show overall with some on-the-spot sales and strong interest in all our products on display,” says Wayne Quesnelle, Canadian sales director for BBH. “I believe we can offer a lot to printers in the digital print market and also, of course, for those printers considering mailing as a value-added revenue generator for their business. With decades of experience in variable print, based on our history in transactional mail, we can help bring quality and integrity into variable print with tools such as JETVision Print Inspection,” he adds.

Quesnelle also mentioned that with print finishing equipment becoming more sophisticated (imbedded software, variable print handling capability, etc.), BBH’s cross-Canada network of factory-trained technicians brings an extra level of support uncommon in the industry. “ We see a continued convergence of our traditional mailing and printing markets into graphic communications companies that manage the full spectrum of customer communications. We were encouraged by the solid interest at Print World, and we think 2009 is going to be an exciting year for those companies we help to embrace change.”

Graph Expo took place in Chicago at McCormick Place this year from Oct. 26-29. It was the largest show of its kind in North America, bringing over 600 exhibitors together in an incredible venue that spanned over 400,000 net square feet. There was a general consensus at the show that attendance was down from previous years, and the official stats from the show confirmed that feeling to be true as attendance was down 12.5% compared to 2007. Some felt that this trimmed the fat on attendance and the people who did attend were actually there with a purpose – to do some real business. This was much to the delight of exhibitors who in the past have been swarmed with attendees and leads which often did not translate into revenue.

There were over 70 educational opportunities for industry professionals to hear about the latest technologies, techniques and ideas to help improve their businesses back home. Graph Expo’s organizers gave professionals from around the continent a chance to come together to learn and generate new ideas that they could take home to their shops and businesses to improve themselves and the industry as a whole.

This was my first time attending Graph Expo, and it was certainly an incredible one, especially given its setting. Chicago is an exciting and fast-paced cosmopolitan city with a rich history and amazing architecture around every corner.

The enormous size of the venue at McCormick Place was enough to make the most hardened set of feet melt like butter by the end of the day. I learned my lesson after the first day and would recommend to anyone who is attending future shows to invest in a pair of comfortable shoes. The seasoned veterans of the show were easily spotted with their fancy suits tapering off into a pair of comfortable running shoes.

The show started off with the Executive Outlook conference that took place on the Saturday before the show began. It drew interested business owners and managers who wanted to learn about where the industry is going and what new technologies are important to have in order to stay competitive. Some highlights from the Executive Outlook agenda were the “Be Green” segment highlighting the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP) by Gary Jones, manager, Environmental Information, PIA/GATF, and Dr. Joe Webb’s “Which way and when is up?”

The “Be Green” segment informed us how the SGP is working to help the printing industry define what sustainable green printing is and how businesses can take steps to establish sustainable manufacturing and business practices. SGP is an independent third party recognition organization that provides benchmarking tools to the printing industry. It is a collaboration between PIA/GATF, FTA and SGIA. It provides a published list of criteria and verifies that partners meet those criteria of green and sustainable practices. This segment of the presentations provided information about how becoming Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified doesn’t necessarily make you a green and sustainable printer. It only means that you are using paper that has been produced with responsible forest management practices. Companies that are FSC certified may still be very significant polluters in other aspects and areas of their business operations. The SGP is trying to set a comprehensive benchmark for our industry to work off of in order to diminish its environmental footprint and be sustainable for future generations.

Dr. Joe Webb provided a wealth of information with many graphs and figures that were heavily slanted into the negative numbers. The steep graphs looked like double black diamond ski slopes dropping to the floor. This confirmed the fears of many and gave specific number values to what was already generally known by all – the printing industry, like many others, is in trouble right now.

Business owners who want to buy new equipment and have adequate demand for their products are being denied the credit they need to purchase these expensive pieces of technology. This, in turn, hurts the bottom line – along with many other things – of the producers of these machines and technologies because their potential customers who want to buy their products simply cannot do it anymore.

The crowd at Executive Outlook seemed to be looking for some sort of magic button and quick solution that Dr. Joe could pull out of a hat in front of them. All of the shortcomings of the industry and negative figures were presented, but unfortunately when it came to prescribing a solution for the industry’s sickness, Dr. Joe is still looking for the right medicine.
Dr. Joe’s recommendations were rather generalized as he explained to us that you can’t control market prices so try to control your costs by changing procedures, workflows and tools, focusing on total costs and ROI. Get the right products, the right people, the right equipment and get rid of underused equipment immediately. Push trackable short-term projects and make sure you keep debt low and under control. Focus on market creation and invest in people. Merely sustaining your business is a losing strategy and you must expand your product offerings, expand your market coverage, and push weak competitors out of business to be successful.

These are good recommendations for just about any business but I think attendees were looking for more specifics and solid directions. If there is a magic button, the respected experts in our field have yet to discover it. A quick fix solution is not what we need right now anyway. Major surgery will likely be required and we have already seen many cuts throughout the industry, but a full recovery should be expected.

At the Heidelberg press conference, Heidelberg provided the gold medalists from the 2008 SkillsUSA Championships with a $1,000 scholarship award and an invitation to attend Graph Expo 2008 with their instructors for two days. The gold medalists will also be awarded with the use of a Heidelberg model QM46 for their schools for a period of one year.

The event, where these medals were won, was part of the 44th National Leadership and Skills Conference. It showcases the nation’s top career and technical education students. Its purpose is to reward students for excellence, involve industry in evaluating their performance and provide training relevant to employer needs. The awards were given out at both the post-secondary and secondary level to encourage youths to get involved with the industry. This will likely lead students to foster good feelings about the industry and promote it as a viable career path. Reaching youth at both the undergrad and high school level is important because it deepens the roots and will encourage youths to spread the word to their peers about great opportunities in the print industry. The youth involved in these programs might just turn out to be the industry’s best and most underused marketing tool.

It was really great to see a company recognizing a problem, not just within its own organization, but the industry as a whole. They are taking steps to try and support the effort to alleviate the problem and reduce its impact. What is the problem? The printing and graphic arts industries desperately need to attract young people as about half of the workforce is 46-years-old and older.

As I rode the escalators in the morning, it was easy to observe that a large portion of the people on the escalator with me were older gentlemen. Now, I realize that only the top and most important people generally go to the show from each company (usually older), however, companies should consider sending younger employees so they develop skills for the future when the more experienced employees are retired.

Finding experienced employees retiring will prove to be a major problem in the printing industry, as a large portion of our population retires. Recently, a labour market report funded by the government of Canada’s Print Industries Sector Council program surveyed 8,345 industry companies and found that:

• Men make up 63% of the print industry’s workforce
• 49% of industry employees are aged 46 and above
• A lack of education and training programs relevant to the industry is a critical concern
• 53% of employers depend on networks, personal contacts and word-of-mouth to recruit new staff

Graph Expo has made a great effort to mend the aforementioned industry problems. They gave free exhibit space to schools with programs for our industry. Supporting these programs and institutions should be on everyone’s agenda as they provide the building blocks necessary to be successful. They will learn ways of becoming more innovative and professional, which will improve and enhance the industry as a whole. Through these education programs, they will learn ways to practice business in a sustainable manner.

Currently, many printing businesses are merely slashing prices until profit margins become razor thin and the competition is forced to do the same to compete. Businesses with great products are struggling to stay competitive due to the incomprehensibly low prices of the competition. This just eats away at the industry, and the people slashing their prices to beat out the competition are only hurting themselves in the long run.

On a lighter note, 4over had one of the most popular and hyped up booths with a half dozen scantily clad Luvabulls (Chicago Bulls cheerleaders) posing for pictures with attendees. The picture was superimposed onto a fake magazine cover with the Chicago skyline in the background and a headline reading “Business Man of The Year.” I wonder how successful the show will prove to be for them from a business standpoint. They definitely drew in a lot of traffic, but will the post show revenue generation be reflective of that? If the goal was to get noticed at the show and publicize their brand then they certainly accomplished that as it drew in the most excitement and attention from the largely male population at the show.

We learned at the press conference that KBA proved to be the world’s fastest make-ready champion at drupa 2008. A customer asked them to produce as many jobs as they could on the show floor in one hour. KBA impressed a crowd of almost 100 that gathered to see all the excitement by producing 15 jobs in an hour (59.36). The production requirement was to run 500 high-quality signatures on each piece, printed on two sides, in line on the Rapida 106 8-colour perfector. The production run involved changing eight plates 14 times, washing blankets and using the continuous feeder and delivery. The production runs were made ready and produced in less than four minutes for each of the 15 signatures. This impressed both the crowd at drupa and the crowd at the Graph Expo press conference.

The JDF Works Print Shop Live! booth was another highlight of the show that involved many companies coming together to minimize processing time and labour while maximizing throughput. Vendors participating included Avanti, Kodak, FOLDRite, Adobe and Duplo. They were giving live demonstrations of a digital print job being put through production on-site. The job was created in Adobe’s InDesign Server via a web browser interface with a FOLDRite folding template and the source PDF. JDF job intent, folding parameters and business ordering information was then passed through to Avanti Print MIS where the job was captured and organized, and JDF and JMF were created and passed to Kodak’s Prinergy prepress workflow and Duplo’s DC-645 Slitter/Cutter/Creaser. Kodak Prinergy, then, prepared the job through multiple prepress operations and sent the job to a Kodak NexPress M700 Digital Press. Printed sheets were then transferred to the Duplo DC-645, which was setup automatically according to the JDF provided by Avanti. This was a really incredible booth to visit and see exactly how well all of these systems and products could work together, just like in a real print shop.

The show was a great learning experience for me, as I am sure it was for many attendees. It was well-organized and provided a lot of information and opportunities to learn about innovation and new technology in our industry. If you did not attend this year’s show, I would definitely recommend that you get yourself down to Chicago next September and experience it for yourself! Just make sure you bring your comforable shoes and an open mind.

This question was recently asked in an Internet poll.

At the time of the poll, 45% of the participants indicated that the crash had hurt them a lot. Another 30% indicated that they had been hurt a little, while 26% indicated that they hadn’t been hurt at all.

The surprising statistic isn’t the 45%, but rather the 26% who indicated that they hadn’t been hurt.

Undoubtedly, there are people who haven’t invested in equities who believe they haven’t taken a hit. Perhaps, some haven’t. However, it’s likely that a lot of people who believe they haven’t been affected have been hurt more than they can imagine.
The impact that this market downturn has had on pension fund viability and the viability of RRSPs hasn’t been fully realized as of yet; well-run pension funds that prudently invested have been hurt significantly. RRSPs with conservative investment strategies have been greatly damaged.

An acquaintance of mine was relating the other day how people at his place of work are in a state of denial. They just aren’t opening up the latest report from their financial advisor or their latest RRSP report.

Implications for business
1. If your company has its own defined benefit pension plan, it is likely that your actuary will direct you to increase your rate of contribution in order to improve the solvency ratio of the plan. Given the poor performance of equities and the low return on fixed income over the past few years, it is likely that the required increase will be substantial.

2. Over the last two or three decades, many companies have exited from defined benefit arrangements and have moved to defined contribution plans or group RRSPs. This was seen as a brilliant cost containment move. Administration fees were greatly reduced and all the risk was passed onto the employee.

The majority of these plans will have been hurt by the market collapse. Those who were planning to retire in the next few years will soon realize (if they haven’t already), that they no longer have sufficient money in their accounts to do so. They will realize that if they retire as planned, it won’t be at the level of economic comfort they were hoping for. Remember, we are not yet in a period of price deflation; the cost of living has not decreased in line with the decline in anticipated post-retirement income.

If the market continues to “tank,” the retirement funds will continue to diminish and planned post-retirement income will get smaller and smaller.

This situation will undoubtedly lead to more people working for a longer period of time than they and their employer had previously planned.

In a number of Canadian jurisdictions, mandatory retirement no longer exists. This means that employees have the right to continue to work until they decide to retire.

If an employer forces an older employee to retire against his/her wishes, the employer has a liability for severance and separation pay equivalent to that owing younger workers.

3. Employers/owners may find that their own retirement plans will also have to be altered as a result of a significant reduction in the value of their RRSP or similar investment vehicle. Other than the fact that an owner will have to work longer, it may also have an affect on their relationship with the person that has been designated to succeed them.

Planning ahead
The news may not be all bad. The employee’s need to work longer before retirement may mean that the company can retain a special skill set that they had anticipated losing to retirement.

Some employees who had planned on retiring could be interested in part-time work to provide them with additional post-retirement income. This could work to the advantage of both the employer and the employee.

In those cases where an employer has been looking forward to an employee’s retirement because of declining abilities and performance, a plan of action with good reporting will be needed. Impulsive termination of such employees could prove to be costly.

Employers will need to plan what their benefit policy will be for employees who decide to forego retirement at age 65. It is likely that benefit premiums will increase for such employees if the employer decides to keep them in the company’s benefit plans.

Summary
The decimating decline in the stock market is likely to have far reaching effects on the way businesses run. Planning ahead has never been more important. The crucial thing is to plan those issues that can be managed and controlled.

New eco-friendly legislation is starting to change the way most wide-format print providers run their businesses. Since solvent-based ink is volatile and releases chemicals into the air, there are many health concerns starting to come to the forefront. New laws mandating the reduction of VOCs are leading printer manufacturers to develop less volatile inks and come up with greener products.

There is an increasing demand among worldwide consumers for products that preserve the environment. Today, larger corporations are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint in this world, and this will eventually trickle down to mid-sized and small businesses as well. Therefore, we are starting to see more environmentally-friendly printers hitting the market.

While aqueous-based printers have always had an eco-friendly status, they have been used primarily for indoor print applications. Eventually, we’ll reach a point when customer demands for outdoor printing will drive the transition from solvent (traditional and mild/eco) to greener technologies like bio-solvent and UV inks. But, before this happens, customers will need to see advancements that will drive the cost per print and increase durability to a level equal or better than that of traditional solvent output.

At the recent CONSAC trade show in Toronto, we saw several new ink technologies which are heading in the right direction with being more environmentally friendly. While these ink formulations hold promise for the future, their image quality and durability has yet to stand the test of time, but we expect demand for these inks to rise as the technology advances. So, we would like to explore four environmentally-friendly print technologies available in today’s market.

Mimaki
Mimaki has announced its new 60-inch, UV-curable inkjet printer, UJV-160, using environmentally-friendly UV-LED technology, which does not generate heat and has a flexible UV ink that has been developed together with 3M. The UJV-160 will offer 4- or 8-colour printing, handle rigid media up to 7mm thick and offer print resolutions up to 1200√ó1200 dpi. The new 7-colour UV flexible inkset (CMYKcmW) will offer high pigment density and minimal VOCs.

Imaging with variable-drop sizes as small as 6 pl, the anticipated 4-colour print speeds will have a top speed of 140 sq. ft/hr. in draft mode (600 dpi, 4-pass), a normal mode speed of 43 sq. ft/hr. at 600 dpi, 8-pass and 22 sq. ft/hr. for fine-mode imaging at 1200 dpi in 16-pass.

Conventional UV lamps emit infrared rays that create excessive heat and sometimes ozone. Both of these negative effects of conventional UV printing are eliminated with LED-curing technology. The LED lamp emits only ultraviolet rays that do not create heat and, consequently, the power consumption is less than half of that needed by traditional UV lamps, thereby significantly saving energy costs. In this respect, UV-LED technology is a breakthrough new technology in step with the latest environmental demands.

Mimaki reports that it anticipates a shift toward flexible UV printing for various applications, such as P-O-P, imaging onto clear and metallic surfaces, textiles, rigid media and vehicle graphics. Projected price: approximately $80,000.

Mutoh
Mutoh’s new ValueJet 1608-64” is a hybrid flatbed printer using Mutoh’s new MUBIO INK, which is recognized by the EPA Design for the Environment program. The ink is composed of 80% plant-derived substances, contains no harmful VOCs and has faster drying times. The ValueJet Hybrid features drop-on-demand Micro Piezo Inkjet technology. It is a 4-colour printer with a maximum resolution of 1440 dpi and automatic media thickness detection. The MUBIO INK is available in 880ml ink packs.

The ValueJet 1608 can reach speeds up to 140 sq. ft/hr. in production mode and can be used for both car wraps or to print directly onto corrugated plastics, polystyrene, PVC, acrylic, polycarbonate, foam board, aluminium composite, banner, wall covering and more.

The quality coming off this printer is excellent. This is due to Mutoh’s Intelligent Interweaving print technology. Mutoh has taken a totally new approach with this technology. Ink is laid down carefully in optimized wave forms; not in straight lines used in traditional printing practices. This approach drastically reduces, or even eliminates, typical inkjet printing artefacts, such as horizontal banding, step mismatch banding, ink mottle, etc. In short, Intelligent Interweaving will allow bi-directional printing of all images, even for the most critical jobs. The new ValueJet 1608 hybrid printer will include the flatbed table and is priced at $44,997 Cdn.

HP L65500 Latex Printer
HP showcased its 104-inch HP Designjet L65500 printer for the first time in Canada at CONSAC. HP reports that these new printers with water-based HP latex inks are odourless and emit extremely low levels of VOCs. The printer, slated for an early 2009 roll out, is designed for outdoor as well as indoor applications—ranging from point-of-purchase displays, transit signage, wall murals and exhibition graphics to vehicle graphics and fleet marking.

The 6-colour roll-fed machine (CMYKcm) boasts a maximum speed of 800 sq. ft/hr. for outdoor-quality prints and a speed of 400 sq. ft/hr. for indoor-quality output. Its top resolution is 1200√ó600 dpi.

HP reports that the HP latex inks require no special ventilation to meet occupational exposure limits, and there are no requirements for air-discharge permits. In addition, they are not classified as hazardous waste, don’t contain hazardous air pollutants or sensitizers and do not produce ozone emissions during printing.

Aqueous Printers
With aqueous printers, water is the primary “carrier,” which carries the pigment or dye to the printed substrate; therefore, no harmful odours are emitted during this kind of printing process, making them environmentally-friendly printers, which can be used in any office environment.

From all the reports I have read, it is expected that the worldwide market for large-format aqueous inkjet will continue to grow, driven by trends in the photographic, giclee art reproduction, technical document, digital graphics and the general office/business environment.

Manufacturers such as Epson, HP and Canon have remained firm believers in aqueous-based printers. These vendors have recently added faster and wider models to their portfolios, suggesting a strong demand across the photography, fine art, proofing and display sectors (due to their expanded colour gamut and higher image quality). For short-term point-of-purchase work, aqueous printers are making a comeback as well. Canon has put a lot of research and development into their aqueous printer line-up, which now includes seven graphic arts printers and nine technical and general office printers. Prices start from $1645 Cdn.

Have you ever heard something funny and thought to yourself “that would make a great t-shirt!” Most of us have, even if we are the only ones amused. Well, it’s now completely possible through direct-to-garment (DTG) printing.

The inkjet-based process is also known as inkjet-to-garment printing and allows for the efficient production of one-off garments. Until almost five years ago it would’ve been very costly for textile screen printers to do so, but now that inkjet printers are being used for small-run jobs they seem to be creating a market all their own.

What made DTG technology so beneficial in its introduction was that it could take care of those orders that were most expensive to produce. This technology lends itself to individual customization and becomes perfect for small-run jobs because it applies the file-to-print features of inkjet printing directly onto the garment. Now screen printers don’t have to turn down the single to 25 shirt orders because of setup costs (no film output, screen preparation, registration or washout).
DTG printers can supplement screen printing in the same way inkjet supplements other printing technologies. They can be used to create samples for customers that can turn into large-screen printing orders. They can be used to finish orders in which customers request another 10 shirts after the screens have already been reclaimed.

Since the introduction of combination digital/screen printers from Makki USA, garment decorators can offer full colour, photographic images with some of the same special effects (glitter, puff inks, glow-in-the-dark) and vivid colours that screen printing makes possible. Even variable-data software is being applied to t-shirt creation.

One of the most popular avenues that DTG technology has opened up is the “design your own t-shirt” websites. These sites allow users to upload their artwork, add text and see it on a garment of their choice. Most of these sites also offer some image/text editing tools that become incredibly appealing to consumers when paired with instant pricing.

Companies like Wordan’s (Montreal) are start-up companies based on this concept, and traditional screen printers like CustomInk (Atlanta) successfully offer both services through their site. T-Shirt Monster Inc. (Oakville) started up around DTG technology and uses their site as a cross-promotional tool, for themselves and their product offering. They teamed up with James Ready Breweries to offer James Ready fans access to logos, beer labels and other artwork, and even held a t-shirt design competition; all done through their website.

Even with all of the buzz about DTG in the textile printing industry, it’s estimated that as of last year as little as 5% of garment decorators owned the technology. So, what is making screen printers so reluctant to embrace the technology?
One of the biggest concerns is that it’s an entirely different workflow compared to the traditional silkscreen process. Many devices use proprietary RIP-systems; in addition, the digital aspect creates the issue of colour management, which can be daunting for those who seldom use process colour ink sets. Most systems also require significant amounts of maintenance.
One of the biggest objections to DTG when it first came out was its inability to print on dark shirts. White ink is now available as a base coat and is being used very successfully by many, though far from perfect. The pigments used in most white inks are larger, and when they go unused for periods of time they can settle and clog or damage print heads.

Additionally, white ink is more expensive, and its application can slow production, increasing the cost per shirt by over 50%.
Traditional screen printed inks produce brighter, more vibrant colours than current inkjet products. Tracey Johnston-Aldworth of Traces Screen Printing Ltd. (Waterloo, ON) says that overall quality is the main reason they have not invested in a DTG printer yet. Comparing the DTG printed samples and wash-tests, they noted that “the quality of the devices we were looking at just wasn’t at the level of what our customers, I think, would expect from us.”

Instead, they invested in an automatic screen printer and for now sticking to the larger orders. They also noted that screen printing is a more “organic” process, where skilled workers can fix an image and/or colour problems without starting over or ruining garments, whereas DTG would require reprinting on new merchandise, unless you take the time to test print every image first.

So what does the future hold for DTG and screen printing? The machines are constantly getting faster and the washability, pigment brightness and white inks are improving, but don’t look for inkjet to replace screen printing anytime in the near future. There are many cases where customers just can’t get the same effects like they can from screen inks.
Automatic screen printers are becoming more popular and the introduction of computer-to-screen (CTS) technology eliminates the steps of having to print colour separations to film before exposing screens. As both digital and screen technologies improve, it will be interesting to see where they go and what new innovative ideas printers will find for direct-to-garment printing.

Serious attention is focused on workflow automation. Now, with an online community at www.crossroads-world.com, the industry has a forum to share ideas, discuss issues directly with the third party developers and find local partners for custom solutions.

What holds many people back is not knowing how or where to start. Here are some steps to follow to find your path to automation:

Start with what you know. You can take a process that exists and find the parts in that process that can benefit from automation.

Get ideas from examples. The Crossroads-World website has sample flows for many types of processes. It’s a great starting point for ideas.

Think outside prepress. Sure, prepress is where it all starts—files, preflighting, pdf creation—but there is more. The data starts here, but can be reused to automate data entry in your database, send data to your presses and bindery and automate shipping. Think of an automation workflow as something that will work with your employees, free them of repetitive tasks and allow them to produce in an environment where errors are significantly reduced.

Once you have your “big picture” for automating your workflows, you can really see what is available to you on the Crossroads-World community. On this site, you can get information directly from software creators that have solutions for all types of situations covering colour, pdf, imposition, preflight and design. There is access to integrators who can help with workflow details and create custom scripts to connect all the pieces. Scripts fit into your workflow and connect to your internal systems enabling you to get the full benefit of your automation strategy.

Enfocus SWITCH is the platform for creating workflows. The user forum at www.crossroads-world.com has access to all the software developers and integrators connected with the platform and it’s still growing. SWITCH is an open platform giving users the ability to write in any custom plug-ins they need. It is also cross-platform, running on Mac or PC.

There are three levels of entry using SWITCH automation. Starting with LightSWITCH for file manipulation and sorting, it is powerful enough to pull information out of files to decide where they should go. FullSWITCH has everything in LightSWITCH, plus the capability of adding third party plug-ins including scriptable Adobe Creative Suites plug-ins, Quark, imposition software, preflight for files and pdfs, colour and more.

PowerSWITCH helps with the bigger picture allowing you to add custom scripts and plug-ins to everything that was available in FullSWITCH. The power is client access that can capture metadata using JDF, XMP and XML data to talk to every corner of your business.

Products like these will not only increase your capacity and reduce your errors, but it will expose your employees to new ways of doing things, ones that they can be involved in.

Get to work on your “big picture.” It will put you on the path to making your business more competitive and efficient. Learning something new has always been the daily routine in the printing industry anyway.

New revenue streams for the traditional printer

At the Oct. 15 meeting, the Digital Imaging Association once again delivered high-value to all attendees.

Security is becoming ubiquitous in every aspect of our lives. A recent survey of 186 global organizations by ABI Research found that Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is being used or evaluated for a growing number of applications across a wide range of vertical industry sectors, from security-based applications to supply chain management to multiple avenues of asset tracking.

Simultaneously, printing inks have been developed that support RFID, as well as a full suite of covert and discreet taggant technologies to thwart counterfeiting.

Representatives from GS1 Canada and Sun Chemical provided a wealth of information on RFID and security inks. The presenters demonstrated how incorporating these unique tools could become value-added resources to print product offerings.

RFID
Nigel Wood, Director of Standards, GS1 Canada and dean of GS1 Canada Education Centre was the evening’s first presenter. Nigel is a recognized expert in electronic commerce. He covered bar coding, electronic data interchange (EDI), electronic product code (EPD) and RFID technology, global data synchronization and product identification.

Automatic identification and data capture is not new. Since the early 1970s, the universal product code (UPC) symbols have been a visible tool of product identification. The symbol is comprised of a machine-readable bar code, requiring line-of-site scanning or manual entry. While this technology is not going away, says Wood, there are some limitations.

What’s next is electronic product code (EPC), which is a numbering scheme to identify each of multiple objects. A microscopic RFID chip enables this powerful concept. This chip is leveraging an old technology and adding functionality to it. An RFID chip and its integrated antenna on a substrate carrier can track products in the supply chain by pallet, by case and by item, providing a unique identifier for each. But the value, says Wood, is in how the data is gathered and used.

In a simpler form, RFID technology can be traced back to World War II to identify friend or foe. In the 1960s, it was used for electronic article surveillance; in the ‘70s, for animal tracking; and in the ‘80s, for electronic toll collection. By 1999, EPC/RFID data was the key element in auto identification. Commercially, Walmart led the way in the sophisticated use of the data to manage inventory and deter theft. By 2007, global standards had been developed.

When affixed to objects, the RFID tag automatically sends information to a reader. There are three types of tags and accompanying readers:

The active tag has a battery, which enables long distance reading. The military has made use of this tag to track submarines.

The semi-passive tag is a transponder that reflects energy back to a reader and also has a power source to run circuitry and an onboard sensor. This allows for a longer read range and the ability to determine the location of an item and also its state, such as the temperature of goods.

The passive tag has no battery and is energized by the reader. This is the least expensive of the tags and the most widely used because of its versatility.

Regardless of which tag is used, its purpose is to capture numbered information that is tied to a database of information specific to that number.

There are also numerous types of readers and other ancillary devices that complete the loop of data capture, interpolation and utilization. And, there are increasingly more applications benefiting from the technology. These can essentially be grouped into four main categories:

• Supply Chain Management
• Asset Management
• Security and Access Control Management
• Consumer Applications

As these applications continue to increase, there will be a growing need for the tags. The process places a chip and an antenna on a substrate, which is already a print-based application. This is indeed a growth area for our industry. In addition to tag production, RFID technology also delivers productivity with inventory and asset management.

Security inks
Sun Chemical’s brand protection consultant, Richard Gill, discussed technology, devices and implementation issues connected to anti-counterfeiting and brand protection. Issues surrounding product authentication can be accomplished via covert technologies, which are UV-light activated, or machine-readable or other forensic-read taggants. Overt technology includes colour shifting, thermochromic applications and holograms. Sun Chemical is actively providing proven solutions for a variety of applications.

A complexity of processes, substrates, logistics and environmental issues need to be considered when reviewing options:
Processes. Confirm that the technology can be implemented into current packaging processes. Substrates. Confirm that the technology will be compatible with the range of substrates used in current packaging. Logistics. Confirm that the technology can be supplied globally in a secure fashion with a chain of custody. Environment. Confirm that the technology can be authenticated in the most adverse environment.

From an application perspective, says Gill, adopters of the technology need to delineate what they want the application to do: identify and reduce counterfeiting, act as a diversion because it provides a unique identifier, or to deter and identify tampering issues.

An interesting example of complex layered security which addresses counterfeiting, tampering and diversion is the various applications that are used in the production of today’s paper-based currency. Money is printed using a tremendous range of visible pigment images, non-pigment images and text that can be viewed only with special readers, all in conjunction with polymer binders, surfactants and modifiers. The exact positioning and layering is what is intended to deter counterfeiting. The following are only some of the layers that are used:

• Covert variable data for track and trace
• Covert machine authentication
• Covert non-line of sight authentication
• Covert destructive authentication
• Covert UV fluorescing inks
• Semi-covert currency grade metachromics
• Semi-covert thermochromic inks
• Overt colour shifting inks
• Overt machine readable holograms/foils.

Sun Chemical has developed a variety of security systems

Verigard is a covert taggant system that can be applied using a variety of printing methods. This taggant is not visible to the eye but is read by filtering devices.

SunGuard is an invisible covert product that also works with a variety of print processes and is able to endure extreme heat and other adverse environments. The process applies an invisible security layer that turns inks into authentication tools viewed with a filtering device.

Nautilus is Sun’s newest offering. It is a hidden image technology that can be integrated with existing packaging whether it is a printed package, an injection mould or nano-embossed foil.

SunGuard UV inks are either visible or invisible and can be applied using a variety of printing methods, or a combination of multiple print processes.

SunScreen is a product used for product authentication. It is a data distillation that is a hidden image consisting on a seemingly random overlap of letters and numbers. This random pattern process can be copied but not duplicated. It is used by the pharmaceutical industry; for example, on drug capsules where a reader can readily identify the authentic product, enabling immediate counterfeit crime enforcement.

All systems are fully supported by Sun Chemical, including any equipment retrofitting required. Sun also has indefinites and supports various authentication tools including simple and complex readers. Perfecting the art of security represents significant opportunities for printers to offer value-added applications to their clients.