Print Business Mar 2013 - Print Business Magazine

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March 2013
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COMMENTARY
THE ABSENCE OF BENNY LANDA FROM THE HUNKELER Innovations Days
this year should not detract from what will prove to be a very significant
event indeed. In 1993 and again at Drupa last year, Landa unveiled his
vision of the future of print. In Lucerne this year there were many more
demonstrations of what print production in the future might look like
and were quite possibly a more accurate indicator than the razzamatazz
surrounding the introduction of Landa nanography.
This was an inkjet show, but an inkjet show which for the first time
started to pull the strands together. The issues that have prevented
widespread acceptance that inkjet printing of this type could represent a
real opportunity for many printers are being overcome. Inkjet is more
than a more economic version webfed laser printing.
First, visitors could see colour printed which, if not the sort that
appears in a report and accounts, was certainly capable of standing against
most ephemeral web offset printing. Closely allied to this is the
proliferation of paper types that are designed to work with the inks and
presses on show, not merely adapted to do so. And there was a range of
finishing options to produce perfect bound books, direct mail with
perforated coupons and saddle stitched products, even posters.
At one time web offset was considered the poor cousin of gravure in
volume colour printing. Now Cerutti as the last gravure press
manufacturer is struggling and web offset dominates. The baton, however,
may be passing again. Webfed inkjet is going to be making a far bigger
impact than anyone suspects. The next chapter opened in Lucerne, 2013.
GARETH WARD Editor
MARCH 2013
NEWS Heidelberg weighs
options; Xerox buys Impika 4
I&I PBS stages finishing
fiesta; Ashford chooses HP
for inkjet colour; Screen to
push variable solution 8
COVER STORY ESP continues
to set production records 16
HUNKELER The Swiss event
proved an eye-opener to the
potential for inkjet web
printing 20
PAPER Here come the Timber
Regulations 30
GARETH WARD 01580 236456 • 07866 470124
EDITORIAL gareth.ward@printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
ARCHIVE bit.ly/RoivIT
PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION bit.ly/RgsAZ5
NEWS printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
DEBBIE WARD 01580 236456 • 07711 696190
COMMERCIAL printbusiness_sales@me.com
• printbusinessmedia.co.uk
Published by Print Business Media Ltd. 3 Zion Cottages, Ranters Lane, Goudhurst, Kent TN17 1HR. © Copyright Print Business Media Ltd 2012. All rights reserved. Apply for T&Cs.
News
Xerox acquires Impika to meet
demand for aqueous inkjet
XeroX has paid an undisclosed sum to buy inkjet press
producer Impika, answering a
demand, it says, for an aqueous
inkjet system for those customers not wanting its water-free
Cipress inkjet technology.
Xerox had been selling
the French-made Impika
machines in Europe and Asia.
The deal opens up the entire
Xerox network across Europe
and North America. In Asia,
Fuji-Xerox handles sales and
distribution and already offers
the Fuji Jetpress W as a high
speed aqueous inkjet press.
Impika will become a Xerox
company while retaining its
identity and 55 staff in Aubagne,
close to Marseille.
It has worked with Panasonic
heads and been among the first
to exploit the high speed and
high resolution these heads
provide in both webfed and
sheetfed print engines. The
iPrint web presses, painted a
distinctive green, can run to
375m per minute while the
iPress machines offer a resolution of 2,400 x 1,200dpi.
However, Impika has been a
small business alongside the
likes of HP, Ricoh, Canon,
Kodak and Xerox, something
that Paul Morgavi, president
and CEO of Impika recognises:
“To continue our growth, we
need to be part of a leadership
organisation that has broad
global distribution and service,
a strong brand, and the same
customer-centric culture that
we champion. Xerox is a logical
fit for our growing business and
for our customers.”
From the Xerox point of view
the deal increases the portfolio in a sector which is growing
rapidly. Analysts from IT Strat-
egies predict a 21% annual
compound growth rate in inkjet
through to 2015.
“We know inkjet is one of
the fastest growing technologies
in graphic communications,”
says Jeff Jacobson, president
of Xerox’s global graphic
communications operations.
“Inkjet promises fast digital
print speeds, wide page widths
and reasonable costs along with
outstanding image quality –
bringing the benefits of digital
printing to a higher volume
band than xerography will ultimately reach.”
CIP4 to tackle lack of adoption of digital printing
Cip4, the organisation
that curates the development of
the JDF standard, is to set up a
new group to tackle the apparent lack of adoption in digital
printing.
The new group is J-Digital
and met for the first time at
the Hunkeler Innovation Days
followed by a more formal two
day meeting hosted by Kodak
in Rochester, New York, this
month. J-Digital will group
business and product managers who will set the direction of
JDF implementation in digital
printing which will then be
worked on by CIP4’s technical
committees.
Adobe and Kodak have been
keen for CIP4 to tackle the
issue of how to drive singlecopy workflows as photobook
and similar markets continue
to expand. The lack of a coordinated approach could also
slow expansion of single copy
printing into others areas of
marketing communications,
considered the next area to
expand exponentially. “Better
industry coordination will
improve market opportunities
for both print service providers
and vendors that provide them
with systems and software solutions,” says the organisation.
The objective will be for the
J-Digital group to firstly agree
to support JDF in these areas
and produce a declaration to
this effect. This will stimulate
interest and support among
those engaged in digital printing and encourage commitment
to the cause. It wants to agree on
a development path for JDF into
this new area. “CIP4 is taking
the lead because the outcome
will be critical to future developments in CIP4’s standards
and technical programmes,” the
organisation notes in a bulletin
for members. “Several members
of CIP4 have expressed concern
that industry coordination is
lacking in light of advances
in digital print technologies
resulting in an undue limitation on the size and nature of
the market for digitally printed
communications.”
Henny van Esch, CIP4
CEO, explains: “The single
copy photobook market is still
growing and there needs to be
integration between print and
finishing equipment. At the
moment people are using all
kinds of stuff to bring together
kit from different vendors.
“That is going to be one of
the topics that will be discussed
in Rochester. We want to agree
on where the biggest benefits
are and which areas should we
concentrate on. And this will
provide guidance to the technical teams as to where the
business requirements are.”
Longest B1 Heidelberg goes to Chesapeake Branded Packaging
Chesapeake Branded Packaging, East Kilbride, is running
what Heidelberg says is the
longest B1 press it has built.
The machine has ten printing
units, three coating units, four
drying units and an inline cold
foiling system and is designed
for high quality cartons in
4
March 2013
drinks and confectionery.
Tim Whitfield, vice president
of Chesapeake Branded Packaging, says: “This significant
investment will bring a number
of processes inline providing greater quality control. We
will be able to provide multiple
colour applications, foiling and
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
an even greater range of matt,
gloss and pearlescent finishes,
including metallics, spot and
solid applications.”
The press will coat both sides
of the sheet and expand the
range of substrates that can be
tackled in one pass.
The investment follows on
from several upgrades across
the Branded Packaging division,
starting with the first XL145 in
the UK at the Newcastle plant
two years ago and involving
investments in Germany and
Poland.
Chesapeake has also invested
in its healthcare division.
News
Heidelberg looks to investment to
bring it back to profit in 2014
Heidelberg is starting
a process of examining areas of
future investment, anticipating
that it will return to profitability
in the financial year that ends in
March 2014.
The company has twice as
many ideas as it can afford to
invest in, CEO Gerold Linzbach
told a conference call of analysts
on the publication of its Q3
results. These show the business responding to the measures
introduced with Focus 2012 and
on course to achieve the full
savings and achieve profitability
next year.
While the company is still
reporting losses it expects to
report a positive result for the
final quarter of this year. Orders
and sales are up on the same
Linzbach: “we have fewer
resources than ideas.”
period last year, attributed to
the impact of Drupa. Year to
date sales are 5% higher at €1.9
billion with sales of at least €500
million anticipated for the final
quarter of the year based on
orders of €700 million it has in
hand.
The company has still
reported a loss for the year to
date amounting to €32 million,
increased from €19 million at
this point last year. However,
this year’s figure includes €25
million of one-off charges,
mostly relating to Drupa and
product launch activity.
The company is not planning for any major increase in
business in the next two years,
nor will it be troubled if sales
dip. As well as removing costs
of €160 million a year through
Focus 2012, the company has
increased its flexibility to act.
There has also been a change
in the way that the company
allocates resources. Previously
it would spread resources across
a wide range of activities, now
it will target only those activities
it deems to be winners. Which
areas will be the focus will
be decided during a portfolio
analysis exercise over the next
12-15 months. Linzbach points
to the possibility of adding small
acquisition in consumables to
increase geographic spread
of its services or to focus on
a specific area of benefit, and
also in digital printing. “As with
many other companies we have
fewer resources than we have
ideas,” he told the session. “We
wanted to be smarter in how we
allocate resources to achieve the
biggest bang. Investing a little in
everything has been the policy
in the past, now we need to
make a decision about not doing
something.”
HP buoyed by Indigo steady sales rise
indigo continues to be a
bright spot for revenue growth
in HP’s printing division.
While overall sales in the
division continue to fall, due
to competition and declining
volumes in the consumer and
small and medium sized business space, “Indigo had another
strong quarter” according to HP.
Other than that the graphic
solutions business is too small
within the HP behemoth to
warrant much attention when
personal computing is undergoing massive change and the
enterprise server division is
under pressure. Efforts by CEO
Meg Whitman to turn the group
around have already led to this
financial year being dubbed “the
fix and rebuild year”.
However, despite the continuing success of Indigo (it has
been growing page volumes
at around 20% a quarter over
the previous year and achieved
record sales for the final quarter
of last year, and despite sales of
the high speed web presses now
in excess of 80 installations (HP
declines to give precise figures),
the overall contribution appears
unfavourable. Graphic Solutions
head Christopher Morgan left
the company at the end of last
year and there have been other
senior management changes
within the graphic solutions
division. The management of
the graphic solutions business
now comes under the direct
control of Todd Bradley head
of the personal computing solutions division.
The success of personal
computing is key to HP’s overall
success and it seems HP believes
it can create an eco system of
linked computing products from
hardware to printers to storage
using wireless connectivity.
Printing machines for commercial printers, architects, sign
and display producers may have
little space in this future.
Print businesses represent the industry at Buckingham Palace gala event
Hobs reprograpHics
is one of a handful of print
related businesses invited to
participate in the Coronation
Festival, a gala to be held in the
gardens of Buckingham Palace
to mark the 60th anniversary
of the Queen’s coronation this
summer.
Along with other Royal
Warrant holders, Hobs will
show its services in what must
be the world’s most exclusive
exhibition venue.
CEO Kieran O’Brien says:
“The event will give us a great
opportunity to showcase our
latest services, such as 3D
printing and AR and we are
planning some really exciting
things for our stand, which will
show that printing is about far
Hobs Reprographics’ work
at Buckingham Palace.
more than ink on paper.”
The company will not be
the lone representative of the
graphic arts industry. Warrant
holders to the Queen, Duke
of Edinburgh and Prince of
Wales have been invited to take
part and for print this includes
Mount Street Printers, Barnard
& Westwood, Leighton Printing and Talk Print.
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013
5
News
wind of change breezes gently
through upbeat exhbition halls
PerhaPs there was something in the wind, but there
was a distinct hint of ink in the
air at the Publishing & Media
Expo in London. The show
ran alongside Technology for
Marketing and a couple of other
small events in ads sales for the
mobile and digital worlds, and
while on their side of the dividing wall the mention of print
would most likely be met with
a snort, on the Publishing Expo
side, it felt like print was regaining some lost ground.
There were plenty of stands
devoted to providing digital
and tablet editions, but for all
the effort and expense publishers have not been raking in the
profits from these ventures.
And more importantly neither
have most advertisers. One
publisher pointed out that a
Darren Coxon: “Few have
the depth of knowledge to
understand social media.”
rival had gone online after more
than a century of publication on
paper and found its readers up in
arms instead of welcoming the
move, and this despite research
showing a demand for digital.
The printers present, Headley
Brothers, Buxton Press,
Stephens & George, Pensord
Press, Latimer Trend and
Welshpool Printing Company,
were not aiming at the long run
or high profile consumer titles
published by the giants in magazine publishing. Instead they
produce magazines for B2B and
specialist publishers without
the incentive or wherewithal
to pursue digital distractions.
Few have the depth of knowledge to understand the ins and
outs of social media, Pensord
managing director Darren
Coxon explained. Since the new
year there has been take up for
the company’s app publishing
product, largely because, Coxon
says, the pricing at £99 a month
is at a level that almost every
ad manager can cover the cost
rather than because publishers
are expecting shift in revenues
from paper to digital.
“We have been seeing
customers, but also people
who are interested in what we
can offer,” says Buxton Press’s
Lindsay Frost.
Stephens & George had decorated its stand (and staff) as a
country house library and was
rewarded by a steady stream
of visitors. The company will
guarantee paper prices for the
rest of this year to overcome
resistance to ask for a quote.
Many were asking.
At Latimer Trend displays of
printed magazines and posters
of its production facilities
prompted the response from
visitors “at least we know what
you do”. And as the conversation turned, a new slogan for
the industry emerged: “Choose
paper. Choose ink. Choose
print.”
Newspaper supplier shows social media app
There was a familiar
name, at least to newspaper
publishers, occupying a large
stand in the Technology for
Marketing part of the exhibition.
This was PCS, provider of
newspaper front end systems
for 40 years, and supplier to
the Midland News Association
among others. Yet here it was
demonstrating an application for
tracking mentions of a brand in
social media, for analysing what
is said, for managing a response
and continuing the cycle. The
damage that can occur in minutes
when a brand fails to respond is
tangible in lost reputation. The
day that Oscar Pistorius was
arrested Nike had run an ad
featuring the runner with the
catch line ‘I am the bullet in the
chamber’. Twitter conversations
picked up on this and also linked
Pistorius to the misfortunes that
had befallen Lance Armstrong
and Tiger Woods, others in
Nike’s stable.
On the PCS Social Knowledge
dashboard, the response from
thousands of tweets could be
seen in a swing from generally
very positive sentiments about
Nike to very negative ones,
changing when Nike pulled the
ad and apologised.
PCS managing director
Philip Walker explains that
the product emerged from a
project for an editorial system
looking at a news gathering tool.
“Then we started to realise that
the advertising revenues were
going towards social media and
that we had the bits to pull all
the listening, the analysis and
conversations together,” he says.
The system, like the latest
version of the publishing system
is built around an open database
with a strong linguistic analysis
tool. It uses HTML5 for viewing
through a web browser and
porting to tablets and eventually
smart phones. While receiving
its launched at Earls Court, the
system has been put through its
paces for a number of clients.
“It’s surprising and powerful
what you find out,” says Walker.
Rigid Containers sticks to conventional technology in new distribution hub
as fujifilm announces its
intention to convert the world of
corrugated packaging to the joys
on inkjet digital printing, Rigid
Containers has announced plans
for a new UK plant, based on
conventional technology.
The company is taking a
200,000 sq ft site at Wellington,
6
March 2013
Somerset, initially as a distribution centre before moving
into production proper. “We
will open the site as a distribution hub in early April 2013,”
says managing director Richard
Coward. “Packaging manufacture will be handled at our
Desborough and Selby factories
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
and then transported to Wellington in bulk loads. Customers can
then call off by batch, meaning
we can offer a true just in time
service for the south west.”
Central to the planned investment will be a four-colour
flexo folder-gluer with dryers
to allow the company to print
to a high quality “on the best
quality papers in the industry”
according to sales and marketing
director Julian Freeman. “This
is particularly relevant for shelf
ready packaging applications.”
Sales and administration
will be handled through the
Desborough office.
News
Cerutti in negotiation with banks
for a complete restructure
Cerutti, the world’s
last major publication gravure
press manufacturer, is in deep
negotiation with banks with the
aim of a completely restructuring its publication gravure and
flexo newspaper operations.
The packaging gravure operation is not affected.
The company blames the
collapse in demand worldwide
for new presses, something
that has affected all suppliers.
In a statement the company
says: “The consequences for
manufacturers of machinery
for printing magazines, catalogues and newspapers have
been strongly negative and have
resulted in a drop in demand
and a referral process to invest
in new machines. In addition
the consolidation and restructuring of facilities which is still
in progress, has led to availability of a considerable number of
used machines.”
The latest step in this process
is the proposed closure of a
Prinovis plant in northern
Germany, following on from the
closure of other gravure capacity across Europe.
This has pushed the Italian
manufacturer into reorganisation of the Officine Meccaniche
G Cerutti factory at Casale
Monferrato in northern Italy.
The company is using a law
introduced in September last
The restructure affects
Cerutti’s publication
gravure and flexo
newspaper operations.
year to restructure under court
protection.
President and CEO Gianfranco Cerutti says: “We must
take note of the sudden and irre-
versible change that print media
are facing and we must respond
to ensure that as a company we
have an assured future.
“The path, including through
the restructuring procedures, as
prescribed by Italian law, that
Cerutti faces is necessary for
the future: it will be a painful
passage, but we believe will lead
to a rebirth.”
The company sold one of
its Aurora presses in Brazil
last year, but has seen orders
dry up elsewhere. In the UK
notable customers include Polestar for the publication gravure
presses and Harmsworth Quays
Printing in Didcot for its flexo
newspaper presses.
North/south salary divide
Mercian Labels chooses Xeikon
Colour Control for spot matching
Press oPerators in the
south of England are paid
around £5,000 more than their
colleagues in the north and
Scotland and around £2,000
more than staff in companies
in the midlands, Wales and East
Anglia.
The findings come in a BAPC
salary survey which put the
average paid to a four-colour
press operator in the south at
£28,123 compared to £23,850
in the north and £26,197 in the
Midlands. The discrepancy is
greater still for digital press
operators, ranging from a low
MerCian labels is leading
the way with investment in
Xeikon Colour Control, its
colour matching software to both
provide the closest possible match
to spot colours and to ensure
output on its stable of presses is
as closely matched as possible.
Measured values from a
printed target are uploaded to
the central server to build the
profile for that press together
with a library of named colours.
It paves the way to match jobs
which have previously been
printed using analogue presses,
while a report generated by the
of £15,000 to a high of £22,500.
The gap between rates for
prepress operators and web
designers are much slighter,
between £19,500 and £23,000,
while finishers can expect a
salary between just over £16,000
to around £17,000.
Sales is better paid, ranging
between £20,876 with a 5%
commission in the north to
a basic of £24,500 and 4%
commission in the south.
Managers can expect to
receive £32,000 in the south,
£27,700 in the Midlands and
£22,675 in the north.
press will show colour stability
during the production run.
Dr Adrian Steele, managing
director of Mercian Labels, calls
it a “really useful development”,
adding: “In one recent case we
were asked to match an injection
moulded plastic lid and a litho
printed carton to that of a color
known to be tough to print on
a digital engine. Using Xeikon
Color Control we quickly determined that we could get to a ΔE
of 3 without printing anything
on press. Once matched, that is
exactly what it did – with a very
impressive color accuracy.”
Ryobi 785e is largest yet for Cupit Print
CuPit Print, Horncastle,
has installed its largest press to
date, a five-colour Ryobi 785E.
It replaces a two-colour SM74
and joins two other Ryobis, a
522HE and 524GX, both B3
machines.
An increasing demand for
four-colour promotional print
drove the investment decision
for a B2 press and the existing
relationship with Ryobi distributor Apex Digital Graphics led
to the choice.
Director Stephen Newton
says: “Our 524GX has been
handling all of this over recent
years, and has been a tremen-
dous asset to the business, but
we needed a larger format press
to help speed jobs through the
system when we have longer run
work to produce.”
One of the key jobs of this
nature is a 60-70pp A4 wildlife publication produced each
quarter and with a substan-
tial print run. The B2 press
is necessary to produce this
economically, says Newton.
He adds that the announcement has spurred conversations
about longer run work with
other customers now that
the Cupit Print has the extra
capacity.
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk
March 2013
7
InnovatIons
& Investments
ashford Colour Press signs up for
HP 230 and Hunkeler finishing
Ashford Colour Press is
to be the first UK book printer to
adopt webfed colour inkjet printing with a £2 million investment
in an HP 230 and inline Hunkeler
Modular Book Solution.
“This investment is the start
of a re structuring of the new
Ashford Group. With the changing print and media environment
Ashford is repositioning itself
to offer cost effective single-,
two- and four-colour printing
from 50-20,000 copies as well
as additional publishing and
creative services,” says Rob
Hutcheson, managing director
of the Gosport company.
The company has already
been capable of mono digital
printing, but now becomes
the first in the UK to take the
step into colour production.
Its target is educational and
academic publishing rather
than coffee table colour books
which remain out of reach of
this generation of inkjet print
technology.
In contrast HP inkjet presses
are already being used for colour
ashford directors Rob Hutcheson and allan Gray with HP’s
publishing and direct mail manager Graham Dove.
printing for education printers,
notably by Rotolitho Lombarda
in Italy.
This company runs to a
Muller Martini Sigmaline,
which Ashford ruled out in
favour of the Hunkeler solution.
“It would have cut down on our
flexibility,” says Hutcheson.
The Hunkeler delivers a collated
book block that is held together
by an inkjetted line of glue
ready for the Bolero binder at
Ashford.
The investment comes as the
company finds its customers are
looking to repeat the benefits of
shorter batch production and
call off stocks that have come in
mono books in the colour book
space. “Quality has reached
the point now that publishers
are willing to accept this, and
we have been able now to get
the unit cost down to the right
point,” Hutcheson explains.
“We are now able to offer
publishers unit rates on low run
colour printing, only previously
possible through litho production. This will enable them to
look at short print run models
offering potential savings
on storage and distribution,
wastage, lead times while also
improving their cashflow.”
Hutcheson is also hopeful
of winning orders for out of
print books, that would previously have been impossible to
resurrect, because of the short
runs that digital can support.
However, the company has
played it a little cautiously
opting for the T230 rather than
the wider and more expensive presses in the family. “It is
difficult for publishers to give
guarantees on the volumes they
will place with us,” he adds.
“And there is still a lot of capacity on the T230.”
The plan will be to print
both colour and mono on the
press and to grow the volumes
of colour print to the point that
extra digital mono capacity is
needed. First the company will
need to take delivery of the
press and finishing line and have
them set up in the 60,000 sq ft
factory in Hampshire. The press
is timed to arrive this month
with the line expected to start
up “before the end of April”.
First Xerox iGen150 goes to ImageData Group
The uK’s firsT XeroX
iGen150, the company’s flagship
cut sheet digital press, has been
installed at ImageData Group
in Brighton. This is the retail
marketing specialist’s southernmost site and its small format
operation. Its other locations
in Yorkshire offer wide format
inkjet printing including Agfa
MPress and B1 litho printing.
The new press, the long sheet
version of the established iGen
series, joins other iGen and
Indigo colour presses and mono
Xerox Nuvera machines at the
Brighton site.
CEO David Danforth
explains that the investment is
a natural development of the
company’s skills in ticketing and
labelling. “We have a pedigree in
data-driven and technological
print solutions. And our clients
love that we are at the leading
edge of the current digital print
movement. The iGen 150 brings
us one more step closer to our
goal.”
The company considered all
options for the new sheetfed
press before settling on the
Xerox machine. It won thanks
to 2,400 x 2,400 dpi imaging and
more importantly that the press
proved it could render colours
consistently right through a
print run. “This is great for our
clients who can be confident
that their print will look just
as good in the last delivery box
as it did in the first,” says Jason
Vivian, operations director at
the Brighton site.
Dargan Press upgrades platesetter to make most of Prinect connectivity
dArgAn Press, Newtonabbey, has upgraded its
platesetter to a new Suprasetter
less than a year after buying a
Speedmaster XL75-5P+L.
The investment not only
8
March 2013
replaces a seven-year-old device,
it brings closer connectivity
between prepress and press
thanks to Prinect Prepress
Manager and Pressroom
Manager. The press was speci-
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
fied with Inpress Control, linking
all elements of the workflow.
The company will run Saphira
Chem-Free plates, putting the
onus on Heidelberg to ensure
the system meets requirements.
Managing director Richard
Tarynor says: “Now if anything
goes wrong Heidelberg alone
will be responsible and they are
very good. One call does it all. I
can’t fault their response.”
New Solutions
Apex Digital Graphics has become a distributor for
Konica Minolta digital production presses in the UK.
We’re known as The Solutions Provider, thanks to our reputation as a supplier of a
wide range of pressroom products including offset presses, CtP systems and associated
software, plus supplies and parts - all backed up by an unrivalled service team. Now,
with the addition of the KM range of Bizhub digital production presses to our product
list, we can provide more comprehensive solutions than ever!
We believe offset and digital print technologies are complementary, and a balanced
approach is required to use them effectively together. Colour consistency across devices
is key, and we have the expertise to help manage your colour output to deliver a truly
integrated workflow - in a way that makes sense from both a technical and an
economic point of view.
Whether it’s offset, digital, or both...
Apex provides the solution!
www.apexdigital.co.uk
01442 235 236
InnovatIons
& Investments
Geoff neal Litho prepares ground
for new speedmaster XL106
Geoff Neal litho is
on course to take investment
beyond £5 million spent in the
last few years, says managing
director Sam Neal.
The Feltham company
bought a four-colour Anicolor
as the heart of a new short run
print department last September along with related finishing
equipment. Now it is installing a Heidelberg ST350 saddle
stitcher and is implementing
a Prinect workflow and this
summer will take delivery of a
further B1 Speedmaster XL106.
On the way it has extended the
factory and upgraded power
facilities.
“The XL106 will give us two
XLs side by side,” he says, “We
are running the Anicolor and are
learning how to be efficient with
workflow, and while that is still
work in progress we are getting
there.” The new press is a sixcolour plus coat machine and
will replace a Speedmaster CD.
It joins the five-colour XL105
which was installed in 2010.
The new machine will include
Inpress Control and will run to
ISO 12647-2.
The ST350 replaces an
older machine, offering faster
makereadies and will include a
stacking system at the delivery.
At the same time the company is
putting its finishing department
on 24/6 working, demolishing
a wall and rearranging storage
space and with the addition of a
mezzanine will improve materials handling efficiencies.
The Prinect workflow
includes a remote proofing function and will move users away
from checking PDFs attached
to emails to a streaming online
application which will overcome
firewall issues and automatic
resizing of images to fit in boxes
which can cause problems of
interpretation.
This follows delivery of the
four-colour plus coater Anicolor
last September together with a
Wohlenbverg guillotine and
Morgana folder and then a
Buhrs inkjetting system for the
mailing department.
The investment underlines
Neal’s confidence in the pros-
pects for the business. The
market he believes is coming to
understand that different printers have different skill sets and
different niches, something
that most print management
companies have not yet understood and which will leave them
struggling.
“We are expert print manufacturers, but we are not an ESP
nor an Anton and we don’t want
their work – which is fine,” says
Neal. “We are working with
automative and high end agencies. I was with a top end auction
house that said that print spend
is second only to personnel, and
they continue to use print on top
end items where colour control
is fundamental.”
st austell moves to accommodate new presses
St auStell Printing
Company is moving to its
purpose built development
overlooking the Cornish town
this month.
The company has spent £6.2
million on the development
which includes 22 office and
studio units as well as the factory
space for the print business. It is
moving from cramped accommodation in the centre of the
town.
Prior to completing the move
the company has taken delivery of two Heidelberg presses,
a four-colour Anicolor 52 and
XL75. The company has also
taken delivery of a new guil-
When the move is completed, st austell Printing Company
plans an open day for customers.
lotine and compactor to handle
waste for what is intended to be
a high eco building.
The premises already meet
Breeam standards for sustainable
development. It has solar panels
for electricity generation and
uses a natural ventilation system
to cut its energy footprint.
And the presses have been
carbon balanced, the Anicolor
automatically so. The company
has calculated it will save around
£50,000 on ink and paper in the
first year thanks to efficiency
benefits from the new presses.
Managing director Peter
Moody says: “Our aim is to
minimise our impact on the
environment, improve energy
efficiency and reduce emissions.
“The new equipment
supports this ethos and will
increase production speed
significantly, benefiting the
business, the planet and our
customers.”
Once all the equipment is in
place and the move completed,
the company is planning an
open day for customers.
Pro Copy Printing full of praise for optimus Dash
Pro CoPy PriNtiNG, a
digital printer and copy shop in
Chichester, has praised Optimus
Dash, the MIS system the
company has installed.
Managing director Jon
Macmorland says: “The system
10
March 2013
has greatly improved our speed
of invoicing and therefore cashflow and the accuracy of our
quotes, especially for repeat
work. We know now how much
jobs and processes and materials
are costing the company and can
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
price accordingly. The whole
company has a much more
professional image adding value
to our brand and it has improved
and streamlined our workflow.”
Before installing the software
the company was produc-
ing invoices manually each
month and lacked an estimating
system. Dash has provided both
and also provided much greater
transparency over costs and far
greater automation of what had
been manual tasks.
InnovatIons
& Investments
Perfect Bindery solutions echoes
Hunkeler on a smaller scale
The hunkeler Innovation Days underlined that short
run book production has come
a long way from roughly glued
on book covers using an adhesive that is unsympathetic to
the technology used to print
digitally.
This was a lesson that had been
delivered, albeit on a smaller
scale when Perfect Bindery
Solutions threw open the doors
to its new showroom and offices
in Carterton, a few miles from
Witney in Oxfordshire.
Where the event in Lucerne
focuses on what can be done
with web printed material, the
PBS open house offered a range
of solutions for producing
digitally printed and short run
books covering simple photobooks, sewn section books, case
bound and lay flat technologies.
IT provIded a perfecT
walk through of the technologies and opportunities that lie
in short run book production,
whether for photobook, local
groups and associations or
for stylish top quality limited
edition titles.
Technifold’s presence was
to show off its range of three
Creasestream units – manual,
motorised or automatic – covering from a device to apply two
crreases of crease plus perforation at £4,000 and 4,000 sheets
an hour to one applying four
creases at 20,000 sheets an hour.
These build from the company’s
background in providing highly
effective simple to use creasing
ring systems for folders into
equally straightforward standalone creasing units.
As far as PBS is concerned the
units are ideal for creasing what
will become book covers further
into the process.
Standard gathering equipment is too mainstream for
PBS to be able to compete,
Perfect Bindery solutions played host to inaugurate its new
showroom.
thus its gathering unit was the
more specialised Smyth F1088
section sewer. This is designed
specifically for digital print.
Hand fed flat sheets are folded
into 8pp signatures (16pp if
output comes from a B2 press),
gathered, sewn and delivered as
a finished book block. Already
folded signatures from litho
work can be included and the
device will also link to a folder
to build a more sophisticated
set up. Launched at Drupa, one
was immediately snapped up by
Empress Litho in south London.
The F1088 will deliver a book
to 510x550mm at a rate of 15
sections a minute, completing
each product with a final closing
stitch.
pBS alSo haS a unIque
offering in perfect binding. The
Ribler device was previewed
at Northprint two years ago,
gaining attention because it uses
an entirely new type of glue that
delivers a bind strength equal to
PUR or hotmelt binding, yet
without the hot glue pots, the
fume extraction and the waste.
The device has been picked
up by Palamides which has
invested significantly to bring
the perfect binder to market
readiness. Palamides regional
sales manager Martin Reck-
nagel was on hand to explain
that the German company had
to learn about paper. “Open flat
is not possible with conventional
perfect binding,” he says. “We
are now selling the concept as
the ideal lay flat system, creating a brand around ‘Smart flat
binding’.”
currenTly ThIS IS a
single-clamp unit where after
the block is dropped in place
everything is automatic. And
because there is no need to heat
the glue, no power up phase,
virtually no waste and no fumes
to extract, it is being positioned
as a very environmentally
friendly approach. “Nobody has
yet tried to apply green thinking
to the bindery. These are fresh
ideas, not based on any previous
technologies,” Recknagel adds.
The three-knife trimming
technology is provided by
Horauf through its SN-Demand
unit, created for fast changeover short run production.
The semi-automatic unit can
deliver finished books between
60x80mm and 300x380mm
from a 60mm stack at 20 cycles
per minute. In normal mode it
is a three-knife trimmer, using
a cassette system to offer the
spread of dimensions covered,
while removing one knife makes
it a four-knife trimmer, through
a cut and turn operation. What
is delivered is an absolutely
square cut book with none of
the compromises that can occur
if finished on a guillotine.
The casing in options include
the Atom smasher, designed
to work the Mohawk Panorama paper that is distributed
by Premier Papers. This is
designed for lay flat photobooks
and high value presentation
pieces. The paper has a pattern
of glue applied to the reverse of
the sheet, which is not affected
by the printing process.
However, when sheets are
placed back to back and smashed
together under the 3.5 tonnes
that the Atom unit can muster,
the adhesive is activated and the
pages laminated together. The
result is a layflat product that
can open to the full width of the
printing device used, impressive when producing a brochure
to sell a £3 million penthouse,
though probably not the most
effective solution for a £30,000
terrace in Middlesbrough.
ODM provides another
approach to casing in with a
system that handles a 450mm
square product, one action to
apply the end papers and the
second to attach the case. The
case will have its spine formed
on the ODM smashing unit to
complete the book. Production
is around 180 books an hour.
The fInal elemenT for
personalised book production
was the Unibind digital foiler,
effectively a digital means of
transferring a foil from a roll to
the book cover driven through
a desktop design application.
Templates are used to select
the book format and text boxes
where the words should go.
A library of fonts and logos
provides unlimited scope for
design.
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013
11
InnovatIons
& Investments
screen variable print application
manages tPJ520 long runs
Screen haS previewed a
cloud based variable print application designed to manage long
run campaigns to be printed on
its Trupress Jet520.
The Variable Frontend Software is located on remote servers
that share the same levels of security and resilience as Amazon or
Ebay and is accessed by the three
elements of the campaign creation and execution. There is no
software to buy nor hardware
element to using the application,
though the faster the broadband
connection the better.
It has also been designed to
be as simple as possible to use,
with none of the coding that can
be part of systems with a longer
legacy stretching back into the
days when setting up a variable
data campaign involved extensive programming and testing.
Other systems will also require
annual maintenance and support
packages on top of the licence
purchase price, creating a formidable barrier to those wanting to
move carefully into variable data
printing.
The campaign piece is put
together by a designer in the
normal way and using standard
screen hopes that vFs will open the way to greater volumes
of variable data for its inkjet presses.
applications. There is a designer
log in to upload the finished
PDFs with the variable elements
market, name, selection of
images, variations in paragraphs
of text.
Within the cloud, VFS will
create ten versions of the output
using dummy information, but
to show that the elements that
are assigned to vary will do so.
VFS can also be set to merge
database fields, so forename and
family name might be different
fields in the database which need
to be shown as a single entity on
the document. Rules like these
can be set for each job. Naming
conventions identify the images
related to their position on the
page.
shuttleworth improves mIs
Shuttleworth Business Systems has introduced
a number of functionality
enhancements to its MIS in the
V5.2 release with the aim says
joint managing director Paul
Deane of “improving customer
service excellence”.
There is an advanced filtering function to allow users to
predefine the information fields
that are relevant, with the result
that only that data is provided
on demand, thus speeding up
response rates. A history function provides easy access to all
recently opened records, while
12
March 2013
custom buttons lets users create
their own buttons to access
applications outside Shuttleworth via the Shuttleworth
Ribbon Toolbar.
And an automated export
function will deliver an Excel or
CSV file at a set time each week
or month and will also retain the
changes to the file that have been
edited outside Shuttleworth.
Later in the year (Shuttleworth is aiming for July), the
Kettering MIS provider plans to
release a mobile CRM app and a
milestone feature to offer better
management of a project.
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
With the designer’s task
complete, the client can log
on and approve the design and
how it is implemented with the
dummy data in ten samples. The
client will then upload the data
set to be used in the campaign.
The data is encrypted, again
to industry standard levels,
to prevent its unauthorised
access. The data is combined
with the artwork to create the
final printable job, with all the
colour transforms and paper
profiles handled so that when
the printer as the third leg of
the unit downloads the file it is
ready to print.
“There is no coding required,
yet this is an industrial strength
variable data solution,” says
Bui Burke, vice president sales
Screen Europe. The payment
strategy has still to be fully determined, but will be on a per usage
model in some pay, perhaps with
an element of subscription for
regular customers.
Under EquiosNet 2.0, the
latest version of Screen’s workflow engine, the company has
introduced a ganging feature
designed to optimise image
placement on a plate. The
autoganging routine accepts an
incoming CSV file because most
of the large web to print operations feed the jobs submitted
by customers into a large database before extracting them for
production. The job information will include all production
details including delivery dates
to enable production to be
planned automatically. The file
for the production workflow
will then pass to EquiosNet for
positioning on the plate. Once
the optimal layout is achieved,
taking note of post print
processes, the PDF is created for
the entire exposure and plates
delivered, creating a JDF job
ticket than could be sent to the
guillotine for example.
mimaki releases white ink for Jv400
MiMaki has released a white
ink set for its latex JV400 inkjet
printers. This is a first white ink
for a latex printer the company
claims and comes a year after
Mimaki introduced latex inkjet
printing to join HP.
Using the RasterLink Rip,
three-layer printing is possible
where the white ink is used as
the second layer to produce
two-way viewable graphic
films.
The ink is suitable for both
the JV400-130LX and JV400160LX wide format printers.
InnovatIons
& Investments
Glossop Cartons shows Highcon
euclid at Packaging Innovations
Glossop Cartons has
introduced customers to packaging produced on what is the
first Highcon Euclid short run
cartonboard die cutter in the
UK at Packaging Innovations.
The company took samples
that have been printed on its
Mitsubishi litho presses and cut
and creased on the Highcon to
its stand at the NEC.
The technology uses a laser
to cut out the cartons, which is
not new as laser cutting is established in label production. The
Highcon, however, has a rotary
creasing system based on applying a fast drying polymer to a
removeable carrier sheet. This
allows a user to produce small
batches of cartons without
the time and cost of creating a
conventional die and making
ready on a standard die cutter.
Glossop Cartons director
Jacky Sidebottom says: “The
Highcon Euclid opens up a new
range of possibilities for our
customers: bespoke packaging,
for short runs, pushing design
boundaries and being able to
respond to seasonal product
changes cost effectively.”
The installation is a feather for
Conversion-UK, the company
that Mark Nixon set up at
the end of last year to handle
Highcon and Scodix in the UK.
He argues that the device suits
a conventional carton printer
who struggles to handle a small
number of short run jobs a week
“just ten or so jobs can make
this cost effective” he explains,
adding: “Glossop Cartons is an
ideal candidate for the Highcon
Euclid. It specialises in offering
customers flexibility and service
and the digital cutting and creasing capabilities of the Euclid
will allow them to enhance their
product offering.”
Petratto mini Bar Plus copes with short runs at Print Domain
print Domain, Rotherham,
has installed a Petratto Mini Bat
Plus to cope with ever decreasing production runs.
Managing director Steven
Swiffen says: “We had a Horizon
folder but because it was semi
automatic it took some time to
make ready. With an increased
number of shorter runs we
decided a more automated
and faster to set up system was
necessary.” It had been forced to
turn away products that it had
been asked to produce because it
prefers to keep control of what it
offers customers through inhouse
production. The Petratto proved
the ideal solution. The single
device offers quick folding, fast
set up and the ability to add a
perforated coupon or loyalty
card in the centre of the sheet.
“One of the jobs we ran on it was
for CDs and previously changing
these over would have taken an
hour but with the Petratto this
was just minutes,” says Swiffen.
ferag…
Processing systems for direct marketing
Boost your business, double or triple your productivity.
All in one system:
– Commissioning
– Inserting
– TapeFixing
– Addressing
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Unit 6, Stansted Courtyard
Parsonage Road
Takeley, Essex
CM22 6PU
Phone +44 (0)1279 635 657
Fax +44 (0)1279 445 666
info@wrh-marketing-uk.com
www.wrh-marketing-uk.com
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk
ins_direct_mark_186x132_e_260812.indd 1
March 2013
13
28.08.12 19:08
InnovatIons
& Investments
Hunkeler aims for next generation
with wider and faster inkjet
Hunkeler is preparing for
the next generation of wider and
faster and even more productive
inkjet web presses, unveiling
the first elements of its Popp 8
family at its Innovations Days
event last month.
The two key modules introduced are an unwind station
(UW8) and rewind station
(RW8). Both can accommodate reels up to 1.5 tonnes and
will operate at 300m per minute
which is faster than the majority
of inkjet web presses currently
operate at.
However, as inkjet is migrating away from the transactional
area into commercial print type
applications, productivity is
necessary. The Popp 8 devices
are also designed to minimise
down time, it taking less than
three minutes to change a reel.
The paper still has to be inched
through the press to avoid
damage to inkjet heads caused
by collision with the splice.
In the current generation
of presses these prevent flying
splice reel change from being
used.
The Popp8 developments
point to another direction also
as they are capable of handling
reels to 450gsm, paving the
way to expand carton applications printed from the reel.
This was aptly demonstrated
the Popp8 units can handle heavier reels at faster
productions speeds.
with Bograma showing how a
rotary cutting and creasing die
might finish a reel printed on the
Xeikon into carton blanks.
Operation of the Popp 8 units
is through a touch screen tablet
computer.
If the new units have been
produced with an eye to the
future the Popp7 generation
is adapting to meet current
demands. This includes the
ability to cope with wider
web widths up to 760mm as
previewed at Drupa. An immediate application is in book
production where a PF7 double
plow folder can work with the
wider web to build eight-page
signatures. A modular book
line might include the plow
folder unit, CS6-HS high speed
cutter and SD7 double star
wheel delivery unit to deliver
4490 96pp book blocks an hour
from a press running at 200m
per minute. The bookblocks are
held together by inline gluing
ready for binding. Moving the
blocks can be manual, or as on
show in Lucerne, can include
a robot to feed into a Horizon
perfect binder.
The demonstration that
attracted most attention
however was a laser punching unit. The HL6 had been
a demonstration concept at
Drupa to test whether there
might be demand for an inline
laser than can write a signature
in the paper path. More prosaically the unit is likely to be used
for punching security patterns
and shapes for cheques, coupons
and redeemable vouchers. The
HL6 can be incorporated into
existing Hunkeler lines.
In a similar vein, the DP6 is
a dynamic perforator able to
change perforation patterns on
the fly, again with coupon creation a key application. The unit
can perforate in a number of
ways especially where more than
one DP6 unit is used.
Of more immediate interest to those printers looking to
commercial print applications
for inkjet web printing, was
the coating module PC7. This
can be set up to add a primer
to a reel of paper ahead of
printing so providing a more
amenable surface for the inkjet
press. In this way standard offset
papers might be used for inkjet
printing.
However, as more and more
papers become available for the
technology, the demand for use
as a priming unit is likely to be
limited, but the same device can
be operated as a coater. In this use
it can apply a dispersion varnish
at up to 4g per m2 as a protective
coating or as an image enhancing
varnish and producing a finished
product that has the same
visual value as an offset printed
sheet. The PC7 operates with
an Adphos NIR drying system
to dry the water in the varnish
without heating the paper. Until
such time as gloss coated papers
become available for inkjet, this
must be the practical solution.
Pitney Bowes shows mailstream Wrapper
Pitney Bowes chose the
Hunkeler event to give a European launch to its Mailstream
Wrapper, a solution for creating
and printing an envelope around
a mailing package.
The envelopes produced can
be plain or can have a die cut
window and clear film applied.
At the same point the enclosing flap on the envelope can
have a scalloped edge. The plain
14
March 2013
envelope can be printed with
promotional messages.
The real benefit, however,
comes in combining different mail runs in a single job to
gain postage discounts. Thus a
number of jobs can be combined
each demanding a different
envelope style. Whereas each
would have to be run separately
with preprinted envelopes, now
the envelope can be created on
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
the fly for that customer and
maximum postage discount
obtained for what is now a
single job. Combined postal and
production savings can be up to
40% of a mailing cost.
The envelope is designed to fit
around the mail insert as tightly
as possible, adjusting timings on
the fly to move the mailing the
±1mm necessary for precise fit.
The Mailstream Wrapper can
accommodate 16pp of inserts in
the envelope.
Gluing to form the envelope uses a pressure activated
adhesive so that the line can be
stopped without creating waste
as the part formed envelope
waits for the line to start again.
In operation it will run at
26,000cph with approximately
60,000 envelopes from each reel
of paper.
INKJET
BETTER BUSINESS
The answer is ink
The secret to great inkjet printing lies in the performance of the ink
and the printhead which is under constant development.
ONE OF THE SECRETS to success in
any type of inkjet printing comes not
in the form of the press construction,
the paper path or the drying technology, important though each of these
factors is.
The secret that can be easily overlooked in the comparison of
specifications, print widths, speeds
and resolutions is that the ink and the
printhead have to perform under
exacting conditions. The head has to
be tuned to the ink and the ink to the
applications it is designed for. And for
this reason ink is the cornerstone of
any inkjet set up.
This applies to wide format and
flatbed printing as it does to high
quality sheetfed and webfed printing.
In inkjet printing the beauty is in the
science in creating an ink which works
with a specific print head to optimise
results under the broadest conditions.
At the current level of development the definition of what is the broadest set of conditions
is quite narrow, hence the drive by paper mills
to produce papers which work with the
aqueous inks that high speed inkjet printing
uses. Pigment based inks are reckoned to
deliver better results than dye based inks, but
are more expensive, so quality considerations
come into play.
Colour management software will also have
an impact on how much ink is needed, and
therefore the cost and performance of the
press for any chosen application.
The different inkjet technologies also have
specific requirements, hence thermal inks
must be based on water to function correctly.
Piezo inkjet has a wider latitude, but water is
the chosen carrier for document printing at
higher speeds.
Developers can work with the characteristics of the ink and the print heads, altering the
energy needed to trigger the droplet, changing
its shape and wave pattern to produce the best
results for the press, for the print head, for the
ink and for the paper.
This demands either close collaboration
between the separate parties, or else one
company to handle projects in house. Fujifilm
is in this position. Its inkjet technologies range
from the wide format inks operation based in
Broadstairs, Kent, to the sheetfed Jet Press 720
which is now reaching the market and tucked
in behind is a continuous feed inkjet press that
was seen at Drupa, but did not quite make it
to the Hunkeler Innovations Days. The press
has been renamed the Jet Press 540W is shipping and is available, and has attracted the
interest of a number of UK prospects
attracted by the business benefits of continuous feed digital printing.
THE VIVIDIA INK USED on the Jet Press
540W were developed in Fujifilm’s laboratories in Tokyo, home of its main R&D efforts.
There are both pigment and dye versions available. In the first generation of the press, the
printheads are recognised as the best available
components from a third party supplier. Once
a head developed by its Dimatrix subsidiary
becomes available, Fujifilm will switch to this
with the ability to do even
closer integration between
BETTER BUSINESS
head and ink.
is sponsored by Fujifilm
“We happen to think that
www.powertosucceed.eu
the print quality is the best in
the market,” says Fujifilm
UK’s head of European
communications Graham
Leeson. That is the result of profiling the ink to match paper
profiles and making use of colour
management science developed
elsewhere in the group.
Then the issue becomes the sort
of applications that are open to an
inkjet web press, or perhaps if a
printer is working in these sectors,
should an inkjet web press be on
the table for the next investment
discussion. To judge by the applications seen at Hunkeler, inkjet
web printing is opening the way to
a much greater range of possibilities.
The great advantage of a digital
web press over a conventional
machine is there are no restriction
to what can be printed because
there are no fixed cylinder sizes or
cut offs. And there is digital aspect
to offer variable data printing,
meaning no waste in switching between jobs
and delivering ultra low print runs if required.
Inkjet web printing is moving into mono
and colour books, magazines, newspapers as
well as the training manuals, transactional documents and direct mail that has been associated
with webfed digital printing.
BUT THERE IS ALSO THE POTENTIAL in
products that cross the category boundaries,
for magazines that are also personalised catalogues, direct mail or transactional documents
that have an element of photo product about
them, books that carry interactive elements to
link to online support material for education
courses or more detailed data about products
in a catalogue.
The inkjet web press is positioned in the
right place to capture work as the moves
towards shorter print runs mean that existing
ways of production become uneconomic and
wasteful. In contrast a press which can switch
from one job to another instantly and with no
make ready waste begins to offer a great deal.
Fujifilm’s heritage in inkjet (if it is possible
to have a heritage in such a young industry) is
at the quality end of print. It has not developed
from machines used from coding or for printing statements. Its Jet Press 720 sheetfed press
is recognised as matching the best quality possible from four-colour printing. That
experience has pollinated development of the
web press Fujifilm is now bringing to market.
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013 15
ESP colour
The maSTErof
SPEEd
W
hen ESP achieved the feat of
2,070,000 impressions, 498
makereadies and a net average
speed of 17,108 sheets an
hour from its Speedmaster XL105 in one
week last November, eyes turned to the
Swindon company to wonder how.
In many ways this was just the latest staggering statistic to emerge from the business
owned and managed by Anthony Thirlby.
Previous production records had been set
for its XL75s and the company reckons to
run at 140% capacity on average.
Not surprisingly the company has become
the centre of speculation and amazement,
not just for printers in the UK, but across
Europe and the world. The response is
always the same mixture of awe and disbelief. Surely there must be something that is
not being disclosed, some kind of witchcraft, a Faustian pact that means that ESP is
a one-off, working in a way that is irrelevant
to other print businesses.
Anthony thirlby is bemused.
As far as he is concerned ESP is doing
nothing that others cannot replicate. It is
the supreme pursuit of clear thinking and
absolute attention to detail applied to manufacturing print and maximising throughput
with minimal touch points to slow production and increase costs. If many printers
today still do not understand their overall
costs, Thirlby knows precisely where every
penny is spent and what the impact of any
change will be.
there Are three Heidelberg XL
series presses, two B2 machines and the
newest the XL105. All bristle with automation, for plate changing, for blanket washing
and especially Inpress Control for colour
16
March 2013
ESP colour is well
known for being
fast and broke
print records last
November.
But exactly how does
managing director
anthony Thirlby
do it?
control. And there is now a digital print
room with Nexpress, flatbed Arizona and
Duplo finishing kit. If that seems odd for a
business built on the ruthless drive to high
speed production and efficiency where litho
can compete with digital on very short run
lengths, it fits with the rebranding this as the
Colour Hub to serve agencies.
it hAs A softwAre development
team working on its own web to print front
end as none was found to meet the exacting requirements ESP was seeking. The
company stopped short of creating its own
workflow, integrating this project instead
with the Tharstern MIS and Kodak Prinergy workflow. There is also a Pageflex
engine to handle the creation of variable
content PDFs, for point of sale posters for
example and changing marketing collateral
for customers that are hooked into the web
to print store.
Everything is recorded, everything is
measured, everything is counted. This is
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
how Thirlby identifies where improvements need to be made and how variables
are spotted before they become a problem.
This was first applied in the development
of the prepress workflow using JDF to link
Prinergy and a rules based approach to automation integrated with the Tharstern MIS
for costing and production control. Jobs are
grouped together according to paper, format
and delivery.
the compAny controls these
aspects tightly. If customers were free to
specify formats or demand different papers,
the system would not work. “We need to
print at 15,000cph or 18,000cph, so do not
allow substrates outside our range. If the
customer asks for other types of paper we
will not quote the job,” says Thirlby.
Keeping to standard formats for jobs also
simplifies the workflow as there are no decisions necessary on gutters, grips or lay of
the sheet, which has benefits in the finishing department. The plan is now to add
barcodes to the sheet to be read by equipment in the finishing department and so save
a few seconds at makeready.
The idea is to keep the condition of the
presses as stable as possible. Switching from
one format of paper to another would take
20 minutes or more. ESP in contrast knows
that a makeready takes three minutes 50
seconds from the XL75 stopping to the
restart. Another 35 sheets and the press is in
good colour and the production run starts.
That it sells make ready at 16 minutes a
time provides the incentive to run as many
makereadies as possible to build as much
production time as possible. “I’m always
staggered by the amount of non productive
time that many printers have,” he adds.
“In January and to the beginning of
Cover Story
February, we processed 3,500 orders. This
is why we have to work on the inks and blankets we use, why plates are pre-bent when
they arrive at the press and why colour
control is so important.”
The company works with Mellow
Colour’s PrintSpec system and measures
itself every day using the charts and tools
that Mellow Colour developed to help printers achieve the ISO 12647-2 colour printing
standard. If there are suspicions that any
company operating at ESP’s pace must be
cutting corners on quality this is the answer.
ESP rEgularly ScorES 98 on Mellow
Colour’s scale, it is a member of the 100 Club
and it does this on all jobs. As a consequence
spoilage rates are microscopic. “Around
0.002% or £13,000 last year,” says Thirlby.
The presses simply are not allowed to
vary and are measured constantly to ensure
that they do not. There is no adjustment for
colour at makeready because none is necessary. The colour profile for each press and
More than 2m impressions on a
Heidelberg Speedmaster XL105 is an
achievement that Anthony thirlby
takes in his stride.
substrate is recorded by Kodak’s Colorflow
software which linearises each device to a
point without colour management turned
on. A standard colour chart is produced
and measured with absolutely no attempt to
optimise output.
This becomes the base reference point
on to which the colour curves for the platesetter, or for that matter the Nexpress or
Arizona flatbed inkjet, are built. The result
is that colour from the different presses will
always be identical, provided nothing else is
changed.
on PrESS HEidElbErg’S Inpress
Control inline spectrophotometer makes the
small on the fly adjustments needed to keep
colour within the tight tolerances needed for
the ISO standard.
“The press becomes a by product of the
prepress process,” Thirlby explains. “We
are trying to produce as many plates and
to do as many makereadies as we can. We
have taken the profiling away from the press
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013
17
ESP colour
and by having no makeready on the run, it
removes a process step.
“We run a Fogra 39 colour strip for the
Inpress Colour control and let Colorflow
process these measurements from the 324
different patches on the colour chart and that
resets the press. The aim has been to get it
all talking to each other on the fly so that we
never have to stop and reprofile everything.”
As A result esP knows exactly how
long a make ready will take, and it does so
without the press operator having to rush at
anything. The press hits the target number
of sheets, a marker is placed in the stack
because with an average of 4,000 sheets in
each job there is little point in changing the
stack at every make ready. While the plates
are lifted and replaced, the blankets are
washed if needed. Thirlby pushed Heidelberg to shave 20 seconds off the blanket
wash time.
The company is the only one in the UK
with Inpress Control on all its presses. It
is also the only UK printer with the full
Heidelberg maintenance contract which
provides weekly check ups and properly
planned servicing to keep the machines in
optimum condition. The idea is that every
machine will print exactly the same and
will use exactly the same consumables at all
times.
the effect is thAt thirlby can
claim “we understand colour than anybody
else”, not because there is adjustment on
press to get the perfect result, but because
there is absolutely no need for this sort of
adjustment. The company can trust the
process to deliver high quality colour because
all variable elements have been driven out.
On press consumables are crucial to this
and inks, the IPA free fount and coatings
come from Stehlin Hostag. It has involved
a lengthy development process to achieve
exactly the right formulation for the ink. It
needed to be stable under all conditions, it
had to be a high pigment ink and it had to
tolerate the stresses of rapid make ready and
running at 18,000sph without ink fly. The
safety covers on the XL105 are testament
that the last aspect has been achieved, while
the running figures show that ink, fount and
press are in tune.
The company has been running with the
ink set for 11 months and Stehlin Hostag is
now starting to market the ink as the Mozaic
HSD set for high speed sheetfed presses.
David Ward, managing director of Stehlin
Hostag UK, says: “We have worked with
ESP for a few years and Anthony Thirlby
knows what he wants to do and how he
18
March 2013
“I know I’m a bit like Marmite,” says
Thirlby. “But I know I still have the
ability to improve what we are doing.”
wants to do it. In this case it was an ink that
would work over an extended period and
would be robust in an aggressive production
environment. It has been running at speed
and getting into colour very quickly with a
lot of change overs between jobs which puts
a lot of stress on an ink from a stability point
of view.
“the reAl chAllenge wAs about
getting the ink into balance very quickly.”
Thirlby concurs: “The transition time at
start up is absolutely everything for us.”
The concept took a while for Stehlin’s
directors to fully understand, but has now
been fully adopted by the Swiss company
which sends personnel to Swindon. Thirlby
welcomes the visits. “If there are six or seven
experts from Stehlin in Munich looking at
the machine there will always be some idea
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
that I have not thought of,” he explains.
The ink also had to be fast drying because
with only straight presses, a job can be
turned and put back through the press
almost immediately. Last month this is
exactly what was happening on one of the
XL75s while producing the EMAS brochure
for Stehlin Hostag. No sooner had one
section been printed at the 15,000sph of the
XL75 than the plates were off, new plates on
and 3’50” later the next section was printing. Nobody rushed around, a quick check
on the control desk and the operator can get
on with preparing the next job. There was
no need to sit at the end of the press adjusting colour or water balance.
As the company prints to ISO 12647-2
HSD is a high density ink which would be
more expensive per kilo than some others.
But in the great scheme of things, the
greater cost comes when the press is stopped
or when intervention is needed to bring it
into colour because the ink is a variable.
And the same ink stays on press regardless of the material being printed. “I cannot
Cover Story
understand why people run different inks
for silks or uncoated papers,” he says.
ESP runs with ink optimisation, running
the algorithm over each image to make
best use of the high density black ink and
reduce the amount of the three colours. It
is highly unusual to run ink optimisation
on each image, more common is to run ink
optimisation across the plate. But there can
be savings through working image by image
as well as delivering a higher quality result.
It is a level of detail that ESP is prepared
to consider. Ink optimisation also helps in
drying as ink coverage is cut down. While
the ink is more expensive, the effect is that
per 1,000 sheets ink cost is 6% lower than
another ink would be.
The coaTing is anoTher joint development between Stehlin Hostag and ESP,
taking several months to get this right and to
balance with the IR dryers that Heidelberg
fits to the XL105. When the dryers were off
by just 1-2ºC, the company spotted it immediately in the extra tackiness on the sheet in
the delivery.
“The coating works out as 30% more
expensive which most printers will baulk at
and they will keep an existing coating but run
the press at 14,000sph instead of 18,000sph.
The coating that allows us to run at full speed
is the better value,” says Thirlby.
In a lesson from packaging, the coating
ensure that when feeding back through the
press, there is no slippage at the feeder. Likewise the company runs a blanket designed
to run on packaging presses and while more
expensive initially, is more durable and
means fewer blanket changes.
“We have a very simple supply
chain,” he explains. “We don’t want to waste
time forming new partnerships. The challenge is not to stand still but to do everything
we can to drive waste out of the process.”
He is planning to ease out the use of
special colours. More than 90% of Pantone
colours can be matched from four-colour
print and the financial advantages of printing out of the standard ink set as well as
growth of four-colour-only digital printing
means that the pressure to print with specials
is easing. In short ESP will shortly be removing another variable from the process.
What it has done is tamed the litho process
to the extent that litho can be treated exactly
the same as a digital. In prepress there are
just two members of staff to produce an
average of 2,800 plates a week. The rules
system set up automates the choice of press
and production flow that each job will take.
This is now viewable in a single graphics
dominated dashboard view that has been
created by Tharstern to include Stehlin’s
iCheck system and the Inpress Control for
each job. Thirlby can also dial in via an app
to see that the presses are running as they
should.
But he has not finished. There will be
more pressure on Heidelberg to make
improvements on the presses. The XL105
is already running makeready a 41 seconds
faster than the XL75, making a 100 sheet job
on the B1 press viable, for example.
“heidelberg WanTed To sell me
an Anicolor 75, but why would I want to do
that I already have all the advantages of an
Anicolor without the disadvantages,” he
says. An XL162 might be a different matter,
but the time for that machine in the UK
has probably passed. There will be no let
up in seeking improvements, working with
suppliers to refine the process, to shave a few
seconds from each job and improve margins
as a result.
“I know I’m a bit like Marmite,” he says.
“But I know I still have the ability to improve
what we are doing.” There are records to be
broken.
n
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www.tharstern.com
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013 19
Hunkeler
InnovatIon days
InnovatIons
for all nations
A
mid the falling snow that turned
Lucerne into a Christmas card,
amid the bizarrely clothed locals
celebrating carnival and the
end of winter, and amid the continuing
depressed outlook for many in the industry,
there was some serious talking, optimism
and engagement at the Hunkeler Innovations Days in Switzerland last month.
The biennial event, timed to fall between
Drupa and Ipex, has become a major draw
in the industry, both to technology providers
and to potential customers. It began as an
open house showcase for Hunkeler’s paper
processing systems which needed a print
engine to print the sample jobs that Hunkeler’s equipment could turn into an intricate
transactional mailing.
More and more print engine providers have clamoured to take part, leading to
a blossoming of applications far removed
from simple billing statements. Each has to
show a machine in operation and linked with
Hunkeler equipment. There is no space for
hospitality areas, displays, nor even carpet
on the floor. This is a stripped down raw
experience and all the better for it.
At the sAme time the Audience
has grown from those running large inplant
departments into direct mailing houses,
book printers, newspapers and now packaging providers. The numbers were such that
after 5,000 attended two years ago a fifth day
was added to spread the crowds more evenly
over the week.
Next time organisers have bowed to the
inevitable and realised that the show must
spread across a second hall in order to
accommodate those that want to be there.
Some companies have been considered too
tangental to be included, but now some of
those unable to get in ought to be there.
It is like a golf club refusing to admit the
winner of the Open Championship. Something has to give. Over the years companies
like Nipson and Delphax have disappeared,
20 March 2013
an international
audience turned
up to the most
successful Hunkeler
Innovations days yet
last month.
though the latter may consider a return with
a future inkjet web press.
And within the next couple of years there
will be other companies with inkjet web
presses that might want to be present. The
obvious candidates include Miyakoshi, Fuji
which showed the Jetpress W at Drupa and
the Komori Impremia using Konica Minolta
technology which was also seen in Germany
last year and JetLeader with a press at
Drupa.
mAny Are Aimed At litho replacement
for short run magazines and catalogues, a
trend which was very much in evidence in
Lucerne this year. The assiduous visitor
might have picked illustrated colour books
from a number of stands. There were newspapers, mono books, tickets with security
elements and lightweight packaging and
some transactional or transpromo applications. In and among the presses were
finishing lines offering sewn section books,
layflat photobooks, magazines and booklets,
varnished posters and die cut and creased
carton blanks.
there were softwAre applications
to drive the digital presses with variable
data, mailing lines including both Kern
and new company Kern-Data (“Nothing to
do with the Kern company,” according to
Kern-Data’s founder, whose brother runs
the original Kern), W+D and Pitney Bowes,
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
both with plain paper lines forming envelopes around the inserts.
And crucially for inkjet web printing
to spread into all areas of print, there was
strong evidence of a flowering in the range
of papers on offer that are designed to match
the characteristics of inkjet printing and its
reliance on water as a carrying medium. One
estimate reckons there are now 70 papers
designed for inkjet printing, rather than just
a handful a year or so back. And cost has
tumbled. Expect to pay around $900 a tonne,
half the level for a good quality paper a few
years ago. It is still difficult to find a paper
with gloss levels to match litho papers, and
post print coating (using the new Hunkeler
coater) is an acceptable workaround, though
not ideal.
this is not A problem for the Xerox
CiPress the company claims because its solid
inkjet using no water sits on the surface of
the paper without soaking into it. A single
engine duplex version of this press was
introduced at the event. The problem for
Xerox is that colour quality, while bright
enough, lags behind more conventional
approaches. The ink is also not as stable as
conventional inks because, being wax based,
it remains slightly fluid and apt to bleed. For
ephemeral print this is not going to be an
issue, but this feature probably rules out
recipe books.
KbA, on the other hAnd, was
printing a recipe booklet, the same recipe
booklet that it had printed at Drupa on the
RotaJet76. The KBA press, using a paper
path derived from its newspaper printing
experience, towered over all other presses in
Lucerne. Most of the others had emerged
from the CRD world, dominated at one time
by IBM and the IPDS format. KBA is not
interested in this, aiming instead at newspapers, books and other elements of its litho
user base looking to complement long runs
with short run capacity. The press is capable
Hunkeler
InnovatIon Days
of variable data work, explains Oliver Baar,
the inkjet specialist recruited to head this
venture.
Since Drupa, KBA has worked to change
the screening algorithm resulting in softer
colour tones. There is a new pigmented
polymer ink set and ink delivery system
which has been designed to eliminate any
micro bubbles of gas in the ink which then
prevent nozzles firing.
The drying path has been doubled in
length, helping to cut oven temperature to
55ºC, and avoiding stress on the paper. There
is no distortion on the paper and because of
this back to back register is spot on. All these
improvements were visible in comparing the
Drupa and Hunkeler versions of the recipe
pamphlet.
Deep discussions about applications took place across the show.
Post print varnishing produces a glossy finish.
Hunkeler previewed and demonstrated a range of finishing options.
These sorTs of improvemenTs
could be seen at every point. Kodak has
improved the feedback loop from the
cameras and sensors inside its Prosper
5000XL and extended the paper path to
enable a wider range of papers to be printed
without undue stress. The package of
improvements will be an upgrade to existing machines and the 5000XLi will now be
the standard model. There is also a new high
permanence ink developed to improve print
quality, seen on the books that were handed
over as samples of the quality that the press
delivers.
This could be compared to quality from
the Indigo web press which was running on
the HP stand, demonstrating a high productivity photobook job, rereeled and finished
on an adjacent stand. The quality remains
the benchmark for digital printing with
Sybille Weinmann pointing out that in black
only mode the press will reach a throughput
of 128 metres/min.
This may not be the fastest around, nor as
fast as the company’s inkjet machines, but
it is respectable and faster than many would
appreciate. She put her thumb on the appeal
of the Hunkeler Innovations Days: “It’s like
the best car showroom in Europe. All the
luxury cars are here, the equivalents of the
Audis, Mercedes, BMWs. It lets visits have
a laser focus into these markets,” she says.
While on Thumbs, HP did not have a
T230 at the event, but it did have a demonstration of its Aurasma augmented reality
tool. Using this, industry consultant Pat
McGrew was able to spin a 3D image of the
press on her thumb. More prosaically she
pointed out that the tool would allow a salesman to bring a sales brochure alive, to show
a customer the press, delving into it and
demonstrating how it works before perhaps
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013
21
Hunkeler
InnovatIon days
what they can do and are becoming involved
in multi channel marketing campaigns or
need to print books digitally for example.”
It has been a pincer movement for Ricoh.
On the one hand there has been the legacy
CRD business inherited from Infoprint. On
the other is the cut sheet light production
digital press which Ricoh came to with the
C901 just five years ago. On the inkjet side
the Infoprint 5000 is configured to allow a
customer to move up from relatively slow
mono only machines to a 220metres/minute
press in full colour.
the question is now just how far can inkjet web printing advance into commercial print?
spending the time on a customer visit. “How
many people can say that they have lifted up
a T230?” she says.
It is the inkjet technology that is fast catching up with the Israeli cousins. The T230 is
being used in newspapers and colour books
as well as transactional now. It is the same
supply chain argument that has persuaded
publishers to switch to digital production
for their trade titles says Paul Randall. “In
education publishing, one publisher has
come down from three warehouses to one,
from 900,000 titles in stock to 200,000. That
is supply chain efficiency. We see academic,
STM and educational publishing as the next
affected.”
Newspapers are aNother sector
that is only now starting to show real traction
following years of small scale testing and
the validation of the ‘island model’ where
digital printing on the spot beats air freighting copies for local consumption.
“There has been real interest from
publishers in the last two to three years,”
says Peter Wolff, head of Canon’s commercial print group. “This is especially the case
in smaller communities and countries like
Belgium and Scandinavia.”
The quality produced on the Océ branded
inkjet presses is “the best in the sector” says
Wolff. It is certainly the most widespread as
the company claims to have achieved 50%
market share in Europe for three years in
a row. This is partly due to the company’s
long legacy extended back beyond Océ into
Siemens’ ownership.
Consequently, says Wolff, there are 1,500
customers around Europe and a live pros-
22
March 2013
pect list totalling 3,000 businesses in his
area.
With the cost per unit, especially in
book publishing, as crucial to the choice
of production method, an ink optimisation routine where Canon achieves the same
perceived quality while saving on volumes
of ink through colour management technology is vital.
Migration is patchy, perhaps driven by
cultural differences. “The quality is good
enough for the UK and France where printers are more innovative than in some other
countries. The Germans and Swiss are more
technology driven, thus are more defensive of
the methods they already have,” he explains.
The UK attitude will also help with the
unrolling of white paper factory solutions
where the emphasis is on the cost and impact
of the total production process. “It’s an
approach that is about the printer helping to
improve a customer’s business. The printer
needs to become a development partner for
its customers. That’s a massive shift,” adds
Wolff.
there is a big shift too in the types
of customer that is coming to the Hunkeler
event. At one time visitors would have been
purely transactional with a few book printers
creeping over the last two or three iterations
of the show. Now, says Ricoh Europe business development manager Graham Moore,
there are commercial print customers flying
in. “They would not have been interested
two or four years ago,” he says, “nor would
they have been invited by Ricoh. Now many
are looking to advance from first generation
digital engines, they are looking to expand
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
equally importaNt, however, are the
offerings around the print technology. This
is going to include the marketing solutions
platform from PTI, an acquisition from
the end of last year that Ricoh is planning
to position as a cloud service. The aim is to
manage brand consistency across various
output channels using the cloud platform.
“It will allow people to provide a broader
service than just respond to print,” says
Moore.
Another is Clickable Paper, a technology
that was shown at Drupa to link physical and
virtual worlds. This technology has reached
the testing stage and says Moore, pilots are
underway. He talks about linking a printed
page to multiple websites for a family
looking an activity holiday where each is off
doing something adventurous on their own,
or the university which is using Clickable
Paper to link to additional material online.
“The emphasis is on solutions and services
that extend beyond the press,” he adds.
the iNkjet press is based on the
Screen TruepressJet 520 engine, which
Screen was using to print book blocks linked
inline to a Horizon perfect binder. There is
a new Richer Pigment ink to enhance the
black and which can lead to ink optimisation opportunities. But the key for Screen is
likewise in the front end services in can offer,
showing an autoganging feature for its EquiosNet front end aimed at platesetter users,
but also the Variable Frontend Software, a
cloud based system to handle design, data
and production from designer, company and
printer combined to deliver a personalised
marketing campaign.
It is providing webfed inkjet users with a
business development tool that is far easier
to use than most existing variable data
engines and which will operate on a pay per
use basis, making it less onerous to take first
steps into the market.
In two years’ time, printers will not need
to be so tentative. Hunkeler Innovation Days
2015 takes place 23-27 February in Lucerne.
Hunkeler
InnovatIon Days
kodak reveals package of Prosper
measures at the event
KodaK has upgraded its Prosper
5000XL inkjet press with a package of
measures that includes self correction
routines and sensors to monitor the quality
of print being produced. The new version
is the Prosper 5000XLi and also introduces
optional paper paths to increase the range of
papers that it can print on.
The aim is to overcome any perceived
limitations that the press has in printing
consistent high quality colour. A longer
paper path opens the way to print on
substrates that were previously outside the
scope of inkjet printing, while part of the
improvements package is to ensure precise
back to back register. For example, software
responds to information picked up from
onboard CCDs to either stretch or compress
an image to guarantee the perfect fit. “It’s
the next generation of colour press,” says
Will Mansfield, director of marketing,
Kodak inkjet printing solutions.
There is also a new generation of high
permanence inks to add to the package.
Details on press performance are available
both to the customer for his own MIS and
business performance statistical analysis
and to Kodak for diagnostic and comparison
purposes.
The next generation upgrade to the
Prosper 5000XL seems to have convinced
a US publisher to begin switching production of a portfolio of magazines from offset
to digital, resulting in a twentyfold volume
increase for the print company concerned.
In the meantime volumes in direct mail and
books are increasing.
The development to the Stream engined
press comes as Kodak winds down its Versamark inkjet press family. The VX version
has ceased production though parts and
secondhand versions remain available for at
least five years, while the VL continues to be
available, at least until Kodak, or a partner,
develops a lower cost version of the Prosper
machine.
For while Kodak continues to build the
Prosper, with the 1000 as the mono press for
book printing and the 5000XL is for colour,
and the 6000XL, announced at Drupa is
expected to be in the field later this year,
the company has had greater success in
supplying the Stream heads to other manufacturers and for specialist applications.
This is evident in the Timson T-Press, the
addition of Stream heads to Heidelberg
Speedmasters at Anton Press and to Manroland Web presses at Axel Springer.
A wider Stream print head is on the
road map according to Kodak which will
be welcomed by third party developers.
This does not imply a wider version of the
Prosper platform however, Mansfield warns.
“We are getting a lot of interest in integrating our writing system in other presses,”
says Doug Edwards, Kodak vice president
in charge of its digital division. “Especially
now in packaging and in the functional
printing space. Forecasts say this is a $20
billion opportunity today, growing to $40
billion by 2017.
“The name of the game is partnership.
There are not many companies that can meet
the market requirements at every stage and
can afford to do this alone. We are going to
be working with multiple partners and there
are lots of people talking to us.”
The stumbling block in these discussions
is Kodak’s continuing status in Chapter 11.
Until the reorganisation is complete, names
will remain under wraps. The company
has exit funding in place and has received
$527 million from the sale of not needed
IP. It needs now to complete the sale of its
personal printing and document imaging
divisions and to resolve the UK pensions
situation. “Everything is looking good for a
resolution by the middle of the year,” says
Edwards.
What will emerge is a company with sales
of around $2.6 billion focused on commercial imaging, $1.6 billion from graphics,
prepress and consumables, the other $1.0
billion from digital print and enterprise,
covering Prosper and Stream, Nexpress
and Digimaster, packaging and functional
printing.
security just the ticket for Xeikon at lucerne
XeiKon was unable to bring examples of the Skiing World Cup tickets that a
customer has been printing to Lucerne, but
instead created a similar ticket for a range of
fashion shows around the world.
The aim was to demonstrate the security
elements that can be included in a digitally
printed ticket, apart from variable data
numbering and name.
Marketing manager Frank Jacobs points
to the microtexting line, a patch combining
a single colour and four colour black, QR
code or complex 2D bar code for verifica-
tion printed at 1200dpi. All make replication
through copying almost impossible and are
visual elements to deter counterfeiters.
Xeikon however can go further. Through
a tie up with Canadian company Brandwatch
International it will deliver toner across the
Atlantic where Brandwatch adds a unique
taggant to the toner. This is a component
that shows up under the application of laser
light.
A quick check at the point of entry to an
event for example will disclose the presence
of the taggant, while a more complex check
at an approved lab will tie the taggant to a
batch of toner and the use for which it was
approved.
Brandwatch registers all users and uses for
the taggant making this as secure a system
as can be practically devised. At Hunkeler
this was enhanced by using Hunkeler’s laser
punching and perforation system to create
digital signatures in the web.
“It’s not security print per se,” says
Jacobs, “but for print service providers this
provides a way to help them make print a
little more value added than it is already.”
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013
23
Newspapers
read
all about it
T
he doom and gloom that overhangs
the newspaper industry is largely an
Anglo-American problem and the
rest of the world continues to enjoy
the printed newspaper, with a coffee on the
streets of Paris or bars of Turin on the way
to work.
And even in the UK and US where digital
has transfixed newspaper publishers with
a basilisk eye, digital revenues are still far
below those from run of press advertising,
somewhere between 10-20% depending on
the source of the data. Outside the the major
developed markets, newspapers continue to
grow. According to WAN-Ifra “the challenge is one of business – it’s about finding
models for the digital age”.
And thAt is where print steps
in, more precisely where digital print steps
in. Agfa first attempted to exploit the potential for digitally printed newspapers and
created all kinds of solutions to perceived
issues, but was quick to realise demand did
not really exist at the time. Océ has continued to push digital printing of newspapers
and has had some success. Kodak has scored
business with inkjet set ups on islands,
where the appeal is to be able to print on the
spot and save air transport costs and time.
Now the potential of the newspaper
market has attracted HP which has sold a
T230 web press to Italian newspaper printer
CSQ.
This is the first specialist newspaper
printer to commit to the HP press though
not the first time the technology has been
used to print newspapers. Journalists visiting O’Neill Data Systems four years ago
were presented with a copy of Barron’s
News, personalised and printed on the first
24
March 2013
Hp is the latest of
the large digital
manufacturers to
be attracted to the
potential of digital
newspapers.
HP inkjet press and Belgian printer Symetra
has contracts to print overseas titles and has
printed newspaper style products as marketing material alongside its loyalty mailings for
the Coryut supermarket chain.
CSQ though is a newspaper printer
through and through. It was formed in
2000 as a joint venture between Giornali di
Brescia and L’Eco di Bergamo. It runs two
twin Wifag newspaper lines, an OF370 and
OF 373. While only a decade old, these are
very traditional machines and kept in as new
condition. CSQ managing director Dario De
Cian says: “We are the first – and the last –
printer to buy these presses.” It is now the
first to buy the T230, but is most unlikely to
be the last.
the volume of pAges produced on
the Wifags has been falling in line with the
decline in the European newspaper circulations. In Italy newspaper circulations have
fallen from 7.5 billion editions printed in
2007 to 6.5 billion in 2010 across 58 key
titles. Advertising revenue has been in
decline in a similar fashion, and is around
50% of the level in the peak year of 2000,
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
when CSQ moved to its new plant. But
rather than watch as sales head towards a
vanishing point on the horizon, the company
has decided to act. Alongside the press hall
the company has a very extensive Muller
Martini mailroom designed to rereel printed
products during the daylight hours and to
insert these during the production run at
night. There are semi commercial magazine
style products as well as inserts for different
parts of the distribution network.
On top of the two dailies and four editions
of La Provincia, and regional runs of
national title Avenire amounting to 350,000
copies nightly, there are weeklies that are
produced for the publishers that own the
printer, it also prints for overseas publishers.
From June to September each year it prints
De Telegraaf and from Easter until October
it prints Bild am Sontag.
then 18 months Ago it began to look
at the possibility of printing digitally.
Di Cian explains that the company was
looking to print in 100-2,000 copy batches
in four colour and up to 48pp in the formats
that it prints its main products. It wanted
to print in a six hour window each night
on standard newsprint and glossy papers
and with integration to its existing Agfa
front end so that pages and editions can
be switched seamlessly between offset and
digital production.
HP emerged as the supplier able to meet
these requirements, including the ability to
run at lower ink densities to hit the price
point that overseas publishers needed while
also running at higher densities to reach the
offset quality that local advertisers have been
looking for.
When the T230 went into action at the
ties across Europe. It sought out CSQ over
printing the Russian titles and is looking for
similar outlets to cut down on time consuming transportation. “We are very interested
in the opportunities for digital printing to
localise production,” says Gabriella Moretti
from Johnsons. “While most papers want
only limited production at the moment, it is
difficult to find a production slot when you
cannot take that slot for the whole year, so
it becomes expensive. And the alternative
of transport costs are equally expensive.
Digital allows us to print exactly what is
required and to include local advertising.”
HP’s publishing marketing manager
Paul Randall says newspapers are a
$200 billion industry worldwide.
start of the year, the first products were two
Russian titles, 500 copies a day of Kommersant and Vedomosti and an Italian weekly
Monviso. These are finished on a Hunkeler
line which slits and collates the papers before
folding on a Heidelberg folder. It has also
been producing promotional posters for its
own papers.
Di Cian says the next steps are to demonstrate quality to local ad agencies to start to
create hyper local sections and products, to
produce promotional newspapers for trade
fairs, catalogues and B2B magazines. And
the list goes on. CSQ is not going to be held
back by lack of ideas.
Indeed on a tour around the plant, he
points out a vast vacant space, currently
referred to as The Discoteque, which
will become the digital print space as the
company invests in more digital engines.
Already he is thinking of a second T230 to
increase production and to enable multiple
products to be printed simultaneously. It is
for this reason that the company chose what
is currently the smallest of the HP family
rather than a wider and more productive
machine. “The idea is that when the business grows we will double the system that we
have rather than choosing a very large width
machine,” says Di Cian.
Now the opeN questioN is whether
CSQ has got its sums right and whether
digital production print can finally take
off after promising to do so on previous
occasions. One aspect that is promising
comes from the distribution end, which has
remained set in its ways. But that is changing. Johnson International acts as a print
broker for numerous publishers looking
to reach travelling readers in communi-
this poiNts the way to a new business model, not just print broker, but also
advertising broker. “There are projects in
hand to print other newspapers here, not
just the Russian titles,” she adds.
For HP digital production naturally
represents a growing opportunity. After
it has tackled transactional and more
recently book production, newspapers is a
logical next step says publishing marketing
manager Paul Randall.
the physical Newspaper is not
disappearing despite the crisis it faces in
Europe in the face of competition from
digital channels. Most of the research relates
to North America where newspapers are
under invested and the local press can be
staggeringly dull and worthy. By contrast
says Randall, newspapers are a $200 billion
industry worldwide, with more than half the
adult population reading 2.5 billion newspapers a day.
Globally the emerge of new economies
and the spread of an educated middle class
has spurred an overall increase in readerships to the sort of levels that exist in
Europe, where nine countries are in the top
12 globally for readership numbers.
aNd that coNtiNued volume
of newsprint continues to be appealing to
advertisers wanting to reach a mass audience.
As an example, the spate of supermarkets
apologising for the contents of the ready
meals, used newsprint rather than television
or radio to get the message across.
Digital printing offers the opposite,
namely the opportunity to address smaller
communities and markets that are beyond
the scope of conventional advertising, even
down to personalised advertising.
“We are having discussions with content
owners who understand what can be done
with subscription and demographic data,”
says Randall. Maybe this time newspapers
are ready to switch to digital.
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Digital press suppliers
good deal of
Digital
as Heidelberg sells ricoh presses and apex Digital graphics take on
Konica Minolta machines, where do you start looking for digital?
I
t began several years ago when Kodak
and Heidelberg created a joint venture
which led to the Nexpress colour
digital press. That proved to be a false
start as the partnership dissolved without
the sales volumes that had been expected.
Lessons were learned however, principally
that litho and offset do not mix: that one
is a sale based on usage rates, the other a
capital investment with a broad choice of
consumables suppliers to keep operational
costs under control.
However, circumstances have changed.
Sales of offset presses are slow and in the
two-page B3 sector have been decimated
by digital machines. Today’s commercial
printer needs digital and litho alongside each
other and behold, the digital press is once
again interesting for litho press providers.
Heidelberg has had a joint venture deal
with Ricoh and has taken the core C751
and C901 light production machines and
modified them to suit its purposes. Last
year Komori entered a similar arrangement
with Konica Minolta, labelling its C8000 cut
sheet digital press the Impremia C80. There
is a commitment to create a family of inkjet
presses, starting with a B2 sheetfed machine
and a web press.
Konica Minolta is also now working
with Apex Digital Graphics which is distributing the sheetfed range to its customer base
of Ryobi customers. The benefits for printers of dealing with Apex include the trust
that has built up over the years and its ability
to handle colour management to achieve a
close match between offset and digital
output.
Xerox has no such partnerships, prefer-
26
March 2013
ring to work through a network of dealers,
some targeted at specific market sectors.
For the most part this means that Xerox can
retain the post-sale service revenues. If the
close link with offset is lacking, there is often
a tight fit with workflows and web to print
operation in particular. For example, ROI
Digital, which has a series of sophisticated
web to print and cross media applications,
can integrate closely with the print engine.
at one tiMe XeroX definitely believed
that offering both digital and litho in a single
portfolio was the way ahead, going as far as
to offer Xerox branded litho presses for sale.
However, it was a short-lived effort, begun
at Drupa 2000, partly as a strategic challenge
to Heidelberg’s encroachment into digital
printing, and ended within a couple of years.
Today Xerox products are also available
through Fujifilm Graphic Systems in the
UK, which can deliver the close relationship
to offset, colour management and trust.
Canon also operates though dealers for
most of its cut sheet machines, though the
former Océ operation is now the core of
Canon’s production print set up and includes
the supply of cut sheet machines alongside
Océ’s web presses.
Certainly for Heidelberg the return to
supplying digital presses has come with a
different approach. In the Nexpress days
there was a specialist digital sales team who
would be called in only after every avenue
to selling a conventional press had been
exhausted. Now the same sales people are
selling what best suits a customer, whether
conventional litho, Anicolor or a Ricoh
engine. “This way the printer is receiving
honest advice and is not being introduced
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
to a new salesman every three months.
That level of trust makes a difference,” says
Chris Matthews, digital equipment business
manager at Heidelberg. “We also do not
try to bamboozle customers with contracts
loaded with clauses. We are very straightforward: equipment costs, finance, running
cost.” There is of course a degree of flexibility and a financing package can be created
based on plates or other consumables.
What is core to the Heidelberg approach
is the integration to Prinect and colour
management to enable toner and litho to
match.
At the top level, there is cooperation
between the two companies, something
that has already resulted in enhancements
to the C901 including an extension to run
350gsm. The link to Prinect and then on to
MIS such as Tharstern is as complete as with
litho equipment so appears on the dashboard
as another piece of production equipment.
“A dealer simply will not have that understanding of a commercial print business.
It’s being able to provide what is best for the
customer together with the consumables and
the service,” he adds.
the disadvantage is that the
Linoprint C901 as the Ricoh machine
appears with Heidelberg’s badge, is only
available through Heidelberg. It means that
Ricoh and Heidelberg do not find themselves in head to head competition. Ricoh
UK production print director Stephen
Palmer says: “What Heidelberg has done
makes good sense and provides greater definition to what they sell. This is the start of
what should be a long relationship leading
to more products and developments.” It
Digital Press suPPliers
is not clear to what extent Heidelberg has
influenced development of the new Ricoh
engine due to launch this spring.
A key point of differentiation is the business support packages that Ricoh offers
under its Business Builder programme. It
also has a suite of software applications for
colour management and for web to print. Its
purchase of PFI late last year increases the
power of web to print into cross media areas.
ricoh uK’s production print director
stephen Palmer: “What Heidelberg has
done makes good sense.”
apex Digital graphics sales director
Neil Handforth: “We are not going to
act like a box shifter.”
Heidelberg’s digital equipment
business manager Chris Matthews:
“We do not try to bamboozle with
contracts loaded with clauses.”
While most graphic arts industry
business is direct, Ricoh also has a network
of dealers, mostly selling office equipment,
but occasionally starting to offer production
print level products in a very limited way.
“But beyond that it’s either direct from
Heidelberg or via Ricoh,” says Palmer.
Konica Minolta provides a wider
approach. It sells direct, through geographical dealers, through a co-development
arrangement with Komori and now with
Apex.
For apex the agreement ended
a search for a digital press that it could
support. “We looked at a number of players
in the market,” says managing director Bob
Usher. “We were blown away by the quality
of the KM machine.” The underlying drive
has been the shift from small format litho
into digital for B3 printing. It has been
marked by Ryobi’s growth into a B2 and
SRA1 press provider. But at the same time
there are a lot of two-page Ryobis in operation that are being replaced by digital, along
with the plates that they consume and the
service business they represent.
The KM press will replace this small
format business, while continuing to provide
the consumables and service revenues, at
least once Apex has achieved an agreed level
of sales. Usher expects this to be reached in
six months. Already, he says, the sales reps
have 15-20 good leads each. “We have sold
450 Harlequin Rips and 100 more sophisticated Trueflows over the years, so our people
understand workflows and they understand
colour. We will be profiling each type of
output so the end customer can’t tell,” he
says. This experience in going inside the
Rip to adapt the software is one where Apex
has an edge even over Komori. “Because
Komori has never sold CTP this should be
easier for us,” he explains, “whereas we have
done lots of profiles and calibrations.”
apex sales director neil Handforth adds: “This is about our relationship
with our customers. We are not going to
act like a box shifter. A lot of printers have
been sold the wrong digital box to start with,
perhaps because they have miscalculated the
impact on their business. We understand
that. We have had that experience in selling
both portrait and landscape B3 where we
would always want to sell the right machine,
because we know what happens when a
customer doesn’t get it right.”
the company has taken delivery of
a C7000 at its Hemel Hempstead showroom
and this will be used both for demonstrations
and for Apex’s team to really understand
the press, to learn the Fiery Rip and how it
works with digital files. It will also be able to
show prospects machines at other KM facilities across the country.
Apex plans to complete the offering with
a range of third party software and applications that are not offered by KM. “We
believe we can add value at the front end
and match digital and offset workflows,”
says Usher.
It is also not unknown for work to migrate
in the other direction. Some of the Apex
customer base which has already invested in
digital reports that volumes on digital have
grown to the point that work transfers to the
litho presses.
The deal for Apex is limited to the cut
sheet machines, to include the C1100 when
introduced later this year. The inkjet presses
will remain a Komori interest while the gap
for Apex will be filled by developments
between Ryobi and Miyakoshi on a fast
digital press.
as Far as komori is concerned, its
partnership with Konica Minolta has strategic appeal, both in terms of the future
inkjet press and in reshaping Komori into
a Press Engineering Company. “We have
put in a lot of effort to get the Impremia
C80 established,” says Komori UK director of sheetfed sales Steve Turner. That
includes linking it through the K Simulator
to manipulate the digital press to match the
colour output of the litho press. “As far as
we are concerned digital is not a replacement
for litho. They sit side by side and each has
its place,” says Turner.
that place is about short run
printing and offering the variable data that
litho presses currently cannot. Nor is there a
firm cut off point between one process and
the other. By some reckoning, 500 sheets is
the point at which litho takes over, but this
can move from 200 sheets at one end to more
than 1,000 at the other. With print runs in
decline, digital and litho now go together.
The question for printers is where the best
deal can be found?
n
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013
27
Cross media
Follow the
money
T
he old adage of Follow the Money
has taken some printers to some
interesting places over the years,
and is perhaps more relevant today
than at any time previously.
Money from simply print alone is no
longer enough and companies must look
to expand what they do to grow in this
economic climate. And if budgets for print
are shrinking those for digital marketing are
expanding.
Join A to B and why shouldn’t printers move into digital marketing, aka cross
media. These days there is even an exhibition about it (taking place at the Business
Design Centre in October).
And there Are printers that are
enjoying profits from cross media activities,
from running websites, creating Purl based
campaigns, social media and driving email
and print in harness.
“When we did some research recently
with our customers, cross media was the
number two subject they were interested
in,” says Simon Ellington, commercial
manager at ROI360. The company delivers web to print, variable data solutions and
software to manage cross media campaigns
built around the flexibility of the Pageflex
application engine.
“But they are held back by asking ‘Do we
have the skills to do this in house?’, ‘Can we
do the consultative selling that is necessary?
Can we handle the web programming and
databasing that is needed?’ Then there is the
big question: How can we make cross media
profitable?”
rOi360 hAs A services Arm which
will work alongside the customer, train
its sales people and produce the initial
programming work says Ellington. “What
28
March 2013
Can cross media be
profitable?
it depends on how
marketers and
printers go about
it and choosing the
right medium for
the job.
people are looking for is a successful project
that they can use as a case study that they can
approach other clients with,” he says.
One company that is in this position
is Healey’s Print Group. It is not an ROI
customer, but installed a VPress web to print
application last year.
Managing director Phil Dodd admits that
the Ipswich business has only developed this
slowly, though it is now up and running in a
convincing way with a number of customers, driving production of digital print.
“Now we are moving towards cross media
and offering more than just print,” he says.
“We are finding a lot of agencies are doing
it so cross media is definitely set to grow.”
Business development director Kelly
Harris adds: “It’s a conversation we are
having with customers, or trying to because
there are different people and teams responsible for print and for digital marketing.
These are silos at our customers which
can make it difficult to reach a decision.
The internal departments need to work
together.”
Cross media remains hard to define, though
generally coming to mean a digital medium
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
working hand in hand with print. This can
be an email lead generation campaign driving
to a web page where the prospect is invited to
down load a digital version of a brochure or
else to request a printed brochure (perhaps
personalised) related to their area of interest. So for a holiday company the website
might offer separate brochures on different
destinations for example, or types of holiday,
cruise, villa, escorted travel, exclusive inner
city hotel and so on.
A cAmpAign might equAlly start
with a mail piece which includes QR codes
to link the prospect to a website to carry
out a transaction. Print to drive traffic to a
website is the most frequently used application, perhaps with a code to trigger a
discount and to track the effectiveness of
the direct mail.
Those that have made a purchase on a
website will frequently receive updated catalogues intended to drive the customer back
to the website to make a further purchase.
Equally a cross media campaign may
extend over several months or longer, using
a web page to capture data about the visitor
and using this to trigger an order for a
printed sign up pack, specific or personalised brochure and so on.
inevitAbly the print element
of any automated marketing campaign or
other form of cross media project is going
to be relatively low, but it is the part that
printers understand and the element that
the customers know how to cost. But the
printer needs to be able to charge for the
consultancy time up front, the creative and
the management time required to implement and run the project.
“It can be hard to charge for it,” admits
Jon Bailey, sales director of ProCo. “Do you
Cross Media
try and work out the price on a cost plus
basis, how much do you charge for managing the ongoing process? It can be hard for
printers to know how to charge. Marketing
agencies and creatives have a head start in
this respect because they are higher up the
food chain and are used to charging for their
time and ideas rather than the printer who
charges for execution.”
ProCo has found a way around the conundrum. It is managing to offer and sell cross
media, seeing volumes grow 20% in the
last year. “We are also engaged in a lot more
conversations,” says Bailey.
The Sheffield company has been
involved in direct mail for many
years, and offers both sheetfed and
digital printing based around HP
Indigos and HP’s powerful SmartStream Server. It has experience of running
variable data campaigns and of web to print.
Both combine in the cross media universe.
“Cross media is similar to web to
print in that not everybody is sure about
what it is. Do people really know what they
want?” says Bailey. This clearly provides an
opportunity for the printer to come in to
help and shape a campaign involving trigger
driven actions, email, feedback mechanisms
to drive the conversation and social media.
“Not everybody has the appropriate data.
But as the technology becomes simpler and
not so difficult to understand and afford; as
CRM becomes more effective and understood, it becomes easier to sell,” he explains.
“We try to make it simple in what we offer.”
Most projects are still stand alone somewhat isolated campaigns that have a short
and finite life, rather than an enduring
campaign. It means that the knowledge used
to build the project needs to be retained in
house and understood to be applied in the
next project even if it appears very different on the surface. ProCo says it has built
a ‘rapid development environment’ in
order to move from presentation to final
implementation.
The key for howard hunT is
control over all aspects of the project says
Lucy Edwards. That the Dartford company
has a data management marketing agency
(Celerity) in the group clearly helps deliver
the complete solution. “If printers haven’t
expanded in that way, they will struggle to
take full ownership of the project,” says
Edwards.
“These days print rarely stands alone.
A piece of direct mail will have links to a
website, the campaign will include email.
Print is not in isolation any longer. We need
Print offers
an roi ten or
fifteen times
better than
the online
stuff. if it’s
not paying
the bills, it’s
not the right
medium.
Sam Neal
to understand that and follow what the client
wants.”
One award winning example was a retention programme for The Caravan Club.
First all the data that the organisation held
on its members was pulled together into
a single view and enabling mining of that
data. The email piece and direct mail piece
were designed to be consistent and sent to
members with recommendations for camp
sites within driving distance. The sites
offered naturally differed according to the
location of the member. A further email was
triggered the week before a booked visit,
both to improve the relationship with the
member and also as a reminder to actually
take up the booking.
Further emails were sent through the
year while variable direct mail was sent to
promote insurance services for example,
using a relevant picture on the front of the
piece. Throughout both email and print
elements remained consistent and resulted
in a boost to site bookings, overseas ferry
bookings and resulted in a payback within
the first 12 months.
“It’s about being able to deliver the right
message at the right time and through
the right channel for the end consumer,”
Edwards explains.
For Howard Hunt when cross media is
well executed the results can be amazing
she says and print is crucial to that success.
“Cross media puts print in a very strong
position as a vital part of the marketing
mix.” Convincing customers may mean
running proof of concept tests to show what
might be expected or to tweak the messaging before committing to a major campaign,
but for Howard Hunt, cross media can only
become stronger.
This does not mean that every direct mail
printer is clamouring to climb aboard the
bandwagon.
in wesT london Geoff neal
Litho is sticking to print, while acknowledging that email and websites are playing
a role. “We had a meeting with two high
profile automotive companies recently,” says
managing director Sam Neal. “We talked
SMS, websites, email, combining this with
QR codes and so on, but when we looked
at the ROI that was expected, the cost of
a campaign using the digital channels was
insane. People can easily forget the cost
of click throughs and of web hosting
which can add up really quickly. Print
offers an ROI ten or fifteen times
better than the online stuff. If it’s not
paying the bills, it’s not the right medium.
“The best way to communicate with
customers is to write to them using good
data.”
Print’s strength comes from the trust
that is placed in it. This can range from the
intrinsic integrity that has accumulated over
the years to specific cases (a top end auction
house will sell expensive items off page so
needs to spend on colour control, but may
not be so concerned about lower value items
in a general sale), and everybody who visits
a car showroom wants to walk away with a
printed brochure, not a website address.
“You might visit the website to work out
the specification of the car you want and
which extras to opt for, but everybody that
is serious about a purchase wants a printed
brochure,” says Neal. “If you take time to
target the right audience print works. That
is why we are strictly printers.”
n
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013
29
PaPer
end of season
clearance
T
his year the balance of power in the
paper industry is shifting towards
Asia, not just because the continent
is continuing to develop economically and, in India, China and Indonesia,
has three of the future powerhouse economies, but also because after many years as
the pariah of paper production, APP is
becoming part of the world paper production community.
Two actions have combined to make this
change, one an external change imposed by
the EU, the US and Australia to minimise
illegal logging and the second an internal
change whereby APP has announced an
immediate end to natural forest clearance on
its own pulpwood plantations in Indonesia.
The laTTer change came after APP
began working with The Forest Trust, an
NGO which has had success in advising forest
product companies in the developing world
on the actions they need to take to make
product acceptable to western companies
and consumers. It scored a notable success
in changing Nestle’s policies towards sourcing of palm oil for its chocolate and other
products. Now it appears to be succeeding in
making APP’s forestry policies acceptable to
buyers in the developed world.
Thus there is the pledge to suspend forest
clearance and also to respect High Conservation Value Forest best practice. In other
words not to develop or clear areas of rain
forest that are designated high conservation
value because of the flora and fauna they
support. Corridors of forest wide enough to
allow movement of animals between these
areas are equally important.
aPP has PromoTed its conservation
activities in the past while with the left hand
continuing to clear areas of forest for plantations of fast maturing pulp species. This did
not endear the company to NGOs like the
World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace who
are now cautiously welcoming the change of
30 March 2013
asia Pulp & Paper
has announced
it will no longer
clear forests on
its pulpwood
plantations.
policy. As well as ending virgin forest clearance, APP has pledged to respect peatland
management best practice (considered a
vital carbon sink in the battle against climate
change), community engagement and to
allow third party monitoring of activities.
While the NGOs are claiming that the
change of heart has much to do with the
pressure they have put the company under
over the years, at least as important has been
new legislation to prevent the entry of illegally logged timber and timber products
coming into the US (the Lacey Act) and into
Europe under EU Timber Regulations.
This will demand transparency and
traceability of all timber used in a product
imported into the EU. For paper this means
that the sources of pulp used in paper
production must be known and shown to
be legal. APP falls into this category, having
passed the terms of Indonesia’s SVLK
timber legality assurance system. It achieved
what amounts to a legally enforceable chain
of custody status at the end of last year,
clearing the way for uncoated papers made
from this fibre to pass into the EU.
The EU Timber Regulations have come
into force this month and have created a
framework under which anybody importing
timber or using products, including paper,
derived from it must have carried out due
diligence to show that the source of paper
is legitimate. In reality the responsibility is
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
going to lie with the paper industry which
is importing paper from outside the EU or
the paper mill importing pulp to be made
into paper inside the EU. The importer also
needs to know what species have been used
in producing the pulp and therefore the
paper derived from it.
Under the new regulations the importer
business should have carried out due diligence before placing the order. There is no
scope for verification at the point of entry.
Chain of custody certification such as PEFC
or FSC are aimed at addressing the sustainability of forest management, not its legality,
though in practice such certification is not
likely to be granted to illegally managed
forests.
resPonsibiliTy for enforcement of
the Timber Regulations falls to national
bodies around the EU. In the case of the
UK this is the National Measurement Office
which has been recruiting and training
compliance officers in association with Defra
and the European Union authorities.
There is also bound to be a tier of consultants and organisations that are engaged to
carry out the due diligence assessments that
are required of importers.
Thus there will be a need for some kind of
due diligence standard, a kind of check list
of questions that need to be answered and an
agreed way of asking these. Otherwise the
likelihood is that the producing companies
will create their own documentation that is
endorsed by the customer as meeting the
requirements of due diligence.
This mighT be as simPle as a spread
sheet or might become something that ends
up as part of Cepi’s Paper Profile initiative
for recording the environmental impact of
a paper. Bodies like the NAPM could play
a role in helping creating standards that
reduce the cost and hassle of administering
the system.
It is possible for a printer as a converter of
PaPer
paper to be caught legally though the printer
should be able to argue that its due diligence
obligations relate to the provider of the
paper, ie the paper merchant. Nevertheless it may prove necessary to record which
paper was used for what job and where that
paper came from, something that is within
the capacity of the MIS.
At present the EU is aiming to have guidelines around what is required of the due
diligence process in place by June.
And currently the regulations relate
only to pulp and paper (also to raw timber,
flooring, construction materials and so on).
They do not cover already printed materials, books, magazines and packaging for
example that are produced outside the EU.
There is provision to change this at a later
date.
The Timber Regulations might pass into
operation almost unnoticed, and a few high
profile arrests may be necessary to show that
the laws have teeth. The major manufacturers are getting their house in order, and that
includes APP.
eXPerT OPINION What this means for the industry
STuarT aNdrewS, PrevIOuSly Of aPP aNd NOw dIrecTOr
aT SuSTaINable OPTIONS cONSulTaNcy, cOmmeNTS ON The
ImPlIcaTIONS Of aPP’S STaTemeNT.
It was a big day for the paper industry and for Indonesia last
month. After several years of hostilities between Asia Pulp & Paper
(APP) and big international NGO’s, such as Greenpeace, a press
conference in Jakarta was used by APP to announce a new Forest
Conservation Policy. This includes several initiatives as well as
details of how another NGO (The Forest Trust) has been verifying
data on the ground and acting as an intermediary in negotiations
with the wider NGO community. Greenpeace in Indonesia
subsequently announced that it would suspend the global
campaign against APP operations. WWF has reserved judgement
for now, while broadly welcoming the move. It appears everyone is
happy and APP can carry on making paper and supplying customers
around the world. APP has promised to protect High Conservation
Value Forest and also forest areas with High Carbon Stocks, and
most importantly has agreed to open up their operations paper to
third party and NGO approved verification.
So where does this leave the international paper trade? Confused
I imagine. On the basis that this peace is permanent and the issue
of rainforest protection by APP in Indonesia has been resolved,
competition in the global paper supply sector has now increased.
NGO led big buyer boycotts will be lifted over the coming months
as the advantages of dealing with the world’s third largest paper
manufacturer are again realised. Asia Pulp & Paper has invested
many millions of dollars in state of the art papermills in China
and Indonesia allowing consumers to access products with record
breaking low emission and low pollution ratings, and that is before
you assess the high quality of their materials.
So will this new competition drive the EU into more antidumping and countervailing duty investigations? We will have to
wait and see what European based manufacturers do. Complaints
about dumping of woodfree coated papers from China led to action
against Chinese papers. Competition, however, will be intense from
other paper making nations such as Brazil, South Africa, India and
even the US.
But where will the NGOs go now? Do not think for one moment
that their campaign against the manufacture of paper has
ended. There are many different pressure groups working on a
range of issues; genetic modified trees; water use and aquilifers;
chemical content; ink migration and food; monoplantations;
power generation, fuel use and coal; land rights etc. This is before
you even look at groups that are campaigning to reduce the
consumption of paper irrespective of the fibre source. Water is
probably going to be the next big topic. This is a scarce resource
that people need every day, so in areas where pulp and paper is
produced and insufficient run-off already exists, we can expect
papermills to experience pressure from local and international
NGO’s about use of water in papermaking. International Paper has
already suffered over NGO allegations regarding fibre and wetlands
in southern US states. In Brazil the paper industry has no current
issues about land conversion, but in common with another big
eucalyptus growing country South Africa, mono-plantation, GM
trees and water issues are bubbling under the surface. As for China,
well it will probably be the topic of coal fired electricity that
becomes the next hot topic of debate.
Of course, it will be some time before the paper industry
experiences such a concerted NGO effort against any one company
as APP experienced, but do not think for one moment that this
means the war on paper is over. This industry is being watched and
there vested interest groups, possibly inside the sector, that are
working to highlight a specific environmental issue to distract from
their own possibly ‘guilty’ conscience.
www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk March 2013
31
Cross Media
Forgot a birthday?
There’s an app for that
A new mobile App is aiming to transform the experience and ease of buying
birthday and creating millions of print
orders in the process. Cleverbug is the brainchild of Irish entrepreneur Kealan Lennon
and has been launched in the US. The speed
of take up there has meant that there has
not yet been a full launch in the UK and
elsewhere.
The app, once downloaded to a mobile
phone, will automatically build birthday
cards using contacts and photos from Facebook. The information needed, images
and dates of birth, relationships and so on
already exist in Facebook, so there is no need
to upload images, search through galleries of
templates and assemble personalised cards.
Instead the user sees a birthday card library
automatically put together from his or her
Facebook friends and their details.
It is most likely to be ‘her’ as Lennon
explains that 85% of birthday cards are
bought by women. “In the UK the average
person will buy 31 cards a year,” he says.
“Worldwide the market is worth $27 billion
annually. More is spent on cards in the UK
than on tea or coffee. We think we are in a
good position to disrupt this market.
“Cleverbug is the first ever
mobile app to send real birthday cards, ready
personalised. Where Cleverbug scores is
through the sheer convenience of it. There
are 1 billion Facebook users and this is an
effortless way to post a card to somebody,
using photos that they already like from
their Wall to create dynamic and relevant
greetings cards.”
Evidence from Facebook points to a peak
in traffic on a user’s birthday to post greetings messages on their Wall, increasing the
potential for the cards. The app will also
post a e-version of the card on the Wall, with
a note to say that it was created from Cleverbug. The app will link mutual friends with
messages along the lines of ‘don’t forget
Susan’s birthday next week’ prompting a
further visit to Cleverbug’s store. Cards can
be created and sent automatically to arrive
on the day. As on average each Facebook
account has 16 friends, the potential is vast.
Lennon’s training is as an accountant
32
March 2013
Gary Peeling says Precision Printing is
producing cards from the app.
and his background includes print. He sold
Kartoncraft, a pharmaceutical packaging
business to Mead Westvaco, staying with
the US company on its European board
and later became chairman of OnDemand
Communications, at the time owner of
KallKwik and Prontaprint, for three years
under the ownership of K Partners. Celeverbug was founded in November 2011 and
has raised $2.5 million in seed capital, from
Irish VC Delta Partners, with more to come
to expand the business as demand grows.
A few weeks into the launch and Cleverbug has notched 7 million cards produced.
Lennon says: “I am very very pleasantly
surprised, we didn’t expect demand to soar
as well as it has. We have produced product
for customers in 100 countries in 15 days.”
There is a network of 76 printers connected
to Cleverbug and forming what Lennon calls
“the largest digital print footprint around
the world”. The printer selected will be
the closest or most appropriate to the final
destination.
one of these 76 is Precision Printing in
Braking where Gary Peeling has been bitten
by the bug. “We have been producing cards
even though attention has focused on the US
where it has taken three weeks to achieve the
downloads set for six months,” he says.
And there is a market beyond greetings
cards, Peeling believes. Where someone
provides permission to a brand, by liking
their product on Facebook, there’s the
potential for providing contextualised highly
personalised marketing material, using the
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
images from the Wall and data from the site.
There is also potential for the personalised
timeline calendar, holiday books and so on.
The rising quality of cameras on mobile
phones, such that 5% of photobook images
are already created in this way and the ease
of handling pictures in Cleverbug indicate
that this is how collateral is going to be
generated. Says Peeling: “This allows you
to choose the pictures and to do the sort of
editing that used to cost £300 an hour with
your fingers. This is the first app to be used
for greetings cards on Facebook and is just
so easy to use.”
Lennon is also looking beyond the birthday card. Immediately there is the potential
for occasions cards, notably Valentine’s Day
last month, and beyond that photobook and
other contextualised printed products.
“Cleverbug is tapping into three key
trends. First, purchasing by mobile phone
has doubled in the last 12 months and we are
totally focused on mobile. This is about the
convenience factor. My sister for example
sends 40 cards a year and to to create a
personalised card takes 20 minutes a time at
the kitchen table while she should be looking
after her children. With Cleverbug she can
prepare and send cards from the car outside
the school in seconds. It is the convenience
factor. If we made it really, really simple
then people would use it.
“seCond, we hAve contextualised the
internet for people. If I follow a certain
photographer on Instagram for example,
I don’t really have a relationship with him,
or a designer on Pinterest. There’s no
context, but Cleverbug is built on relationships. It finds family and contextualises the
message, knows how old your brother is
and creates the card that reflects than in the
message: ‘Happy 40th birthday brother’.
We can follow the relationship someone has,
through engagement cards, wedding invitations, thank you cards, birth announcements
and the child’s birthday and so on.
“And third, we are bridging the gap
between the online and offline worlds. Cleverbug is a digital, social product that we are
bringing to the real world. There’s a whole
digital world that we can bring to life.” n
PeoPle in Print
Printit’s ViP student enjoys tour
of Hunkeler innovation Days
AleesHA PAtel was a very important
guest of Friedheim International at the
Hunkeler Innovation Days in Lucerne,
being escorted by Friedheim’s managing
director Mark Bristow and having a
meeting with Stefan Hunkeler.
The reason for the attention was that
Patel was the overall winner in the PrintIT!
2012 competition introducing print to
schools. Her prize included the trip for
her and her family to Switzerland and an
opportunity to come to face to face with
some of the most advanced technology in
the world.
Clutching the souvenir bar of Swiss
chocolate that Hunkeler gave its guests,
CArl GArnett
has joined
Garnett
Dickinson in
Rotherham
as managing
director
of Garnett
Dickinson
Mailing with a brief to enhance existing
capability and adding to the service reach.
He moves from St Ives where he was
managing director of Direct Marketing. At
the same time the group has recruited Ian
Maxted to its GD Print web offset business
development team. He joins from BGP and
can call on long experience in web offset
sales. Group chief executive Nick Alexander
says: “We are delighted to welcome both Carl
and Ian to the business. They both bring
with them a wealth of varied experience
and the management team looks forward to
drawing on this to help continue taking the
business forward in print, mailing and direct
marketing services.”
GuillAume Feuillette has been named
by APS Group as European Development
Director, aiming to develop the company’s
pan European customer base. Feuillette was
previously managing director for European
operations at HH Global. He had previously
set up the French operation for Communisis,
so has in depth experience of European
scale print management. The task is now
to establish APS as a European player at
a time that the Stockport company says it
Patel said: “It was a really interesting event
that was different to anything I have done
before. It was very nice to have Friedheim
has “hugely exciting developments in the
pipeline”. Feuillette says: “There is a real
desire at APS Group to grow the business in
Europe and I believe the company has both
the management team and financial backing
to succeed. The company’s marketing
operations suite is the best I’ve seen and
can deliver proven, significant value to
European brands.”
BoB HoDGson is to hang up his print hat
after 40 years in the printing industry at the
end of March. His career stretches back over
many businesses, including Greenaways.
Most recently he has continued to serve in
the industry as director of Graphic Enterprise
Scotland, a post he has held since June
2009. He has also represented the UK on
the board of Intergraf. He will be succeeded
at the Scottish employers’ association by
Donald Cooper, who was previously regional
sales director of Robert Horne where he had
worked for 24 years.
mArk Crook has joined Elephant Print and
Display as director, bringing more than 30
years’ experience with him, including stints
at Erreys Printers, Mint Design Associates
and as Hippo, his own company. He has
immediately signed up Elephant to sponsor
the Meadowlands Music Festival at Glynde
which he is involved with organising.
Crook remains in the Sussex Downs area
with Elephant operating from converted
barn facilities near Lewes where it runs HP
DesignJets and an Indigo 3050. He joins at a
time when the company is taking on larger,
show us around the event and explain how
some of the different print processes work.
It has definitely opened my eyes to the
career prospects within the print industry.”
The PrintIT! programme targets
students studying for their GCSE in graphic
design and attracted 9,000 entrants from
250 schools, including The Beauchamp
School which Patel attends. As part of
the prize, the school received a licence for
QuarkXPress 9, Pantone Essentials kit and
Fuji camera. Patel also received her own
camera and Pantone Capsure tool.
PrintIT! continues to look for printers
to twin with schools participating in the
scheme.
more prestigious projects, including 160
banners for a retailer with 132 UK outlets.
mike Perez, president of HH Global
Americas, has joined the HH Global board
as recognition of the increasing importance
of North America to the print management
company whose head office is in Sutton,
Surrey. The North American arm has
collected a number of business wins, valued
at $85 million annually. Robert MacMillan,
HH Global CEO, says: “The growth of our
Americas operation has now outpaced the
growth we are seeing in all other regions
and is a key component of our overall
growth strategy. I am confident that Mike’s
contribution will be invaluable to the board
and that we will benefit greatly from his
experience and knowledge.”
AnDy HArris
has joined Bobst
as product
specialist for
die cutting
as the Swiss
manufacturer
experiences
an increase in
demand for operator training and process
improvement advice. He will work alongside
Graeme Doran in a team that is dedicated
to training operators and management
to ensure that they are gaining the most
from their equipment. Harris has more
than 20 years’ experience in folding carton
production.
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk March 2013
33
Strapline
paper newS
paperlinx cuts costs to
stay ahead of decline
PaPerlinx is racing to cut costs to
stay ahead of falling revenues as the market
in Europe continues to decline for the paper
merchant. The company has reported a statutory loss of A$57.3 million for the last six
months of 2012, the first half of its financial
year. Even after adjustments the underlying
loss is A$24.3 million.
Income from asset sales in Europe and
South Africa have reduced net debt, but only
by A$9 million, the remainder being used to
fund restructuring. And that continues. “We
are making accelerated efforts to turnaround
the business in Europe and have implemented a number of initiatives to improve
the operational structure, deliver cost benefits and provide the platform for a return to
growth,” says UK and Ireland managing
director Phil Carr.
The company appears to have taken a clear
the decks approach to the financials, aiming
to show improvement in subsequent periods
leading to profits in the 2014 financial year.
Chief executive Dave Allen explains:
“Although the loss is significant given the
impairment charge, actions taken during the
half have laid the foundations for Paperlinx
to return to profitability in 2014. Canada and
ANZA continue to be our strongest performers and we will take the learnings from these
regions regarding a single brand to market
to Europe and the UK. Combined with the
significant restructuring well underway in
Europe and the UK and the investment for
growth in Packaging and Sign and Display
across all regions, this positions Paperlinx for
a turnaround in financial performance.”
The company says it is on course to return
a profit on the UK business in the second half
of this year. This will be the result of further
reduction in head count to match the reducing market size and through consolidation of
the lines carried. The risk is that Paperlinx
loses more market share than it anticipates
through this process. Carr believes that
elimination of the three competing merchant
brands and consolidation as a single Paperlinx entity will do the opposite.
“We are currently consolidating our
commercial print sales force in the UK, a key
part of our journey to consolidate operations
and eliminate significant cost and inventory
duplication. Commercial Print is our core
business and whilst realigning our cost base,
we will continue to develop our product
offering to increase our market share in this
sector,” he says.
Revenue for the merchant business fell
from A$2.2billion to A$1.5 billion, with
Europe showing a drop to A$1.02 billion
(A$1.26 billion). The company has extended
the debt agreements with ING until September 2014.
The longer term aim of the reorganisation is to end up with product based business
units, focusing on commercial print, packaging and sign & display which are not
restricted to national operations.
Star studded antalis project
anatalis has worked with the
Whitechapel Gallery to produce 6,000
luxury invitations to its major fund raising
event of the year. The invitations to the
Swarovski Whitechapel Gallery Art Plus
Fashion event were produced on Skin Tactile
paper, part of the Curious Collection, in
grey and on Rives Sensation Tactile Matt in
white.
The brief was for an invitation which
reflected the glamour and prestige of the
event and to match the fusion between art
and fashion which was the evening’s theme.
The invitation was designed in house by
Lucy May who says: “I loved the matt finish
and heavyweight quality of the Curious Skin
stock, while for the inner section I needed a
paper that would really highlight the vibrant
yellow, lime, black and silver inks, especially
as I was using neons and metallics. I am
very pleased with how the two papers work
together to bring the design to life.” The
effectiveness of the design will be tested this
week when the event is held on March 14.
March 2013
34 February
2013www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
l Further capacity reductions in the
newsprint sector have been announced
by Stora Enso. It is shutting two
newsprint machines in Sweden in the
second quarter of the year, eliminating
475,000tpa of production and equivalent
to 3.4% of European newsprint capacity.
Further organisational changes are
planned to streamline ordering and sales
of newsprint and publication papers with
a central logistics centre in Gothenburg.
The resulting savings will be equivalent
of €54 million a year.
l antaliS has become exclusive
stockist for UPM Raflatac range of self
adhesive label papers. The line up
includes coated and uncoated, opaque,
semi gloss and gloss and filmic substrates
with different styles of adhesive. There
is also a full range for digital printing
and face papers are FSC/PEFC accredited.
A mill swatch is available for the full
range of materials from Antalis UK.
Product manager labelling and synthetic
products Danny Kahan says: “Becoming
exclusive stockists of UPM Raflatac with
its longstanding heritage gives us an
exciting opportunity to further expand
our existing portfolio of self adhesive
sheet grades.”
l ArjoWiggins Graphic has introduced
a range of papers for high speed inkjet
printing produced from recycled fibres.
The initial target is transpromo and
direct mail with a view to expanding in
commercial print applications as the use
of inkjet printing develops. The range
includes inkjet suitable papers added to
existing families of papers. Thus Cocoon
Jet Silk is a high white 100% recycled
that has been endorsed by Kodak. Coccon
Jet Pro matches the requirements of the
HP thermal inkjet technology. Cocoon
Jet is an uncoated inkjet paper with
150CIE whiteness and endorsed by
Océ and Kodak. Cocoon Preprint has a
similar brightness and is positioned as a
first step paper for variable data inkjet
printing. Cyclus Jet premium is a hybrid
paper suited to laser preprinting, offset
and inkjet printing, intended mostly for
mono printing and Cyclus Preprint is an
uncoated first use paper for both mono
and colour printing and has a natural
shade at 90CIE. All the papers are FSC
certified and produced from pulp deinked
at the Greenfields mill in France.
“I read Print
Business from
cover to cover.”
We could attribute this quote, but we’d fill the page with very small
type. If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a hundred, a thousand
times. It is this precise group of words that is often repeated to us
wherever we go (and we get out and about a lot).
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