Over the past few years, document and office-supply companies like Staples, FedEx Kinko’s and The UPS Store have followed each other further into printing and changed the competitive landscape for small-sized printers in Canada. Now, Grand & Toy will begin running design and print centres to “assist small businesses with their graphic design and printing needs, enabling them to create powerful business identities at competitive rates.”
Darren Plumbe, a long-time printing industry executive who bounced around through the M&A moves of Coast Paper, Cascades Resources and PaperlinX, takes on the title of general manager, Imaging, Grand & Toy. About the new initiative, he said, "Business owners have enough to worry about without having to scramble to a dozen different suppliers for their various needs. These new services will allow us to turn Grand & Toy's stores into one-stop business centres for all daily operational requirements."
Like the moves by UPS and FedEx, the printing centre announcement also comes with a courier partnership, namely DHL, whose can now drop off packages at any Grand & Toy store. DHL's overnight, ground and international delivery services are available, and Grand & Toy account holders are given preferred rates. Founded in 1882, Grand & Toy offers more than 10,000 products and has over 40 retail locations across Canada.
Fujifilm announced plans to expand its manufacturing facility in Tilburg, The Netherlands, based on an investment of $154.5 million to construct a new CTP plate line. Just a few years ago, Fujifilm made a $150 million investment for a new plate line at its Greenwood, South Carolina, facility. Construction on the new line, which will focus on Brillia HD process-less thermal plates and the new Brillia HD chemistry-free violet plate, is set to begin in 2008 – operation in 2010. This new line is expected to be approximately 204,000 square feet in size.
Tilburg is one of Fujifilm's five plate-making facilities worldwide – encompassing eight plate lines – and produces plates for markets in the UK, Europe and South Africa. In the past 10 years, Fujifilm will have spent close to $500 million in new capacity for plate production in Japan, China, Greenwood and now Tillburg. Fujifilm Canada claims its plate volume has grown 44 percent in Canada over the past four years, while headquarters moves toward its publicly stated goal to control 40 percent of the world’s plate marketshare.
Meanwhile in Canada, Mark Noden (left) has been named senior director of technical services, Graphic Systems, for Mississauga-based Fujifilm Canada. Noden has more than 20 years of graphic communication industry experience in various roles like field engineer, technical training, colour and workflow management and service management. He has spent time working with inkjet-focused companies Epson Canada and Mondrian-Hall. Most recently with Mondrian-Hall, Noden served as the national service manager of 35 technical staff.
Fujifilm Canada also appointed Wayne Laflamme as account manager for Eastern region, following the recent retirement announcement of Dave Smith, who will be retiring once the hand-off of the territory to Wayne is complete. Over his own 20 year career, Laflamme has worked for companies like HP and Presstek.
K-North Inc, the dealer for Komori presses in Ontario and Western Canada, has sold three of Komori’s new LSX press, which was released in July 2007. The Lithrone S series LSX29 is the largest half-size press that Komori offers, accepting 24 x 29-1/2 inch sheet, and includes a suction tape feeder, skeleton transfers, hi-speed start function and fully automatic console driven makeready.
The first LSX29 was sold to RP Graphics of Mississauga in a 6-colour configuration. Premier Impressions based in Grimsby, Ontario, recently purchased a 5-colour LSX model to replace two other half-size presses. Premier Impressions has locations in Manitoba and Ontario. Ellis Paper Box, which focuses on producing folding cartons, purchased a new 7-colour LSX press. Ellis Paper Box has locations in Pickering, Mississauga, Guelph and Brantford.
Punch Graphix, parent company of Xeikon and basysPrint, introduced the Xeikon 8000 electrophotographic printer at its recent press event in Lier, Belgium. The new web-fed press can print 230 A4 pages per minute to a volume of 8.5 million per month, according to the company. The company also announced that its new 1,200 dpi heads may now be retrofitted into existing 6000 presses.
Punch Graphix’ CEO Wim Deblauwe comments: “The launch of this first-rate engine represents a major step forward for Xeikon. With the Xeikon 8000, Punch Graphix has the leading edge in digital printing and demonstrates that we have continued to evolve in order to address user needs and anticipate future market demands.”
“With the Xeikon 8000 we target the well-established commercial print market as well as the direct marketing and fast-growing transactional printing markets. The commercial power of transactional documents is vastly increasing since personalized full-colour documents lead to faster and greater response,” adds Frank Deschuytere, chief technology officer of Punch Graphix.
Punch Graphix also revealed its newest offering from its basysPrint division: the UV-Setter 400 and 800 series CTP systems. Like all its predecessor models, the new UV-Setters operate with conventional UV-sensitive plates, both negative and positive. Manual versions are available, as well as optional semi-automatic systems with automatic plate transport to the processor. The multi-cassette version holds up to 500 plates in five different formats.
"Changes in the paper industry are dynamic and customers put their trust in us to establish an inventory program that is both environmentally progressive and economical," said Mike Collinge, president and CEO at Webcom in announcing the company's new environmental paper procurement policy.
Those responsible for paper procurement at Webcom have been tasked to seek out suppliers who meet environmental requirements for both cover and text stock. At the same time, the entire sales team received training to better inform the customer on eco-friendly choices.
The company says that within four months of its upgrade program, interest in environmental alternatives has more than doubled. The company worked with Vancouver-based Markets Initiative in developing its paper purchasing strategy. It also consulted with U.S.-based Green Press Initiative in developing the supply chain.
Webcom says that during the last six months of 2007, 17 percent of the paper selected by customers to print books, catalogs and directories came from Webcom's Legacy line. It aims to increase that amount to 45 percent within the next five years. Currently half of its inventory of paper carries its Legacy name, denoting high environmental integrity.
The Scarborough-based company was founded in 1975 and has more than 300 employees. The company began its environmental initiatives in 2001.
Pantone, after being acquired by X-Rite, has released a first wave of new products onto the design/photography marketplace. Named the ColorMunki, the devices are designed to be entry-level colour management devices and are available in three flavours.
The US$499 devices have three features: the ability to calibrate the user’s monitor to reflect standards, to capture the colour of any object spectrally, and to calibrate the user’s printer for accurate output. A software feature of the package allows users to look for colour combinations which fit with a certain checked colour. This, according to Pantone, allows users who aren’t trained in colour theory to create good-looking designs. Colour palette information generated from ColorMunki can then be exported to popular design software, including InDesign, Quark, Photoshop and Illustrator.
For printers, the ColorMunki can be seen as an effort to educate designers on capabilities of conventional presses as the software will automatically remove colours that are not reproducible using process colours and suggest close approximates.
The U.S. Postal Service has announced its pilot "Mail Back" program, to help consumers make more environmentally friendly choices, making it easier for customers to discard used or obsolete small electronics in an environmentally responsible way. Customers may use free envelopes found in 1,500 post offices to mail back inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods and MP3 players without having to pay for postage. There is no limit to the number of envelopes customers may take.
Postage is paid for by Clover Technologies Group, an American company that recycles, remanufactures and remarkets inkjet cartridges, laser cartridges and small electronics. If the electronic item or cartridges cannot be refurbished and resold, its component parts are reused to refurbish other items, or the parts are broken down further and the materials are recycled. Clover bested 19 other companies for the USPS contract.
The pilot is set for 10 areas across the U.S., including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego, but could become a national program this fall if the pilot program proves successful.
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The Globe and Mail and La Presse have garnered praise by being accepted into the International Newspaper Color Quality Club. They are part of 50 winning entries from a pool of 198 newspapers from around the world. The Globe had also been a finalist in the 2006-2008 contest.
Both printed by Transcontinental, the papers are among the 50 best-printed newspapers in the world. An international jury of experts met in February in Phoenix, Arizona, to select not only the best results worldwide, but also the most successful regional results from North America and Asia. The competition is organized by IFRA, the worldwide research and service organization for the news publishing industry and is awarded every two years.
“Our newspaper-printing outsourcing model, which combines state-of-the-art technologies and a participatory work organization, allows publishers to entrust the physical production of their products to the experts and focus their resources on their main activity, which is to produce high-quality content, make the most of this content, and continue to develop their brands,” said François Olivier, president and chief executive officer of Transcontinental. “This latest international honour shows that our outsourcing model delivers what publishers want and that it’s a win-win situation for everyone. I would like to thank our teams of dedicated employees who are the primary reason for our success.”
In other Transcontinental news, the company announced a 17 percent increase in earnings in its first financial quarter over the previous year, with a four percent boost in revenues.
“We are reaping the benefits of our major restructuring projects and investments of recent years,” said Olivier. “Especially promising is the fact that we have almost reached our goal of five percent organic growth in revenues, and we have continued to invest in developing our printing, publishing and digital media activities.”
The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC) has released a position paper regarding the exclusive recognition of FSC-certified materials in the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Paper Scorecard. WWF released the scorecard in late 2007, designed to facilitate transparency on environmental performance in the paper industry.
WWF’s position paper on forest certification states that, “there is today a proliferation of certification schemes around the world. However, these vary widely in their standards, consistency, transparency, means of verification and in the degree to which governance is open to different stakeholders.”
The paper goes on to claim that after reviewing various certification schemes through its Forest Certification Assessment Guide (FCAG),
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification best meets its key requirements. Thus, while WWF acknowledges that several schemes may contribute to improve forest management, the organization will continue to focus its active efforts on improving the FSC system, on adapting FSC certification to different scales and national contexts, and on promoting the FSC logo as an internationally recognized hallmark of responsible forest management.
PEFC’s public position paper claims, “WWF is one of the original supporters of FSC and this tactic of WWF to recognize other systems but not to give them points calls the entire scorecard into question.” The organization calls on WWF to bring other certification schemes into discussion on how to improve the guide, and to use “thresholds which credible certifications can meet rather than going for the ‘best or bust’ approach.” It claims that 10 percent of the world’s forest is certified, and only one third of that is to FSC.
In a 2005 update of its certification evaluations in Europe (of FSC and PEFC only), WWF concluded, “PEFC demonstrated inconsistency, was more difficult to measure due to lack of transparency, and, in most cases, was inferior to FSC. WWF can therefore only recommend FSC to consumers, forest owners, governments, companies, financial institutions and other concerned stakeholders as delivering on credible forest certification.”
“FSC is the system that best meets WWF´s criteria for credible certification,” said Duncan Pollard, head of the WWF European Forest Programme, at the time.
“Despite positive improvements within several certification schemes in the last few years, the results of the tests show that the different PEFC schemes are highly inconsistent in quality and comprehensiveness and that PEFC as a system cannot guarantee well-managed forests. This makes it impossible for WWF to recommend PEFC,” added Per Rosenberg, director of the WWF Global Forest and Trade Network.
WWF also acknowledged that both schemes still needed work.
The federal government has invested more than $1.4 million toward Edmonton-based NorQuest College's Centre for Excellence in Print Media Communications to support innovation and development in Western Canada's print industry. The announcement was made March 7 by the Honourable Rona Ambrose, president of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of Western Economic Diversification.
"Today's investment supports increased value-added production and encourages the adoption and continued integration of new technologies by Western Canada's print industry," said Minister Ambrose. "Projects like this create a more diversified western economy that has strong, competitive and innovative businesses and communities."
The Centre will provide a venue for testing and implementing new print technologies, according to the government’s announcement. It will enable small businesses to expand their knowledge and expertise, and to create industry opportunities. The Centre will provide information seminars on new technologies, workshops on business process improvements, lab time for one-on-one or small group consultations to test technologies, identification of other relevant training, assistance in developing a plan for the integration of new technology, and support throughout the integration period. Three target markets have been identified: print business owners, print industry employees and new entrants to the print industry.
"The Centre for Excellence in Print Media Communications will enable industry employers to access technological training and education necessary to improve their business," explains NorQuest College president and CEO, Dr. Wayne Shillington. "The other benefit is that our students are workforce ready, equipped with leading-edge skills relevant to the needs of industry employers."
NorQuest College's other four Centres are Intercultural Communications, Continuing Care Education, Assistive Technologies and Learner Supports, and Aboriginal Education.
As a preview of their offerings in the upcoming drupa show and a roadmap to its products for the next two years, HP announced several new technologies and products for the graphic arts at its headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel this week.
In what the company calls its most extensive graphic arts push to date, the offerings spans from high-speed production inkjet to workflow. "Today's announcements further cement HP's leadership in the graphic arts market, accelerate the analogue-to-digital conversion and propel digital technology as a mainstream product offering," said Stephen Nigro, senior vice president, Graphics and Imaging Business, HP. "These new technologies and products will change the digital printing industry in terms of value, volume and environmental footprint."
On the inkjet front, the company will be introducing a 30-inch product for printing of transpromo materials and even newspapers It will also introduce a new latex printing technology for more environmentally friendly printing with permanence of up to three years unlaminated. The 30-inch inkjet web press, available in the second half of 2009, will print at 400 feet-per-minute.
HP will also expand its Indigo line with three new presses and offer “enhancements” to its Indigo 5500, which include a UV coater and the ability to print on thicker stock. The new Indigo models, the HP Indigo 7000, HP Indigo W7200 and HP Indigo WS6000 digital presses, are essentially upgrades to its current lineup and offer more speed.
Finally, HP announced that its SmartStream prepress workflow will be expanding to include more market segments, including commercial printing, direct marketing, publications printing, photo merchandise and labels and packaging. Its SmartStrem Production server technology, which comes in two varieties, will be powered by Creo.
The Ghent PDF workgroup has released a set of best practices and specifications which aims to improve printing in the typical office environment.
“The V1 Specifications for Office Document Printing are an important step toward making the workflow between creation of Office documents and their output in production printing easier and more predictable," says Dave Prouty of HP, co-chair of the Office Document Printing Subcommittee.
The group has released a simple to use, end-user oriented, Office Document Printing/PDF Creation Guideline document, as well as the recommended settings files for Microsoft Office and PDF creation tools. They are available at www.gwg.org.
The group had to deal with issues such as colour handling, font usage, different PDF creation methods and tools, and the use of live transparency in Microsoft Office applications.
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NEWS FOR THE WEEK OF MARCH 03, 2008
Jeff Jacobson
PRESSTEK SHRINKS CANADIAN OPERATIONS
Presstek has effectively emptied out its Mississauga, ON facility, sending some of its administrative and service people, many of whom came from the 2004 purchase of AB Dick, to its Hudson, New Hampshire and Plaines, Illinois facilities, while the remaining Canadian sales and service representatives have relocated to home offices. The Canadian employee base has decreased by about 40 percent over the last few years, according to one source, with a reduction in qualified technical service personnel for Eastern Canada from about 15 to 5. With this North American restructuring, sales and service accounts now go through managers in the States.
In financial news, Presstek’s securities will continue to trade on The NASDAQ Global Market. The company announced that it has received a determination from NASDAQ indicating that, based upon the filing of the form 10-Q for the period ended September 29, 2007, it has evidenced full compliance with NASDAQ's requirements for continued listing. Presstek had delayed the report of its Q3 financial results for about three months, citing the need to first conduct a worldwide inventory review, including an examination of operations directed by the new senior management team, and a review of receivables from certain distributors in Europe as well as certain European revenue recognition practices. The late filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), predictably, has resulted in the delayed filing of its annual report on form 10-K for the year ended December 29, 2007. Presstek expects charges of $1 to $2 million in the Q4 relating to the previously disclosed reviews as well as certain product warranty costs. The company has not yet announced the date it expects to report fourth quarter financial results.
"It's disappointing that the effort required to complete our business reviews has challenged our ability to meet SEC reporting timelines,” said Presstek's executive vice president and CFO, Jeff Cook. "The delay in filing our Form 10-K is due solely to our late start in closing Q4 2007 financial records, and is not related to any new findings or issues.”
A similar delay occurred with Presstek’s 2006 10-K Annual Report filings. The company said this delay was due to an SEC review of its accounting procedures for certain product development costs. The year-end report, filed at the end of April, includes
management's assessment that the Company did not maintain a sufficient complement of personnel with the appropriate level of accounting knowledge, experience, and training in the application of U.S. generally accepted accounting procedures to analyze, review, and monitor accounting for transactions that are significant or non- routine. This has resulted, in part, from the Company's continuing migration from a niche player to a mainstream business. As a result of this material weakness, management has concluded that the Company's internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of December 30, 2006.
This Q4 2006 delay started a domino effect of the delays that have continued into 2008.
The net Q3 2007 loss was US$3.6 million, or $.10 per share. Operating expenses in the third quarter totalled US$21.1 million, including US$400,000 of restructuring charges related primarily to the company's Canadian operation.
Presstek president and CEO Jeff Jacobson said, "Our Business Improvement Plan which we announced on October 25, 2007 is well underway and on track and, based upon actions already taken, we now expect we will exceed our previously announced nine percent reduction in headcount. We are looking forward to a much improved 2008."
On March 4, consulting firm InfoTrends listed the technologies it describes as Best of Show at the On Demand show, which focuses on primarily on the world of electrophotography. This is the third year of the Best of Show awards judged in nine categories. An Honourable Mention award was also presented for some categories.
Bindery Finishing and Mailing Equipment Best of Show: Ricoh, Ring Binder RB5000 Honourable Mention: Kompac Technologies, Kwik Finish
Document Creation Software Best of Show: XMPie Inc., PersonalEffect Honourable Mention: GMC Software, PrintNet Designer 5.2
Innovations in Paper Usage and Substrates Best of Show: Mohawk Fine Papers, Beckett Cambric Honourable Mention: Neenah Paper Inc., CORONADO SST Papers
Monochrome Digital Printing Equipment Best of Show: Océ, VarioStream 8000
Process Color Digital Printing Equipment Best of Show: Canon U.S.A., imagePRESS C6000 Honourable Mention: Océ, JetStream
Web To Print Solutions Best of Show: Rochester Software Associates, WebCRD Enterprise System 7.0 Honourable Mention: Firespring, PrinterPresence
Wide Format Printing Best of Show: Xerox Corporation, Xerox 8265 Honourable Mention: Canon U.S.A., imagePROGRAF iPF8000S
Workflow Solutions Best of Show: Ultimate Technographics, Impostrip Book Stacker 2.0 Honourable Mention: Rochester Software Associates, QDirect.SCAN
Innovative Use of Technology Best of Show: interlinkONE, ilinkONE Version 8 Honourable Mention: XMPie, Inc., Marketplace
Kazuto Ogawa was announced as the new president and CEO of Canon Canada Inc., returning to the country for the second time, after Tamotsu Nakamura was recently named executive VP and general manager of Canon U.S.A.’s Imaging Systems Group. Ogawa began his career with Canon in 1981 and from 1982 to 1983 spent time with Canon Canada’s Camera Division. Today, Canon Canada has 1,400 employees.
In September 1995, Ogawa was appointed to lead the Printer and Consumer Imaging Products division in the South East Asia Region after being transferred to Canon Singapore. When Canon Asia Marketing Headquarters relocated from Singapore to Hong Kong and then to Beijing, Ogawa followed the same route to head the Pan Asia Consumer Imaging Products Group and became CEO of Canon Singapore in April 2005.
According to Joe Adachi, president and CEO, Canon Americas Group, “Mr. Ogawa has been highly respected as a strong leader who always generates stellar results, such as achieving record sales, market share and profits for Pan Asia.” Discussing Mr. Nakamura’s departure from Canon Canada, Adachi said, “Canon Canada achieved record revenue each and every year under Mr. Nakamura’s leadership. He brings a wealth of experience to his new responsibilities leading our U.S. business and office products team as it enters a new era of growth and prosperity.”
QUARK GOES DYNAMIC At this year's On Demand show in Boston, Quark announced a new workflow for the enterprise publishing marketplace. Called Dynamic Publishing Solution, Quark says it injects automation to multiple media, including print, Web, mobile and electronic devices.
"Over the past year I have visited at length with key customers across Europe, North America and Asia. These customers - some of the largest and most well-known publishers and creative groups in the world - confirmed that their publishing requirements are changing dramatically," said Ray Schiavone, Quark CEO. "We are solving these challenges with Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution by helping our customers improve automation, create reusable content, and more efficiently publish to multiple channels. This is the basis of dynamic publishing, the next revolution in publishing."
In essense, Quark DPS will act as a form of content manager, channelling one set of content to fit various pages and screens, reducing the amount of work involved to create campaigns which are cross-platform and allows content changes to be automatically updated across different platforms with one change. The software will be based on the XML open format, also used by Microsoft in its latest Office suite. As a result, DPS will accept content created from tools other than Quark, including Adobe InDesign.
This move by Quark is seen by some as the company's shift towards server-based publishing, abandoning the desktop market to Adobe's Creative Suite. Schivone was quick to respond to those rumours: "QuarkXPress is a valuable and widely-used graphic design and page layout tool in its own right, and will play an integral role in Quark DPS. QuarkXPress is and always will be the foundation of our product portfolio and we will continue to invest in it to meet the needs of individual designers and large organizations alike."
Citywide Printing, an arm of the ColorRightNow Group based in Calgary, has installed a Presstek 52DI press in its plant. It is the first 52DI press in the province.
“We needed to ensure that we could deliver the quality and fast turnaround our customers expect,” said Rick Wilson, ColorRightNow’s owner. “Since we have installed the 52DI we have already seen massive efficiency improvements. The fact that we have a sellable sheet 10 minutes from sending the file is simply outstanding. Our initial reports suggest that we’ve reduced our makereadies by approximately 60 percent.”
Wilson says that wholesale printing for the trade will be a new business opportunity for the firm with the DI press. In addition, he says the press will be able to bring in house the $30,000 to $40,000 a month in four-color print he was previously outsourcing. In considering the purchase, Wilson visited other satisfied DI press owners in Canada, who reinforced his decision to acquire a Presstek DI press.
Avanti Computer Systems, based in Toronto for 24 years, has signed a deal to integrate its Management Information applications into Pageflex’ Storefront Web-to-print software. Avanti’s Graphic Arts Management System will enable online document customization and ordering in Storefront through the production cycle of printing, finishing and shipment. Jobs created in Pageflex are automatically transferred to Avanti without hands-on work, eliminating the possibility of transcription errors and reducing turnaround time.
Pageflex Storefront enables customers to define, auto-generate and manage attractive Web-to-print document customization sites for print and cross-media campaign ordering and e-commerce. “We are pleased that the extensibility of Pageflex enables it to be a seamless participant in the Avanti workflow,” said Anna Chagnon, president and CEO of Bitstream Inc., which is the parent company of Pageflex. “Our joint customers now have the opportunity to sell robust document customization services through a Web portal, coupled with the competitive advantage of behind-the-scenes automated business processes.”
With over 400 installations, Avanti's fully integrated modules include Estimating, Quotation letters, Order Entry, Job Costing and Tracking, Inventory Management, Purchasing, Scheduling, Shop Floor Management, Fulfillment, Direct Machine Interface, Shipping Integration, Invoicing, CRM, JDF interfaces, Triggers and Alerts, Executive Dashboard.
HP's Indigo Ink system is now licensed with Pantone's Goe system. The new PANTONE Goe license for the HP Indigo Ink Mixing System, together with the original Pantone Matching System license, produces more than 3,000 Pantone colours, delivering the highest level of process-color simulation of Pantone colours in the digital printing industry. HP Indigo Pantone Goe mixed inks will be available for HP Indigo customers in May 2008.
“The combination of the new Digital Color Toolbox and the Pantone Goe System licensing for the HP Indigo Ink Mixing System ensures the best possible colour results on HP Indigo digital presses," said Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager of HP's Indigo division.
Additionally, HP has developed what it claims to be the industry's first swatchbook for on-press Pantone Goe simulation. The new HP Indigo Pantone Goe simulation swatchbook will be included in Pantone and HP's new version of the Digital Color Toolbox for the Pantone Goe System, a two-swatchbook bundle that offers a convenient way to compare solid Pantone Goe Colors with their simulations in HP Indigo four-color, on-press process.
The Pantone and HP Indigo Digital Color Toolbox for the Pantone Goe System has a list price of US $280 for a North American version or 280 Euro for an EMEA version.
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This Wednesday, more than 400 people from the Canadian printing industry gathered at the Palais Royale Ballroom in Toronto to celebrate the environmental efforts of the past year. In all, 38 awards were given out over 14 categories. PrintAction would like to thank all who participated in the event.
The recipients of this year’s awards were:
Environmental Innovator Gold: CEO, Forest Stewardship Council Canada, Antony Marcil
Environmental Community Involvement Gold: HP Canada Silver: Canon Canada Bronze: St. Joseph Communications
Most Progressive Environmental Process, vendor Gold: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Silver: Enviro Image Solutions (Metropolitan Fine Printers) Bronze: Komori Corporation
Most Progressive Environmental Process, printer Silver: Jones Packaging Silver: CardPak Bronze: C.J. Graphics
Most Progressive Environmental Product Gold: Sun Chemical Silver: Taylor Label Bronze: Majestic Inkjet
Most Environmentally Progressive Print Consumer in Canada Gold: Wildfire Publishing
Most Environmentally Progressive Vendor in Canada Gold: Enviro Image Solutions (Metropolitan Fine Printers) Silver: Cascades Fine Papers Silver: Tembec Bronze: Sun Chemical
Most Progressive Environmental Printing Project, offset Gold: Metropolitan Fine Printers Silver: Flash Reproductions Silver: The Lowe-Martin Group Bronze: Parker Pad & Printing
Most Progressive Environmental Printing Project, digital Gold: Kempenfelt Graphics Group Silver: Parker Pad & Printing Bronze: Gilmore Global
Most Progressive Environmental Packaging Project, flexible Bronze: Farnell Packaging
Most Environmentally Progressive Printer in Canada, 1 to 49 employees Gold: Taylor Label Silver: Warren’s Waterless Printing Bronze: Accell Graphics
Most Environmentally Progressive Printer in Canada, 50 to 100 employees Gold: Informco Silver: Patient News Publishing Bronze: Colour Innovations
Most Environmentally Progressive Printer in Canada, 100+ employees Gold: The Lowe-Martin Group Gold: Hemlock Printers Silver: St. Joseph Communications
Saint-Jérôme-based Cascades (Fine Papers Group) and Toronto-based METRO Waste Paper Recovery are platinum sponsors of the event, while Gold sponsors include: Agfa, Baldwin Paper, Flash Reproductions, Fujifilm, HP, Kallima and Tembec, Kodak, Majestic Supply, National Envelope, Presstek and Unisource. Supporting the event with a Silver sponsorship are Heidelberg, Sun Chemical and xpedx.
On February 26, Quebecor Inc. reported its fiscal 2007 results for its Media division, while its CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau remained tightlipped about the future of printing subsidiary Quebecor World. "It's too early to say anything about what's going to happen there," Péladeau said during a conference call about the parent company’s financial results. The company stated that it expects to take a non-cash hit of up to $779 million resulting from the difficulties of Quebecor World.
Quebecor Media posted revenues of $3.37 billion for fiscal 2007, a $367.3 million – or 12.2 percent – increase from 2006, a year in which the Media division had a loss of $169.7 million. Back on January 21, 2008, Quebecor Inc. informed Quebecor World that it must remove "Quebecor" from its corporate name, as the parent company began to exclude Quebecor World from its consolidated results. On Quebecor’s website, the company now lists all of its subsidiaries – Quebecor Media, TVA Group, Canoe, Nurun, Sun Media, Vidéotron – with the exception of Quebecor World.
In Quebecor’s Vidéotron cable segment, operating income was up $130.2 million (25.4 percent), as its customer base increased by 238,600 for cable telephone service, 141,000 for cable Internet access, 65,700 for all cable television services combined (including a 144,600 customer increase for illico Digital TV), and 33,900 phones for wireless telephone service. During the financial conference call, Péladeau said the company is excited about favourable rules for new entrants to the wireless business and plans to participate in the upcoming auction. (See PrintAction July 2007 – Canada’s 50 Most Influential People in Graphic Communications.)
While the company indicated that it is potentially looking for wireless business partners outside of Quebec, Quebecor previously announced plans to spend up to $500 million on its wireless entry. Also on February 26, Quebecor Media announced that it now controls 100 percent of all of Internet-focused Nurun's issued and outstanding common shares. Weeks earlier, the company purchased approximately 91 percent of Nurun’s shares. During the conference call, Péledeau stated that there are no plans to offer Quebecor Media through an IPO.
On February 28, Montreal-based AbitibiBowater released its first full year results since the company came into existence through the merger of Abitibi-Consolidated and Bowater – a deal approved by the United States Department of Justice in October 2007. In the fourth quarter alone, the new company saw a loss of $250 million based on a total of $861 million worth of sales. For the full fiscal 2007, AbitibiBowater experienced a loss of $490 million.
The 2007 loss includes a $130 million fallout related to asset closures, $27 million severance and merger-related costs and a $31 million charge related to tax adjustments. The company states its year-end results reflect the full quarter and year-end results for Bowater Incorporated and the results for Abitibi-Consolidated. This year-end loss comes even after sales in 2007, totaling $3.9 billion, increased by 11 percent from 2006 sales of $3.5 billion. Abitibi also posted a financial loss of $138 million for fiscal 2006.
"While markets for wood products remain challenging, market conditions for pulp and paper products are improving significantly and we are pleased with our ongoing progress to make our company a more globally competitive organization," stated chairman John Weaver, in a press release. "Our recently announced agreement with Catalyst Paper, to sell our Snowflake, Arizona newsprint mill for approximately $180 million, including retained working capital, is another important milestone. We remain committed to our debt reduction target of $1 billion over the next three years."
Also in its press release, Abitibi cautioned that continued negative conditions in the credit and capital markets, as well as the difficult industry-operating environment, are challenging its ability to obtain needed, “satisfactory” financing.
Jim Flaherty, Canada’s Finance Minister, unveiled the Federal Budget on February 26. The budget includes an extension to accelerated capital cost allowance (CCA) treatment for investment in machinery and equipment for manufacturers. The previous two-year, 50 per cent, straight line accelerated capital cost allowance rate is extended by a year in the new budget. Recent budgets have targeted the undeniable effect on manufacturing – especially on those industries related to forestry – that the surging value of the Canadian Dollar has had. Flaherty expects the CCA extension to provide $1 billion in tax relief to the manufacturing and processing sector, while domestic institutions update their facilities.
R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company has entered into a $122-million agreement to acquire Pro Line Printing Inc., a privately held producer of newspaper inserts headquartered in Texas. "Pro Line Printing's respected capabilities expand our geographic footprint for offset-printed tabloid inserts and even better position us to serve national advertising programs," said RRD’s president and CEO Thomas Quinlan III.
The all-cash deal, which adds to RRD’s gravure-based insert production platform, is subject to customary closing conditions. Pro Line has production operations in Arlington, Texas; Reno, Nevada; Avon, Connecticut and Pineville, North Carolina.
In a separate deal, just days earlier on February 26, RRD announced it has been awarded an $800 million contract by McGraw-Hill Education. Building on an existing 45-year relationship, the new 7-year agreement includes a wide range of products including textbooks, workbooks, testing materials, teachers' editions and ancillary products. About that deal, Quinlan said, "We have increased the flexibility, geographic reach and service capabilities of our platform.”
On February 27, RRD announced results for its 2007 fiscal year, including a net loss from continuing operations of $48.4 million. For the fourth quarter, RDD experienced a net loss from continuing operations of $292.9 million on net sales of $3.1 billion.
Litho Quebec, a Pointe-Claire, Quebec, commercial printer, has installed a KBA Rapida 105 41-inch six-colour press with UV capabilities. After testing the sheetfed press in Vermont and touring the KBA headquarters in Germany, the company bought the press through KBR Graphics, the eastern Canadian distributor for KBA North America.
“We’re very excited to be getting our new KBA press,” says Gary Zacard, who co-owns Litho Quebec JGB with his brother Bruce. “It is going to provide us with more consistency, faster makeready times, and more automation. Plus we now have UV capability, a specialty that is not widely seen in Quebec.” Zacard says the 50-employee company went with UV because it would be useless to just install another 40-inch to compete with the rest of the city. “While a majority of our work is for the trade, we believe we can expand our book and packaging printing, even gaining U.S. customers.”
The press is equipped with two position-variable interdeck UV lamps and end-of-press UV lamps, allowing a variety of UV inks and UV coatings.
“We feel that UV will be a growing area for us and separate us from our competition,” says Zacard. “UV has a number of attributes that we like; it is environmentally friendly, and that caters to our ‘green’ society. It protects the printed sheet and it gives us instant drying for the sheet to move directly into the bindery.”
Litho Quebec replaced its 4-colour, 40-inch Heidelberg SM with the KBA Rapida, and retained its five-color 29-inch Roland 300 with aqueous coating, which handles a large volume. The Zacard brothers spent more than a year investigating the different sheetfed presses on the market that could be equipped with inline UV capability.
Litho Quebec has been in the printing business for 36 years, established by Bruce and Gary Zacard’s father. It specializes in printing packaging, business stationery, corporate literature, checks, invoices, statements, and other types of corporate documents.
Photo (L-R): Karl Belafi Jr., KBR Graphics Ltd., KBA’s eastern Canadian distributor; John Raithel, KBA regional vice president; Gary Zacard, co-owner of Litho Quebec JGB; Bruce Zacard, co-owner of Litho Quebec JGB; and Holger Garbrecht, KBA CEO and president.
Founded in 1975 within 200 square feet, Winnipeg’s The Prolific Group has updated its prepress department, located within a 43,000-square-foot plant. Key to the upgrade are two Fujifilm Javelin 8600S thermal CTP engines, one with multi-cassette autoloader and the other with single-cassette autoloader. In addition to the CTP installations, which replace first-generation platesetters, Prolific added two Epson Stylus 9800 printers, Trueflow PRO workflow, and MegaRip into its prepress department – all of this technology was installed by Fujifilm.
In 1991, Proflic acquired Parkland ColorPress Limited of Lacombe, which specializes in magazine production. In May 1998, this operation moved to its current 18,000-square-foot location in Red Deer. In 1999, Prolific's Alberta base expanded again when it acquired Calgary-based Petro-Tech Printing Ltd. The Prolific Group now employs approximately 165 people in the Winnipeg, Red Deer, and Calgary locations.
Left to right: Fujifilm Canada’s Gary Thompson with Proflic’s Keith Gauthier, prepress manager, Al Alexandruk, president, and Mike Lesyshen, technical manager.
Also last month, Pierre Verreault, owner of Imprimerie Moderne de Beauce, purchased a Fuji Luxel V-6 violet CTP platesetter along with Celebrant frontend software. Founded in 1945, Imprimerie Moderne de Beauce serves not only the Beauce region of Quebec but all of eastern Canada and the United States. The 25-employee company, owned since 1980 by Verreault, was the first printer in the Province of Quebec to achieve ISO 9001 - 2000 certification.
Photo: Timmy Quingley, plant manager of Imprimerie Moderne de Beauce.
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François Olivier officially took over as president and chief executive officer of Transcontinental at the company’s February 20th annual shareholders' meeting. Former CEO Luc Desjardins is leaving the company after eight years. Desjardins became CEO of Transcontinental after the retirement of Transcontinental’s founder Rémi Marcoux, who remains as executive chairman of the board.
At the shareholder meeting, attending by around 400 people, Marcoux said, "Luc successfully guided Transcontinental through an important stage in its growth. Since 2000, Transcontinental's performance has been a remarkable achievement, and I wish to personally thank him today, as well as on behalf of the board of directors… Because we have a strong management team, we were able to identify an internal successor, in this instance a member of my family, which guarantees the continuity and stability that are so crucial in today's economy."
On the same day, Transcontinental announced plans to invest $60 million in equipment at its Transmag newspaper printing facility in Montreal. The facility, which mainly produces daily and weekly newspapers and specialty publications, is scheduled for completion in 2009. "This investment of $60 million is part of our strategy to become North America's leader in newspaper printing outsourcing," said François Olivier. “Over the past five years, Transcontinental has invested approximately $250 million in its printing facilities in the Montreal region alone."
Transcontinental Transmag will acquire a MAN Roland CIC 8 web press with full colour capacity, as well as a new ultra violet (UV) dryer, a process never before used in North America. In order to accommodate the new press and peripheral equipment, the facility will be expanded to 145,000 square feet from its current size of 80,000 square feet.
Catalyst Paper, which began operating in 2005 in Richmond, BC, after several preceding M&As, and eventually the 2006 share sell off by Norske Skog to a new management group, announced it will spend $12 million to upgrade and restart its No. 4 paper machine in Port Alberni. Catalyst’s board also approved a $14-million cost associated with early retirement and severance packages under a new labour agreement.
“The two union locals – CEP 592 and 686 – are to be commended for reaching a landmark agreement that puts in place modern work practices and brings labour costs to competitive industry levels,” said Catalyst CEO Richard Garneau. “Knowing we have the support of our employees means we can move forward with the thermo-mechanical capacity increase project and return to a 2-machine mill.”
Its No. 4 paper machine was shut down in September 2007 following concern about more competitive property tax for the mill in Port Alberni. As the city’s largest taxpayer, Catalyst paid $7.1 million in 2007, which the company claims to be approximately three times the Canadian average and more than twice the BC average in property tax per tonne. Port Alberni’s city council approved a gradual reduction of major industry property taxes over five years.
On February 13, 2008, Catalyst announced a net loss of $31.6 million on sales of $1.7 billion during 2007. This compared with a net loss of $15.9 million on sales of $1.9 billion in 2006. The company also posted a 2007 operating loss of $149.4 million compared to operating earnings of $3.9 million in 2006. In 2007, the company induced a 15 percent staffing reduction, relocation of the head office from Vancouver to Richmond, and the consolidation of some mill support functions in Nanaimo.
On February 11, 2008, Catalyst entered into an agreement to acquire AbitibiBowater’s Snowflake Arizona recycled newsprint mill for US$161 million in cash. The merger between Abitibi and Bowater was only recently cleared. The Snowflake mill produces recycled newsprint with annual production capacity of 375,000 metric tonnes on two paper machines. In addition to its market kraft pulp and ownership of Western Canada’s largest paper recycling facility, Catalyst claims to be a leading producer of mechanical printing papers. With five mills at sites within a 160-kilometre radius on the south coast of BC, Catalyst has a combined annual capacity of 2.4 million tonnes.
Quebecor World Inc. has announced a five-year contract with home renovations and hardware retailer RONA, and its affiliates across Canada. This new agreement, which expands the scope of the existing partnership between Quebecor World and RONA, will have Quebecor World printing 100% of RONA’s advertising material, including its retail flyers.
In addition to printing RONA’s advertising material, Quebecor World will provide services such as the “Coficio” advertising campaign management software.
“Quebecor World’s bid was selected because it enabled us to maintain a profitable partnership – extending well beyond the traditional customer-supplier relationship,” stated Michael Brossard, RONA’s Senior Vice-president, Marketing and Development.
“Our relationship with RONA is truly a strategic cooperation between two businesses. Over the years, we have made every effort to enhance the standards of our shared values while seeking means of creating more value for both companies,” added Tony Galasso, president of Quebecor World Canada. “The specialised services we offer will enable us to strengthen our ties beyond our traditional printing services.”
Kodak has revealed details about its upcoming Colorflow Software, set to debut at drupa this year. With Colorflow, Kodak promises to handle colour management from prepress to output while reducing the need for costly reapprovals and reruns.
Once the Colorflow software is in place, it maintains and manages relationships among the control elements and device print conditions, managing colour setups throughout the workflow and between devices to eliminate mismatched settings.
When a print condition is refined for a specific device, Colorflow Software can update all the colour control elements automatically, ending the breakdowns in communication between colour management tools that hampered colour matching in the past.
"Not only can Colorflow Software simplify the setup and optimization of colour control across the entire print production workflow, but it also performs a new level of print condition management that moves colour into a new era," said Arjen Van Der Meulen, director of colour at Kodak's Graphic Communications Group. "Colorflow Software supports the continued evolution of print as a manufacturing process."
Colorflow software connects with the company's Spotless Printing Solution with improved spot colour recipes and accurate n-colour profiles for image separation. Furthermore, it can use colorimetric information to build curves that optimize colour and grey balance, providing more uniform color reproduction across devices. It is also built to support ISO, ICC, PDF/X and JDF standards.
The software will be available as a standalone product, as well as an integrated element of Kodak's Prinergy workflow 5.0, also being launched at drupa.
Presstek Inc. has announced the filing of a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC) against Israeli printing plate manufacturer VIM Technologies, Ltd. and its manufacturing partner Hanita Coatings RCA, Ltd. for infringement of Presstek’s patent and trademark rights. Presstek also sued three U.S.-based distributors of VIM products: Guaranteed Service & Supplies, Inc., Ohio Graphco Inc., and Recognition Systems Inc., as well as one Canadian distributor, AteCe Canada. Presstek is seeking, among other things, an order from the ITC, forbidding the importation and sale of the VIM printing plates in the United States; such an order would be enforced at U.S. borders by the U.S. Customs Service.
Presstek’s ITC complaint alleges that VIM’s Di-R Waterless Processless Thermal Plate Rolls infringe Presstek’s U.S. Patent Nos. 5,339,737 and 5,487,338. Presstek also claims that VIM is infringing Presstek’s DI trademark, which it has held since 1992. “Our intellectual property is a valuable company asset, and we will continue to take legal action to protect our rights,” said Jeff Jacobson, president and CEO of Presstek. “We will enforce our rights against VIM and its distributors not only in North America, but in Europe and other parts of the world as well,” added Jacobson.
In other legal news, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has begun a formal investigation of Presstek’s Q3, 2006 announcements, after a more informal investigation that began in late 2007. A year after the company discovered financial control problems relating to its 2006 accounting, Presstek said its “disclosure controls and procedures were not effective.” Reportedly, the quarterly SEC filing should bring the company into compliance with NASDAQ rules, and help the company from being delisted.
Citing a continued increase in raw material, energy, and transportation costs, Sun Chemical has announced it will be raising prices globally for its Performance Pigments Division, effective March 31.
The affected pigments, which include Classical Azo Red, Yello, Phthalo, High Performance, Pearlescent and Costmetic colors, will increase between three and eight percent. Consequently, ink producers sourcing pigments from Sun Chemical will likely have to pass on the increased cost to its user base. The price increase applies to all markets that purchase pigments including the ink, coating, plastic, and cosmetics industries.
“At Sun Chemical, we’re working to control our own costs through the improvement of internal operations,” said Brian Leen, vice president and general manager of Performance Pigments at Sun Chemical. “While these efforts have helped to offset some rising raw material costs, the increased cost of energy and transportation combined with the rising cost of raw materials have forced us to pass some of these costs on to our customers.”
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GRAND & TOY STARTS PRINTING
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