After being elected head of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative (PC) Party on March 10, Doug Ford now stands to become Premier of Ontario if his party wins the June 7 provincial election. “Our focus will be on straightening out the finances of this province,” he said, two days after his leadership victory. “We’re going to reduce hydro rates, start attracting high-paying jobs... and make this the most-prosperous region of North America.”

Starting up a new 240,000-square-foot facility in late 2017, Jay Mandarino continues to push The CJ Group toward becoming Canada’s largest commercial printing operation, featuring a range of innovations.Jay Mandarino in March 2017 began his largest business venture in what has been a storied printing career that began as CJ Graphic Images – a brokerage proprietorship – 38 years ago in the basement of his parents’ home. Since opening his first press location in downtown Toronto in 1985, Mandarino has been on a steady path of growth toward becoming one Canada’s largest independent commercial printing operations.Growing through acquisition, as well as by organic sales and technological investments, Mandarino took a major step toward his goal in 2014 with the purchase of a 65,000-square-foot plant, adding to two facilities controlled by what had been renamed as The CJ Group of Companies (CJG) to reflect holding more than 30 businesses. In late 2014, Mandarino pegged CJG as a $30 million operation and described his ambition to reach toward $100 million in annual revenue. Over the past 15 years alone, CJG has made more than 15 acquisitions, including the recent additions of Prime Imaging, Artwords and TPS (2014); publishing entity SBC Media (2015); and Clixx, one of the top mailing facilities in Canada, Artistic Die Cutting and Annan & Sons (2017).In January of last year, Mandarino concluded the sale of three CJG buildings, accounting for approximately 145,000 square feet of space on 4.5 acres of land in Etobicoke, Ontario. That real-estate deal was reinvested in CJG’s new 240,000-square-foot plant, situated on eight acres, just 10 minutes away in Mississauga. “We had the opportunity to sell our three other buildings for very good money… I could of put the money in the bank and retired, but what am I going to do,” says Mandarino, President and CEO of CJG, who recently turned 57. “Two hundred and twenty people work here now and they have families.”The move to CJG’s new Hensall Circle location began in March 2017 and ultimately involved more than 200 tractor-trailer loads, not to mention regular runs by the company’s two 5-tonne trucks and two vans. By fall 2017, CJG began operating out of the facility, today easily one of Canada’s largest commercial printing plants. “We are about $45 million right now,” says Mandarino, reaffirming his commitment to continue growing. “And now we have the capacity and the facility to do it.”Offset innovationsMandarino estimates the capital investment in CJG’s new facility to be more than $30 million. The cost of the building alone was just under $16 million and renovations came in at around $5.5 million, with additional moving costs of approximation $1 million. CJG also made major equipment investments that conservatively reach above $8 million. Mandarino estimates around a third of CJG’s revenue is generated through 41-inch sheetfed offset presses, which is a relatively low number compared to other lithography-rooted shops – hinting at the diversity of CJG’s current operations. “People are looking for one-stop shopping,” he says, pointing to CJG’s range of services like screen printing, large- and small-format digital, traditional foil stamping and embossing, digital foil stamping and embossing, traditional and laser die cutting, fulfillment and distribution, and mailing and marketing services. The company is currently in the process of setting up a car-wrap department within a couple of bays at the building’s front-right corner. “We also have an Innovation Division now dealing with holographic displays and virtual readers. We have some very creative people working here and we are very blessed.” CJG’s lithography was boosted in November 2017 with a new 6-colour Heidelberg XL 106, adding to its existing line-up of two 6-colour XL straight presses and two 20-inch offset machines. “The XLs just produce so much. One XL is like two old CDs,” says Mandarino. CJG’s new XL 106 is equipped with an Anilox AQ coater and Inpress Control, which Mandarino is directing toward Heidelberg’s new Push To Stop operating philosophy. Push To Stop allows a press to initiate a series of print jobs that are properly queued by Prinect software, which also relies on the new Press Center XL 2 console, Intellistart 2 and assistance systems like Intelliguide. Depending on ink lay-down and imposition, print jobs can run consistently without operator intervention. The technology platform can leverage colour management tools to reach specified Delta levels and tagging systems in the press delivery. “The new technology is unbelievable, Push To Stop – the ability to set inline spectrophotometry and recalibrate sheets, how it is done automatically at 18,000 sheets an hour. The press operators love it,” says Mandarino. “It is the way the industry is going and we do a lot of similar jobs in different industries that we specialize in, so it is not a problem.” CJG also invested in Inpress and Push To Stop controls to retrofit its second XL press, while the third XL is being equipped with UV.Digital innovationsAs its new offset press was being added at Hensall Circle, CJG was also installing two fully loaded Xerox iGen 5 presses, as well as an Epic CTi-635 inline coating system equipped with a C.P. Bourg BSFE-x sheet feeder. The new Epic technology allows for spot and overall aqueous and UV coatings, while the iGen 5s can produce matte toner, run 24-point stock, and achieve up to 93 percent of reproducible PMS colours – with orange, blue, green, white dry and clear dry. “They are very unique machines. They have the newest technology in the sense that they have opaque white, which is amazing especially if you are going to print on black stocks,” says Mandarino. “We have a lot of clients who are still very, very fussy and they want that specific PMS colour and we are so close now. We actually changed over about 20 percent of our clients who were doing traditional litho stationery to digital.” In February, CJG finished upgrading one of its Xerox presses to run gold and silver metallic. The facility also holds six large-format machines: Fujifilm’s Uvistar, Acuity HS, and Onset X3, as well as investments in Agfa’s Jeti Tauro H2500 LED with ABF, Jeti Ceres RTR3200 LED, and Jeti Titan HS with FTR. In April, CJG was scheduled to add a seventh machine in Agfa’s 10-foot Tauro 3300 with full automation.The Tauro H2500 is a 100-inch wide hybrid LED UV printer with an integrated roll-to-roll system. It is designed to reach speeds of up to 2,960 square feet per hour and can feed a range of media including corrugated board. The Tauro’s automated board feeder (ABF) can process up to four boards automatically and its white ink capability expands applications to backlit POP or for using white as a spot colour. CJG’s new Jeti Ceres RTR3200 LED, aimed at higher-quality work, reaches speeds of up to 2,002 square feet per hour. The 126-inch-wide, roll-to-roll system provides six colours plus white to enhance the opacity and boost colour contrast.The Hensall Circle facility also holds one of North America’s most advanced digital finishing departments after CJG in 2015 installed North America’s first Scodix Ultra Pro with Scodix Foil. The system is designed for producing cost-effective foil with run lengths from one up to 10,000, enhancing a range of products like packaging, brochures, business cards, invitations and book covers. This Scodix purchase came a week after CJG announced its Canada-first acquisition of a Highcon Euclid II+ system, described as the first fully digital cutting and creasing machine for converting paper, labels, folding carton and micro-flute. It incorporates Highcon’s patented Digital Adhesive Rule Technology (DART) and polymers to produce creases, as well as high-speed laser optics to cut a range of substrates.“It takes a while to build up the market for it, there is no question, but I can tell you we have two major accounts – one out of the U.S. and one out of the UK – because of those machines,” says Mandarino. “We are looking at upgrading to the [Highcon] Beam now, which does, I think, 5,000 sheets an hour – we are doing 1,200 to 1,500 now – to get into some bigger packaging runs.”The Scodix and Highcon sit across from each other in a dedicated room filled with unique print samples, which are in fact a common sight throughout the entire Hensall Circle facility. “We are very sales driven and we have always invested in technology and it has made us successful,” says Mandarino. “You have to find new stuff all of the time.”

Roy Oomen / HP Indigo Category Manager, North America / HP Inc. / Atlanta, GeorgiaWhat stands out about the Indigo 20000 in terms of capabilities for digital packaging?RO: I think what stands out about the Indigo technology, in general, is the one-shot process on the packaging presses, and the same on the label presses. That means all of the colours are built up on rotation on a blanket and transferred in one pass. With most print processes you have multiple passes for the colours and the material may actually be contorting or changing because of temperature or whatever. We transfer all of those colours in one pass.Why is Pack Ready important for HP’s packaging interests?RO: We found a way to combine HP ElectroInk and laminate it to a piece of material, without an adhesive, and achieve a really high bond. And by the way, achieve it instantaneously. We call it zero cure time. What typically happens in flexible packaging whether you are laminating a water-based or solvent-free or solvent-based sheet, you have a wait time that can be anywhere from a day, a day and a half, all the way up to five days.How does the 20000 address spot colours and how important is ElectroInk White?RO: With the Indigo 20000, we had two stations of white ink feeding into one ink tank because there is so much white ink being utilized… As far as ElectroInk and spot colours, it is really no different than any other Indigo digital press model. Most customers will often run orange and or violet on say 20 or 15 percent of their jobs. The great majority runs are on a four-colour process and when there is a need for a specific spot colour we have the ability to mix that and so we can achieve 97 percent of the Pantone book… The system also has a spectrophotometer – as do all of the Series 4 presses, 12000, 20000 and Indigo 30000 – and we leverage that to make sure we maintain consistency. Most of the time when we have flexo printers come in [to HP’s Atlanta facility] they are blown away by the capabilities… There are just things we can do with photographic images, highlights, drop shadows and things of that nature that are very hard for them to do in flexography.Can the 20000 leverage HP’s Enhanced Productivity Mode, with CMY printing?RO: I worked with the narrow-web series at the very first beta site of Enhanced Productivity Mode, going back to an older generation of presses, and 20000 is no different. From my point of view, it is probably a capability that our customers could leverage even more… When you compare three and four colours, it is a 33 percent productivity increase. It is significant and all Series 4 presses have it.What impact has the Indigo 30000 press already made on the folding-carton sector?RO: I did the beta-launch agreements on the 30000, so I am familiar with it… We seem to do really well in a couple of areas: health and beauty, and pharmaceutical, so a lot of cartons where you can get at least a 4-up on a B2 press sheet. And we have also seen a lot of adoption in the speciality-card business, loyalty cards, financial cards. We have a number of customers who have added second units, but in the beginning our customers had to learn a lot. In many cases, these were brand-new customers who were getting their first digital press.What growth does HP see in the packaging sector when it comes to digital printing?RO: We typically look at print volumes and I can tell you they are growing rapidly… When you look at the statements that Alon Bar-Shany [VP and GM of HP Indigo] has made, our vision is that label and packaging will become about half of our business and we are on this quest to become a multiple-billion-dollar business unit.Our investment is deep… and you will see us continue to expand. For instance, I never thought we would be at a point where we could do retortable packaging, which we have been able to achieve now on the Indigo 20000 with specialty coating. It is very demanding flexible packaging. Our customers see this investment from HP. Our expectations around packaging are high and that goes for all of the packaging markets – corrugated, flexible packaging, folding carton.

One year ago Canadian Sean Springett became Chief Executive Officer of Manroland Sheetfed GmbH’s North American subsidiaries, based in Chicago, Illinois, and Vaughan, Ontario. Springett, age 43, joined Manroland Sheetfed in 2008 and served as VP of Sales & Marketing for both the U.S. and Canada before taking on his current position. Manroland Sheetfed, a subsidiary of privately owned UK engineering group Langley Holdings plc., has been a leader in the paperboard sector of printing for decades. With the growing focus on carton work, because of its stability relative to some eroding commercial markets, Springett spoke with PrintAction about the direction of this sector and its domination by sheetfed offset technologies.How can commercial printers enter carton?SS: I would suggest using caution is prudent, especially since the landscape is evolving through consolidation in the packaging segment.  I can only speak to how I have seen this transition occur in the past and, at best, the migration to package printing from commercial is a gradual event. A commercial printer must consider their existing niche served and what aptitude and skill-sets they already have that can be put to good work in making a leap, or dipping their proverbial toes in the packaging arena. Major and medium players in packaging are highly skilled and tooled. If a commercial printer is attempting to compete in the volume business, they need to retool their factory, areas like sheeting, structural engineering, die cutting, gluing, and die making is typically more foreign to commercial applications, at least by scale.Are commercial printers focused on packaging growth?SS: I believe a stronger concept in the years prior; the trend was always about complimenting, be it packaging or any number of additional services. We see commercial printers furthering their niches, not often in packaging. I have been amazed at how talented many of the independent commercial operations have been in entrenching themselves with their customers. The evolution of many commercial printers into marketing firms has been a more successful trend in my opinion. The technology advances in IT, the ideology of print being a compliment versus the single primary export of a commercial printer, is intriguing. Many have evolved into a more savvy business model with multiple revenue streams. Couple this with the marriage of sheetfed offset and digital. Whereas digital has crept into what was considered traditional offset, the newest sheetfed offset technology is creeping into what was always regarded as short-run digital.What is the complexion of today’s short-run carton market?SS: The ideology of volume versus short run is almost dismissive in regards to larger packaging firms. Many of them, whether global, national or an independent viscerally defend the market space regardless of run specifics. The larger firms equip themselves to handle the shorter runs but often struggle with big business problems where some of the smaller independents shine in this arena. This is the space a smaller independent packaging house or a commercial printer can capitalize on.What type of automation do you need to focus on short-run carton?SS: It is less about the individual process of the equipment and more about the overall operation of a system. In today’s terms, it’s about transparent productivity. The ability to measure the performance of the asset, being a sheetfed offset press and determine how to optimize the performance... the ability to provide the information is less important compared to being able to disseminate it and help the printer improve productivity and fully utilize the asset.What market activities are driving folding-carton work?SS: Predominately food products for the folding-carton market, with increased demand for convenience-oriented products for the volume side of the business. Increased demand for bespoke-oriented products such as cosmetics and specialty products has caused the B1 format to see an increase in sales.  Are packaging press sales growing or is it more a decline in commercial press sales?SS: When new offset high-performance equipment becomes operational, optioned and equipped to the highest automation level, I believe we will see a little more offset in the digital sphere. At the same token, new offset and new digital can do the work of two or three of its predecessors. By sheer economics, press sales will decline regardless; I favour the opinion that our market is far more variable in nature. How far off is inkjet from making an impact on short-run carton?SS: Speed is the Achilles’ heel of inkjet. In order for inkjet to gain a more mainstream focus, it will need to increase the sheets per hour and continue to economize the ink costs.

Cimpress is the world leader in the mass customization of a growing number of print products like business cards, signage, apparel, promotional items, photobooks and packaging. It is the parent company of Vistaprint, with its manufacturing crown jewel in Windsor, Ont., and more than 20 other online brands employing some 10,000 people in 20 countries.Mitchell Leiman joined Cimpress more than a year ago to lead the company’s global development. PrintAction spoke with Leiman, Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development, to better understand Cimpress’ new operating structure and its powerful printing platform. Why did Cimpress decentralize and how did this affect last year’s operating loss? ML: The decentralization and reorganization was a really a no-brainer for us. We saw the benefits of these changes to allow us to be even more entrepreneurial, innovative, customer-focused, agile. Even though in the short term it impacted financial results we felt it was so much better for the company and our customers in the long run. Another big factor that drove the reported loss, a bigger factor than restructuring, was our investments. We had historically high levels of investment in the business and that’s been a multi-year trend, because of the huge opportunities we see in the markets where we play... That was a big part of what led to the reported loss in our fiscal year 17.Why was the acquisition of National Pen an important investment?ML: National Pen [acquired for approximately US$218 million in December 2016] relates to our desire to accelerate efforts in promotional products. For many years, we have started selling more and more promotional products and it is a great opportunity for the mass customization concept to really take hold in how we approach the business, both from selling and manufacturing... But most of our investments are organic, essentially investing in the current operations.Where has Cimpress made most of its organic investments recently?ML: We continue to of ourselves as a technology company, whether it is on the frontend of our business, the selling, the Website, the experience of the customer in designing on the Website, whether it is in Vistaprint or some of our other brands… a lot of technology is facilitating the manufacturing of our goods. Windsor is really the crown jewel of our manufacturing and there is a tremendous amount of technology investment related to production and more recently software that drives our business... to specific machinery and automation. Technology is a big part of our investment.We continue to invest in new business models and [infrastructure] in countries like Brazil, India, China and Japan, so this is another area of organic investment. We have investments in what we call Vistaprint Corporate, working with larger customers and helping them to set up dedicated Websites that have their own branding and templates preconfigured. And maybe the last area is in new products. The breadth of products that we are trying to play in is ever expanding. Our strength is the mass customization capabilities both in selling and helping customers design, as well as making transactions.                                                   How is technology investment enhancing Cimpress’ customer experience?ML: One example is, if you upload a picture, we are getting better and better at instantaneously telling you that maybe the picture isn’t of good enough quality. Or better yet, we will automatically just fix it for you and you may not even know it as a consumer... we want to have technology to make the customer experience that much better, as well as improve the efficiency of how we are able to do things.Why is Cimpress still a unique company in the printing world after 20-plus years?ML: The way we think about competition is not necessarily [with regard to] another big player like Cimpress. It is the thousands of smaller companies that are very focused on a particular customer segment or geography... There are a lot of great companies and certainly many have tried to integrate – and a lot with great successes – some of the things we do well. A concept like ganging, for example, was very innovative when we were first doing it and now it is more common practice. [Print] is a very competitive space and they push us hard. What keeps us successful and unique is the decentralization that has allowed us to stay small as we get big. The benefit is that we are somewhat able to emulate those smaller companies in a way where we try to keep our businesses manageable and focused… On the other hand, we are able to leverage our scale and do business in a way that is really hard to replicate for all sorts of reasons. One example is our mass customization platform and that really allows our businesses to have distinct identities to work very seamlessly together... There are ways when it is very advantageous for us to still operate as a single entity. Even if we are trying to fight off being too big of a fish now, we are a school of fish that swims together.

Scott Gray joined Mitchell Press in mid-2017 to help the historic web offset facility move toward digital printing, as the company installed a new Kodak NexPress ZX3300. Led by its third generation of family ownership, Mitchell Press, based in Burnaby, British Columbia, operates out of a 64,000-square-foot facility as the largest commercial heatset web printer in Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest, outputting an average of more than two billion printed pages per year for a range of clients. 

 PrintAction spoke with Gray, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, about the transformation of what has been a quiet Canadian printing power.Why does Mitchell have a unique market position?SG: I have only been here about a month now but I’ve always known Mitchell to be one of Canada’s leading high-quality heatset operations. The have a 16-page configuration, two full-size webs, 4/4, 5/5, and the 4/4 has a coater as well. They have been going after high-end publication work for the last, I will call it, 88 years. They started out as a financial printer. Nine years ago was a big moment for them when they sold their old factory, which was actually an old cookie factory, kind of a disjointed building. They created a new purpose-built facility and then put in a brand new Komori 1000 at the time and that was basically setting them off on a brand new foot. The building is really large, with lots of room to move into.At that time, there wasn’t a lot of competition in the Vancouver market. There was Teldon, which five years ago Mitchell ended up buying and they absorbed the cream of the crop of the staff and brought some of the presses over. And then just kept pushing in that direction. They outlasted all of their competition, but the web market is reducing a little bit. Run lengths are getting a little bit smaller and these guys are really looking forward to what is the future of the company and they are not afraid to spend a little bit of money to do that.Where is Mitchell investing for the future?SG: They want to go in a completely new digital direction with the size of the company and they have other expansion plans down the road that we will reveal a little bit later. But immediately they have now built probably one of the coolest digital rooms that I have ever seen.The prepress workflow is getting so buttoned down with these guys. They are doing a turnaround of 25,000 on web magazines in 24 to 48 hours. The are so slick from that point of view and so we want to take that mentality and put it into the digital world. So they have installed a Kodak NexPress ZX3300, a beautiful machine with amazing capabilities – oversized sheet, it does metallic gold, opaque whites, dimensional, and I think next quarter we are getting into the heavyweight substrate expansion kit so we will go up to 530 gsm. For digital it has a lot of horsepower.How difficult will it be for a web offset shop to go digital?SG: We are getting competitive at 3,000 runs on the web with how fast these guys are making ready and turning around jobs so it is not much of stretch of the imagination to [produce] a couple thousand digital. Now maybe the gap is a thousand copies between digital and web.We can do advanced copies for our clients to go around and pitch advertising. They can check out new artwork. They can do variable data image covers and that is just strictly on the publication side, not to mention the extra at least 30 percent of possible business opportunity that rests with existing clients that we are not even touching.What is your initial push at Mitchell?SG: Right now it is digital… One of the reasons they brought me on is that I have a lot of experience with digital – digital storefronts. I am leading the sales team. I am not here to retrain anyone because they are all very seasoned. They know what they are doing, but I want to show them new opportunities and I can kind of lead by example with the digital stuff because I have of a lot of experience with it. I have already brought in a few very cool, very high-level design projects that really push the limitations of the machines and it has knocked it out. So everybody has kind of caught a buzz on it and now they are looking to their existing client base.How important are online storefronts for print?SG: I think it is huge. I honestly think that is the future of print. We will be pushing that very quickly. We are going live with our Monarch update in a month and we are already putting together our storefront team and I believe that is going to be the next part of it. We will be doing both offset and digital through it. I personally think it is the future of print. If the industry in five years is not doing 30, 40 percent of our work through storefronts then I will give my head a shake.What are you most excited about by joining Mitchell?SG: To me it is the ability to help rewrite an almost 90-year-old story. They have been very quiet and I can reintroduce them to design community. They have been really focused on the publication community and we have so much to offer for what people need, but they do not know who we are here.   I just really want to shine a light on Mitchell and give them the attention that they deserve. I am really excited about the growth potential and the fact that they have embraced this change.  

Austrian prepress company Glatz Klischee GmbH installed Esko’s new XPS Crystal 5080 system, which delivers main and back exposure in one step in plate manufacturing. Glatz Klischee is a prepress service provider in the city of Bregenz. It prides itself on its high-quality production of flexography plates by regularly reaching up to 100-line screen. In investing in the new XPS Crystal 5080 system, Glatz Klischee explains that UV plate exposure was a weak link in its process and that traditional light tube exposure units have reached their quality limits. Glatz Klischee investigated Esko’s LED exposure as early as 2010. Since then the trade shop has gained experience with several generations of inline UV exposure and worked with prototypes of the XPS Crystal 5080. “In our opinion, UV main and back exposure in one unit represents a milestone in flexographic plate making. It improves plate exposure quality and ensures extremely consistent flexographic plates,” said Manfred Schrattenthaler, Managing Director of Glatz Klischee. Glatz Klischee has been working with the new XPS Crystal 5080 from Esko for about six months now. “Thanks to this technology, we now are able to supply our clients with standard screens [54 and 60-line], up to the absolute premium range with 250 lpi. We can deliver the best possible plate quality with the highest level of consistency and repeatability that we have not experienced to date,” said Schrattenthaler. Established in 1931, Glatz started out in the stamping and engraving field. Sign making and plate making were added later. The third-generation family business has five locations. Since 1999, Glatz Klischee has been an independent company in the Glatz Group. At the Bregenz site, there are 40 employees. Glatz specializes in flexible packaging and corrugated cardboard in Austria, South Germany and Switzerland.

At drupa 2016, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG unveiled a new operating philosophy called Push to Stop, also referred to by the press maker as autonomous printing. It basically applies a true manufacturing approach to printing in that operators only push a button to stop the press, rather than the traditional approach of pushing a button to activate jobs.The concept is to have the press initiate a series of print jobs that are properly queued up by Heidelberg’s Prinect software, depending on ink layout down and imposition, and then run consistently without operator intervention. Ultimately, the technology platform can also leverage colour management tools to reach pre-specified Delta e levels and a tagging system in the press delivery. PrintAction spoke with Heidelberg’s Ray Fagan about Push to Stop and automation in the printing industry.What is the state of automation in the printing industry?RF: I would say in general print shops are behind other industries in automating their processes. There is a trend toward getting away from the craft of printing more toward the manufacturing of printing. And that is a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of printers, more so for the commercial companies than in packaging. Packaging companies have been in a manufacturing mindset for a longer period of time, because of the nature of what they print. Are printers ready for Push to Stop?RF: We are learning very quickly that most companies are not in a position to take advantage of Push to Stop automation. The press ends up waiting. There is a fellow who has joined Heidelberg by the name of Anthony Thirlby and he is head of Prinect now, driving some of these processes... He estimates 55 percent of the time a job is in a printing company is before it even gets to the CTP. It’s in estimating, job costing and prepress – 55 percent of the time before it is even plated and on the press. So if an average job time takes three days to get out the door, one and a half of those days is spent just getting the job ready to be plated.How does Push to Stop look beyond just the printing component?RF: Push to Stop is part of what we call the Smart Print Shop, which is more holistic in the approach, where Push to Stop is the print processing element of it. To have a Smart Print Shop, you need to think about how do I align my jobs so that I can truly manufacture at an acceptable operating equipment efficiency or an OEE number for a new press? How do I justify putting this piece of equipment on the floor?What is Heidelberg’s answer for creating an OEE number for a capital investment?RF: You should only think in terms of throughput and you should only measure, in our opinion, cost per thousand sheets. What is the cost of running a thousand sheets for my company?Why has Heidelberg focused on cost-per-thousand-sheet manufacturing?RF: We are launching a big data platform this year in a couple of satellite plants as a beta test. We are going to be collecting every single piece of information from the press and any other automation that is in front of, or behind, the press that can provide data. Then you can start to do a few things like intensify your colour management, streamline your stock purchasing by big data analysis. You can determine a lot to drive your cost per thousand sheets down. But it is not only based on capacity. If you can make every thousand sheets more profitable, a three-shift printer can become a two-shift printer and be more profitable even if they do not see an increase in print volumes coming. What is big data telling you about print?RF: There are so many decisions now where you can try to remove the emotional element and just focus on what is happening. It is interesting to see the look on a customer’s face when you tell them their overall operating efficiency [OEE] is 18 percent or 23 percent. They have these big pockets of unexplained time.How common is it for printers to have an OEE number well below 40 percent?RF: Most are below 40 percent for sure. And in fairness, a lot of people are getting hung up on overall operating efficiency. You can be the most efficient printer in the world but if you are a really short-run printer your [OEE] is not going to reflect how efficient you are just based on your total volume. Why is Push to Stop a new operating philosophy for printing?RF: I do not think anybody has ever gone from makeready to good sheet before without having a physical interference. To be able to process multiple jobs in sequence without interruption of a person has never been done before and now we have the capability to do it at a press level.What is new I would have to say is the ability to queue up multiple jobs from the prepress department into the queue of the press, all ready to go.

A research team in Iowa is taking 3D print to new heights with an educational online applicationHave you ever wondered what it looks like at the top of Mount Everest or at the bottom of the Grand Canyon? Well, Chris Harding and his colleagues can’t take you there, but thanks to their innovative work and the advancements of 3D printing, you can hold the natural wonders of the world in your hands.Harding, an Associate Professor of geological and atmospheric sciences, is part of a research team at Iowa State University and together they have created TouchTerrain.Essentially, TouchTerrain is a Web application that allows users to print 3D models of any place on Earth. So, instead of relying on a flat map or screen, instead of relying on 2D depictions of real terrain (like those lines which get closer together indicating a higher altitude), you can actually study 3D representations of mountains, canyons, the ocean floor and the Canadian Shield, among any geological feature, with a hands-on model.In the TouchTerrain program, you just select a rectangular section on a map and enter in your 3D printer’s parameters (Harding and his team have used a Makerbot Replicator 2x and Flashforge Creator Pro). Then the server downloads the elevation and terrain data through Google Earth Engine and downloadable STL files of that area are created.The project started in late 2014, Harding says, when his colleague in the department of geological and atmospheric sciences, Franek Hasiuk, got some experience working with the Makerbot Replicator 2x 3D printer in his lab and mentioned the idea casually.“I think he said ‘wouldn’t it be cool if everybody could 3D print the landscape they live in and hold it in their hands?’” Harding says.Harding and Hasiuk launched TouchTerrain with the help of Levi Barber, the IT wiz instrumental in the coding of the project and Alex Renner, a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering. Harding says Renner was a “big help” in teaching him how to create 3D models reliably and efficiently on low-cost printers.Since the program went public in mid-March, Harding says TouchTerrain had over 2000 3D terrain model downloads in the first two weeks. The team has also received a lot of positive feedback and interest from high school teachers, university professors, museum curators and geoscientists.“They see value in using 3D-printed terrain models in an educational setting,” Harding says.In addition to producing 3D models of the wonders of our world, Harding has also experimented with those of other worlds, such as the Moon and Mars. He recently received a request from a teacher at a school in California which caters to visually impaired students.“Besides giving them the ability to touch the shape of the Grand Canyon,” Harding says. “I also hand created a 3D model for the hugely impressive Valles Marineris, which he printed and gave to his students to explore.”The TouchTerrain team is currently in the process of expanding. The project is growing faster than they can keep up with and Harding says they have already begun to experience issues with scalability when many users are trying to access the system. They are hoping other programmers will provide feedback to improve the codebase and are searching for the funding required to bring a Web programmer in on the project.“In addition to better scalability, we have a whole list of improvements we would like to see based on user requests,” Harding says.TouchTerrain is an open source project hosted at GitHub which provides code for the Apache server run at Iowa State and a standalone version. You can access the TouchTerrain code at https://github.com/ChHarding/TouchTerrain_for_CAGEO or check out the server version in action at http://touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu/. Harding and his partners provide the service to educators and the general public free of charge.“We hope that printing out these models and using them in a teaching context means that ideally more people become aware of 3D printing and how useful and affordable it can be,” Harding says. 

For the past two years, DATA Communications Management has been entrenched in transformation, perhaps best signified by this new name for the 58-year-old company that is historically associated with printing business forms. The change to DATA Communications Management from The DATA Group in the summer of 2016 seems trivial, but, at that time, the public printing company – one of just a handful in Canada – also consolidated all of its issued and outstanding common shares and began trading under a new TSX stock symbol, DCM. The transformation of DCM is a story of powerful investors who have influenced Canada’s printing industry for a couple of decades, mergers and acquisitions, reorganizing a national footprint and investing in a unique service platform run by highly skilled employees. Leaning on the printing legacy of one of Canada’s largest and longest-surviving document producers, DCM is now positioning itself as a managed communications provider with leadership expertise in marketing services. The company’s position pits it up against North America’s largest printers and technology suppliers who have a growing interest in the cash cow of corporate print consulting. This is driving DCM to build a breadth of printing services to, as the company’s rebranded homepage explains, become The Execution Engine for Business Communications. Rounding out print“The business has been in transition for many years, giving credit to prior management. They acquired, stitched together and moved the business forward in a lot of different ways,” says Michael Sifton, who has served as the Chief Executive Officer of DCM since April 2015. “That being said, what we did was amp up the rate of change in the last two to three years.”DCM’s current evolution leverages a sticky printing infrastructure relied upon by some Canada’s largest financial institutions, from where most of its revenue is still generated, accounting for approximately $130 million in its most recent fiscal year. To increase the breadth of its printing capabilities, DCM has made key acquisitions like February’s share purchase of Thistle Printing and substantially all of the assets of Eclipse Colour & Imaging. The acquisitions came after Sifton spent two years rightsizing the company, which reduced DCM’s production footprint from nine facilities to just five, which the company today labels as Centres of Excellence – in Brampton (headquarters) and Mississauga, Ontario; Calgary, Alberta; Drummondville, Quebec; and Niles, Illinois. “We are absolutely more focused than we were before and we are more optimized. One of our big initiatives is to become more united because we were disparate parts and not really working together with a mission,” says Sifton. “We are much closer to that today.”DCM’s core capabilities include direct marketing, print services, labels and asset tracking, event tickets and gift cards, logistics and fulfillment, content and workflow management, data management and analytics, and regulatory communications. In addition to leveraging an executive team with vast M&A experience, DCM is heavily focused on firming up processes and systems to get the most out of what is now one of Canada’s largest and most diverse printing operations. In January 2016, DCM revealed it had invested $6.7 million to acquire multiple new Xerox presses, including several top-tier iGen 5 machines. In late-2016, DCM completed an additional $2.1 million investment in its printing platform with an emphasis on label production, with upgrades and technology enhancements to systems in Brampton. As it made these platform investments, DCM also realized the consolidation of its facilities, including moving its Regina manufacturing and warehousing operations into its flagship Calgary facility, which had already absorbed the company’s Edmonton plant. The Calgary location, which also holds significant sheetfed offset capabilities, most recently began to absorb the wide-format capabilities of DCM’s Mississauga plant following on the purchase of Eclipse located in Burlington, Ontario. Eclipse specializes in large-format and point-of-purchase printing with approximately 100 employees operating in an 80,000-square-foot facility. This $9.2 million acquisition turns DCM into one of the country’s most significant large- and grand-format printers. Eclipse generated approximately $21.3 million in revenues (unaudited) for the fiscal year ended November 30, 2016. “They also have a growing packaging business, especially in specialty packaging, so we are quite happy about that,” says Greg Cochrane, who became DCM’s President in November 2016. “We see three growth areas: large format, packaging and labeling.”The $6.1 million purchase of Thistle in Toronto provides DCM with commercial printing capabilities in a location that better aligns with its critical customer base in the financial heart of Canada. “Thistle is a steady, classic commercial printer. What that allows us to do here in Eastern Canada is to have, under one roof, our complete litho and sheetfed operation,” says Cochrane. “Currently, we are outsourcing a lot of that to second-party vendors, maybe some of our competitors, but this allows us to do more inside. We repatriate the business.” With approximately 65 employees operating in a 42,000-square-foot facility, Thistle generated $16.4 million in revenues (audited) for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2016. As it closed the acquisitions of Thistle and Eclipse, DCM also arranged an increase under its senior revolving credit facility with a chartered bank by $10 million to up to $35 million. The move provides DCM with a total borrowing base of up to $72 million from $50 million, suggesting its investment-savvy executive team will continue to make acquisitions. “There are opportunities on the [printing] side of the spectrum that we need to tuck in and we think that they are trading at favourable multiples today,” says Sifton. Leveraging growth experienceIn DCM purchased Thistle from private equity firm VRG Capital Corp., perhaps best known for its financial backing of PLM Group, which was eventually purchased for $130 million by Transcontinental in 2007. Cochrane in 2011 became a Managing Partner of VRG Capital, which also holds an interest in DCM. The company publicly disclosed the Thistle purchase after receiving opinions on what was determined to be fair market value. Cochrane actually began working with DCM in June 2016 as a Director of the company (stepping down from his board position in November to fulfill his mandate as President), along with VRG Managing Partner J.R. Kingsley Ward, who currently serves as DCM’s Chairman of the Board. It was also around this time, as the new DCM entity came into existence, that Sifton made his own sizable investment in the company, approximately 10 percent, along with Cochrane at a lesser amount.“I bought in during the springtime last year in a fairly major way. Greg just recently took more shares as part of a transaction and is interested in making larger commitments to this company,” says Sifton. “So we are committed. We believe in its future and it is a company that is going to continue to go through transitions. There are going to be some bumps and grinds along the way but we think the prize is worth it.” With the arrival Cochrane, Sifton shifted his CEO mandate with DCM to focus on financial and strategic initiatives. Cochrane meanwhile is putting his knowledge toward sales and business development. “I am a real execution type,” he says. “There is no such thing as better strategy just better execution.” At age 65, Cochrane provides a diverse background with decades of experience in marketing services, communications, event management and private equity investment. After beginning his marketing career in product management with General Electric and then S.C. Johnson, Cochrane in 1981, along with his business partner, built out one of the largest Canadian event and conference companies, Mariposa Communications, which was sold in 1997 to Mosaic Group. In 2001, Cochrane became a lead investor in Pareto Corporation, a start-up marketing services business which became publicly listed in 2004, and where he remained a director until its sale to U.S.-based private equity firm Riverside Company in 2011 for $125 million. Pareto would eventually shut its doors in late-2013, filing under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, which new owner Riverside described as a result of a sluggish economy and increased competition in the shopper marketing space. Also described as sales activation, the term shopper marketing is based on methods to connect brands, retailers and shoppers before, during and after a sale, which can include a plethora of print for direct marketing, experiential marketing, events, sampling programs, retail merchandising, in-store messaging and other incentives.           With operational responsibility for the direction of DCM, Cochrane views the company as holding two primary business arenas. “The first part is what I call the rinse-repeat. It is forms. It is long-term contracts it is RFPs with major [financial institutions] and insurance businesses,” he says, acknowledging a decline in the printing of transactional forms, although DCM is also entrenched with the same clients’ use of electronic options. “As that [print] is declining you better be best in class in terms of costing, on time, and we aren’t paying for any extras. So that part of the business we are really good at it. There are only a couple companies that can do it here in Canada.” Cochrane refers to the other part of DCM business as customized on-demand, which relies on printing processes like digital, large-format, labels, packaging and direct mail – even sheeted with DCM’s new lithographic assets. “Those are the types of things that are growing… And the recent acquisitions we have made really bolster those areas for us,” he says. The customized on-demand part of DCM is where Cochrane’s marketing background comes into to play based on evolving client purchasing patterns. “People who are around the room are not only in procurement but also marketing,” says Cochrane. “The [sales] conversation 10 years ago is totally different than it is today.” He explains the marketing executives of large clients are now involved in the complete process, often asking DCM to work directly with agencies on campaign details. “Yes, this is complex, but we are in the business of simplifying the complexity of your communications needs.” Cochrane uses the term “to stand the client up” to describe DCM’s value-add approach, as he recalls one recent example: “With all of their requests it took 150,000 lines of code to get them up and running, so we could deliver materials on time.” In fact it was this same marketing executive who remarked on the true nature of DCM’s services. “The customer said, ‘Actually what you guys are is a managed services provider.’” With Cochrane’s experience and millions of dollars invested in new printing infrastructure, DCM is a formidable managed communications provider supported by marketing services potential and decades of process knowledge. “I knew nothing about DATA when I was first approached about the opportunity a couple of years ago,” says Sifton. “The one thing that keeps coming back to me is just how great the folks are in this company and they are worth us putting a shoulder behind it to make it work.”

Deschamps Impression of Québec City, Québec, began the New Year with the acquisition of another of the province’s best-known commercial printing operations in Imprimerie Litho Chic. With this acquisition, Deschamps will have more than 200 employees and increase its annual sales to more than $33 million. The Litho Chic acquisition compliments a year of capital-equipment investment by Deschamps. In May 2016, the printing company bought a new Xerox iGen5 press, as well as binding and finishing equipment for its Montreal plant. In December 2016, Deschamps Impression expanded its Québec City facility by almost 5,000 square feet. In January 2017, the company is installing a brand new 5-colour Heidelberg CX-102 press in its’ Quebec City facility. Founded in 1987, Imprimerie Litho Chic specializes in commercial work with both offset and digital printing systems. Jean Bilodeau and Michel Leclerc of Litho Chic will continue to play key roles within the Deschamps Impression organization. On top of high-end commercial printing, Deschamps Impression focuses on providing clients with prepress services, security and digital printing, as well as pharmaceutical and cosmetic folding-carton and box printing, in addition to bindery and finishing services. PrintAction spoke with President Jean Deschamps about the company’s most recent acquisition. What is the status of the acquisition? JD: We are planning to complete the merger of the two companies by mid-March. We acquired them in December and we are going to move staff and part of the equipment in February. They are going to be consolidated in our main plant in Quebec City. Was this a share purchase, rather than an asset purchase? JD: Yes it was – We were looking to increase our sales volume and with this acquisition we have gained almost $5 million in additional sales which is very interesting. Does Litho Chic provide a different sales base for you? JD: I would say it is complimentary because a good portion of their customer base is close to Montreal rather than Quebec City where we are based but with our manufacturing site in Montreal we are able to integrate the additional volume across our platform. This is one of the major interests we had at that time because if they had exactly the same customer as us, we would not have bought the company of course. What else attracted you to Litho Chic? JD: The customer base, as I mentioned, as well as the craftsmen who were working in the facility. We are transferring more people who are very talented, people who have a lot of experience in the printing industry as there are not a lot of new people who are coming into our industry. What Litho Chic assets are you taking in? JD: We will be transferring mainly finishing equipment. The presses and prepress/platemaking equipment are going to be sold because we just bought a brand new Heidelberg CX Speedmaster [being installed at the time of the interview]. That press is going to increase our productivity by about 40 percent more than the old CDs that we had. We are going to be able to take all of Litho Chic’s $5 million in sales on this equipment. Why were you attracted to Heidelberg’s CX press? JD: It is a 40-inch CX with great new technology. It runs 16,500 sheets per hour easily with the Autoplate, auto-register and all of the new features we wanted for its’ efficiencies. Make readies take about 10 minutes compared to the 2005 press that we moved out, so we increased our productivity significantly with this press and we are going to be able to take in all of the additional sales that are coming from Litho Chic. We are going to add other shifts on the other presses, so with that we should easily cover the entire new customer base that we are getting. Why did you recently put in a Xerox iGen 5? JD: We bought the press in May 2016 and it was installed in our digital facility which is part of our manufacturing site in Montreal. The press fills a short run gap and has incredible flexibility with its 14 X 26 format as well as a print finish almost identical to offset technology. Will the CX be used more for packaging? JD: We are moving forward also in the packaging industry. We are doing a lot of packaging, a lot of gluing, inside of our facility in Quebec City and that was part of the purpose of buying that press. Now we have three five-colour CDs that are fully equipped. The oldest press that we now run is a 2010 and our equipment, all Heidelberg, runs right up to our new 2017. When did you start focusing on pharmaceutical and cosmetic folding-carton printing? JD: It is relatively new – I would say maybe four or five years now and we are increasing our market share steadily through our qualified and knowledgeable sales force. We hope to make an acquisition in this market segment within the next two years. Why does Deschamps Impression have a significant position in security printing? JD: We are positioned as one of the oldest family-owned security printing companies in Canada, with 90 years this year. We do birth certificates, lottery games, gift certificates, as well as manufacture cheques. We are one of only two printers with a federal security classification. Security printing is the foundation of our company as we only began commercial printing in the 1980s. We do a lot of security documents that are produced for different countries as well as in Canada. When did you take over the company’s leadership? JD: I am the third generation and we have owned the company for 35 years now. I took over in 1995 as the President. But we took over the company, by acquiring our uncles’ shares, with my two brothers and my father and I, in 1980 which was when the third generation bought the company. How significant was this acquisition compared to other moves? JD: This is the seventh or eighth acquisition that we have made since the third generation bought the company. When we bought the company in 1980 we were doing about $2 million in sales. Now we are budgeting for $34 million sales next year. Every acquisition we have made was strategic, either to gain expertise in a given market or to grow our sales.     Why is Deschamps Impression a unique printing company in the region? JD: We are the only one doing packaging, security printing and we also do a lot of commercial printing, of course. We have a unique digital printing facility in Montreal. We completely finish about 95 percent of what we print. We manufacture in our facility in Montreal and Quebec City, so we are completely unique. We are one of the largest independent printers in the province of Quebec. We are also the only printer with a complete mirror plant which allows us to guarantee continuous service in case of a force majeure. Why are you so confident in the future based on all of the investment made over the past year? JD: We are very confident in the future and we will make other acquisitions as I said before. This has been part of our growth strategy and we are going to make additional acquisitions in the future. We are already in the process of talking with other printers who are more in the packaging market, as well as commercial printing, in the Montreal region. We are a 90-year-old company and we are looking forward to going over 100 years.

Fujifilm is launching a new food-safe ink described as significantly extending the application versatility of the Jet Press 720S for packaging production, suitable for finishing applications on carton board or synthetic media up to 600 microns thick.

Markem-Imaje has released Version 6.0 of its CoLOS information management system, a software designed to provide users with higher uptimes, throughput and compliance in product coding and packaging activities. The CoLOS information management system, Markem-Imaje explains, aims to minimize risk of coding errors, ensuring compliance with regulations that is described as helping to reduce overall packaging running costs by up to 15 percent.

Plastic film manufacturer American Renolit Corp. (ARC) is introducing what it describes as more environmentally friendly non-phthalate versions to its range of digital printing films, suitable for indoor and outdoor printing applications.

Ricoh USA Inc. today announced the release of Introduction to Graphic Communication, Second Edition, a textbook that also includes interactive content, such as videos and online discussion.

HP Inc. today announced the HP One Package workflow suite for PageWide Industrial corrugated presses, describing it as the industry’s first ecosystem for digital corrugated printing.

Messagepoint has expanded its platform connectivity to Salesforce, an international provider of CRM software, explaining the new functionality enables non-technical business users to deliver interactive, one-to-one communications across both print and digital channels within a single, integrated platform.

Sun Chemical has named Cyngient a strategic distribution partner of its inks, coatings and other solutions for offset, narrow web tag and label (NWTL), commercial sheetfed and folding carton printers.

Onyx Graphics has introduced Onyx 18, the newest release of the company’s wide- and grand-format software, featuring new colour technologies designed for colour accuracy, consistency and conformance to standards such as G7 and Fogra. According to the company, it is the first solution compatible with iccMAX, the new standard recommended by the ICC for all wide- and grand-format print applications including textile and soft signage.

A new software development kit for preparing documents for print is available today from Global Graphics Software, the developers of the Harlequin RIP and ScreenPro.

Sun Chemical says its customers could experience a delivery delay for energy curable inks, due to a potential shortage of photoinitiators as reported earlier this week by the European Printing Ink Association (EuPIA).

Esko has extended its portfolio of solutions with Text Recognition, a new plug-in for Adobe Illustrator that aims to make last-minute copy changes to outlined text fast, safe and simple.

Ultimate TechnoGraphics, a Montreal, Quebec-based company specializing in imposition and finishing automation, has announced the new Ultimate Impostrip configurator for Enfocus Switch, developed in collaboration with software distributor and system integrator Impressed Germany.

The Epson SureColor S80600 64-inch roll-to-roll solvent printer has been certified by GMG Americas, a subsidiary of GMG Color for use with software GMG ColorProof 5.10 and GMG OpenColor 2.1.5.

Mimaki has announced the availability of the UCJV300-75, UCJV300-107 and UCJV300-130 printers, described as featuring a smaller footprint with the same operational features of the larger UCJV300-160 model. As Greenguard certified products, each model is described as meeting some of the world’s most comprehensive standards for low emissions of VOCs into the air.

Philip Hampson, National Sales Manager, Fujifilm Canada, talks advances in single-pass and printhead technology.

Smithers Pira in mid-January 2018 published a study called The Future of Global Packaging to 2022, which estimates packaging demand will grow steadily at 2.9 percent to reach $1.3 trillion in 2022 (all figures converted into Canadian funds), starting from $1.1 billion in 2017. The report looks at current and future figures for packaging in 17 major and 33 minor national markets.

Jim Stalford, Senior Director of Sales, Wide Format Printing Systems, Canon Canada, discusses advances in wide-format imaging technologies.

Martin Automatic says it will run a space-saving non-stop roll changer at Labelexpo Americas 2018.

Canon Canada has announced the new optional POD Deck Lite XL Long Sheet Feeder, designed to help users of the imagePRESS C850/C750/C650 and imagePRESS C65 digital colour presses to run continuous auto-duplexed long sheets of sizes up to 13 by 30 inches, it says.

Point Five Packaging, a supplier of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) equipment and packaging solutions for various food industry sectors, has introduced the P5-RM Semi-Automatic Seal System. Designed for food production or packaging environments, the machine can be configured for sealing trays or cups using Modified Atmosphere packaging (MAP), vacuum skin packaging (VSP), or seal-only packaging.

Electronics For Imaging unveiled its next-generation hybrid flatbed/roll platform technology called the VUTEk h series printers. The news comes shortly after the introduction of its VUTEk FabriVU 340i, an aqueous soft signage printer.

The Pro C9200 and C9210 Graphic Arts Editions are the latest additions to Ricoh’s Commercial & Industrial Printing Business Group portfolio, suitable for producing book jackets, six-page brochures and other applications with speeds up to 135 pages per minute on stocks up to 49 inches long and 470 gsm.

HP Inc. has announced two new six-colour PageWide ultra high-volume inkjet web presses for pre-print corrugated packaging, the HP PageWide T1190 and HP PageWide T1170, described as delivering higher productivity and quality for digital packaging presses.

During the recent ISA trade show in Orlando, Florida, Zünd displayed its new Over Cutter Camera OCC, which allows the company’s cutting systems to more quickly process printed materials. 


Highcon launched its newest digital postpress system in the Highcon Euclid IIIC, which extends the company’s third generation of cutting and creasing machines into the sector of corrugated and fluted substrates. The Highcon Euclid machine has been working with corrugated board at LxBxH in Switzerland since the end of 2015 and is now being made commercially available in the market. Founded in 2009, Highcon products are installed at more than 50 customer sites around the world. 
“We have been using the Highcon digital cutting and creasing technology to produce high quality short run packaging on demand for our customers,” said Silvano Gauch, President of LxBxH. “ The ability to produce small to medium size batches just-in-time with low entry cost, allows our customers to order what they actually want.”The Highcon Euclid IIIC is designed to save on the production and storage of die-cutting forms, while providing the flexibility for JIT production and short runs. The Euclid series also provides customized perforations with cleaner edges and easier opening, explains Highcon, and variable-data etching for customization or personalization down to the level of serial numbers. The Euclid IIIC will handle single wall, laminated, N F G E and B-flute from 1mm to 3mm/ 40-120 points.“We realized the potential of the corrugated market in B1 and B2 (42- and 28-inch) formats and have been encouraged by the success that LxBxH have had in this market,” said Aviv Ratzman, Highcon CEO and Co-founder. “Box Compression Tests that have been performed by comparing the digitally produced boxes with conventional ones have proven that boxes produced with the same substrate on the Euclid are stronger than those produced on conventional machines. "This creates an opportunity to attain the same strength with reduced material usage and as a result, reduced costs," continued Ratzman. "The potential of adding lamination and high-quality print to the flutes also opens up a world of packaging that is both visually and structurally effective.”

Esko, which focuses on developing software and hardware for the packaging, labels, sign and display industries, launched the Kongsberg C66, a finishing table designed for short-run production of corrugated applications.The Kongsberg C66 was developed based on market demand as part of Esko’s robotics program in that technology sector. Esko explains its combination of size, speed and precision on heavy-duty rigid materials like corrugated cartons make it a viable alternative to conventional diecutting equipment for short-run corrugated production of packaging and POP displays.The Kongsberg C66 can run at 100 metres per minute and handle either manual multi-zone production of large 2.2 x 3.2-metre (87 x 126-inch) sheets or single-zone production of large 2.5 x 4.8-metre (98 x 189-inch) corrugated sheets. It can work with corrugated containers made from HD double-wall or triple-wall corrugated and packaging and POP displays. The Kongsberg C66 is also capable of processing other materials required in the protective packaging environment, including foam cushioning materials.The Kongsberg C66’s 3,210 x 4,800-mm (W x L) work area supports both large-format and multi-zone production. Its Carbon Composite Traverse is highly rigid, which Esko explains to enable high speed, fast acceleration, high quality creasing with minimal deflection. It allows the Kongsberg C66 to run at full production speed on much larger material, explains Esko, without losing accuracy. The i-cut Production Console (iPC) drives the table’s functionality and includes capabilities such as camera control, machine set up, tool recognition, calibration and tool adjustments. Designed to guide and support the operator, it incorporates a number of logical, user-friendly features including an icon-based graphical interface with colour-coded alerts and updates. Combined with Device Manager it offers the ability to follow production progress from a distance.

Mimaki USA, a manufacturer of wide-format inkjet printers and cutters, introduced the CF22-1225 flatbed cutting plotter, a 4-foot by 8-foot model being displayed at the SGIA annual exhibition running in New Orleans from October 10 to 12. The new system is expected to be available beginning in December 2017.The CF22-1225 cutting plotter is based on the existing Mimaki CF2 platform first launched in 2005. The new, larger CF22-1225 features a work area that can accommodate oversized media and allows a full 4-foot by 8-foot maximum cut size. Mimaki explains this allows printers to move materials directly from a standard flatbed printer.The CF22-1225 cutting plotter is compatible with FineCut8 and the new RasterLink6 Plus software. This new version of Mimaki’s RIP software includes an ID Cut function. Along with registration marks, RasterLink6 plus software will include a bar code on output from a Mimaki printer driven by this version. The barcode, read by the crop mark sensor on the CF22-1225 cutting plotter, contains cutting and rotation information enabling the CF22-1225 cutting plotter to automate the cutting process. Mimaki explains this function is particularly useful when running nested print-cut jobs, as the cutting plotter continuously reads the data for both single and ganged jobs.Users can choose from various cutting heads for a range of tool holders for cutting, creasing and drawing tools, depending on the application. Swivel knife, tangential knife, reciprocating knife, creasing wheel and pen options are available with a range of blade and creasing options. The company explains the CF22-1225 provides for cutting a variety of materials like corrugate, styrene and foam up to 20-mm thick for packaging and POP applications, as well as rubber, resin materials and plastics for industrial applications.

Kompac of Somerville, NJ, has launched new EZ Koat 20 Plus and 30 Plus models, rated to reach speeds of up to 200 feet per minute. The systems can be used for priming, UV coating or aqueous coating.Now offering an anilox coater option, the EZ Koat 20 Plus and 30 Plus are ideally suited for running soft-touch and matte coatings. The standard Kompac Coating System remains in place to switch to UV/aqueous gloss and satin coatings when desired. Kompac explains, unlike competitive systems, the EZ Koat product line operates with a digital lamp driver, providing variable curing and drying capabilities as well as instant start-up after coating changes. Kompac explains its patented technology translates to a 25 percent power reduction.For users in high-production environments, Kompac provides options for the EZ Koat 20 and 30 Plus, including high-pile pallet feeders and stackers, sheet turners for two-sided capabilities, and inline conveyors for running on digital, offset presses and other finishing equipment.

Brandtjen & Kluge Inc. has introduced the new ApexFoil foil stamping and diecutting press for small to medium format. The company states the technology provides innovations in application range, makeready and efficiency. The commercial release and first official exhibition for ApexFoil will be at PRINT 17 in Chicago this September.“We were driven to develop the ApexFoil in response to customer feedback and a clear understanding of their evolving business needs,” said Michael Aumann, CEO of Kluge. “The functionality of this innovative new product will allow for better efficiency and more output in an ever-changing workflow environment driven by digital print technology.” Kluge explains operators can use the ApexFoil’s Compass control system that includes patented features to control time, temperature and tonnage, which the company describes as three key properties of foil stamping. Kluge explains Compass allows operators to greatly reduce, and in some cases eliminate, job makeready.ApexFoil also includes sliding Clearview interlocking safety guards, a PLC touchscreen interface, a multi-point LED lighting package and high-performance Delrin work surface. The programmable foil system that can hold a tolerance of +/- .016 inches at the foil gap and also provides programmable step-and-repeat capability.Kluge also points to the system’s 24/7 programmable dual surface heat control with timer control to pre-heat die and makeready surfaces prior to a shift start up, as well as a foil, die and makeready alignment system that trims set-up time and increases set-up efficiency. ApexFoil, explains the company, also features quick-set tool-less registration adjustments and an ultra-lightweight die mounting plate, which can save up to five minutes of set-up time during job changeover.

Dylan Westgate of Sydney Stone disucsses advances in digital finishing technologies.

Immediately after the Interpack trade fair in Düsseldorf, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG is inviting its customers to a packaging event on May 10, 2017, at the Wiesloch-Walldorf site under the motto “Smart Print Shop – Zero Defect Packaging.” The event will showcase Heidelberg’s expanding postpress portfolio, including the new Promatrix 106 FC die cutter with hot-foil embossing, the new Promatrix 106 CSB die cutter with inline blanking, as well as the new Diana Easy 115 folder.The new Promatrix 106 CSB die cutter with inline blanking is a new addition to the Promatrix series. The die cutter, explains Heidelberg, eliminates the need for costly and wasteful hand-stripping of carton blanks.The new Promatrix 106 FC features automatic foil control and 20 individually controlled heating zones and the ability to foil in the transverse direction.The new Diana Easy 115 folder gluer, featuring four- and six-corner box capacity includes functions from the top-of-the-range Diana X as well as a throughput of up to 350 metres per minute. The new systems are the result of the partnership agreement signed by Heidelberg and MK Masterwork to work together to develop and distribute postpress machines for packaging customers. Heidelberg explains it has achieved its best sales ever in die cutters over the last 12 months.MK Masterwork is described as the largest manufacturer of die cutters and hot foil machines in the Asian region. MK Masterwork is a key player in the Chinese market and the leading supplier to the demanding tobacco industry.

Duplo USA Corporation has announced the launch of its DDC-810 Digital Spot UV Coater. The DDC-810 utilizes inkjet technology and gives images depth and raised textures with a gloss varnish. It features a CCD camera recognition system ensuring image-to-image registration and PC Controller software. The DDC-810 is designed for short-run applications. It can process up to 21 sheets per minute (A3) and paper weights from 157 to 450 gsm (coated paper). Anthony Gandara, project manager at Duplo USA, says the DDC-810 is for printers who want to “add elevated spot UV embellishment to their products."

Zünd has introduced what it describes as robust routing option, called the RM-L router, for working with heavy-duty materials like acrylics, plexiglass, aluminums, polycarbonates, Dibond, Forex, and MDF. The spindle delivers 3.6 kW of processing power and is well suited for print service providers running diverse work that is typically processed via different tools.In response to this ever-growing application range, Zünd’s new RM-L system is capable of routing, engraving and polishing a range of materials with what the company describes as a powerful spindle with pneumatic collet.  With a maximum torque of 0.7 Nm, in addition to 3.6 kW of power, the tool allows for dense, hard materials to be processed at greater speeds and cutting depths. It essenetially reduces the number of passes required to increase throughput. The RM-L spindle is water-cooled for run longevity and uses what Zünd describes as a high-performance dust extraction system to keep the working area clean. The new router module is equipped with MQL, a minimal quantity lubrication system that keeps the bit lubricated to minimize friction. As a result, Zünd explains very little heat is generated during routing, which can affect bit life. This lubrication system also allows for greater acceleration and processing speeds.The technology relies on a surface compensation system to determine the thickness of materials and detect inconsistencies. During processing, the system compensates for any variances by making the necessary depth adjustments. Particularly for engraving applications, Zünd explains this prevents quality issues arising from differences in material thickness by maintaining constant routing depths.The system uses a ER-16 collet for concentricity and to maintain reliable retention. To accommodate different shaft diameters, HSK-E25 collet holders are used, which allows for the use of a wider range of bits with one and the same router module. The ARC HSK automatic tool changer of the system takes care of handling and changing router bits. The magazine can accommodate up to eight different preloaded collet holders.

Masterwork USA, a finishing manufacturer of folding carton and packaging equipment headquartered in Tianjin, China, introduced its newest Duopress model: the MK21060STEs foil stamping and die-cutting machine. The company explains its engineers have designed the new model to incorporate better stability, additional technology and a faster maximum speed of 6,000 sheets per hour.“We’re pleased to unveil the Duopress MK21060STEs for the post-press market,” said Wayne Zheng, Marketing Manager for Masterwork USA. “Our expert research and development team have designed a new and exceptionally better computerized foil controlling system, which can handle complex foil advance calculations to help reduce foil usage of up to 60 percent. “They’ve increased the speed on the Duopress to 6,000 sheets per hour,” continued Zheng, “which is really 12,000 sheets per hour because it is producing three processes in one pass through the press: foil stamping, die-cutting, and stripping... Masterwork is the only company to offer this type of machine.”The Masterwork Duopress machines are designed with both foil stamping and die cutting functions in one pass, explains the company, to provide increased accuracy and efficiency. One pass offers register between die-cutting and foil stamping. If an operator has to feed the paper through two machines, explains Masterwork, the positioning of the paper may be slightly different and the die-cut and foil stamping might not be as accurate. The machine can also be optioned to stamp two separate foil applications in one pass in its two platens. The foil stamping system on the MK21060STEs is equipped with three longitudinal foil advance pulls and two transversal foil advance pulls.The Masterwork Duopress MK21060STEs is designed with a non-stop feeder. A pile change can be achieved while the machine is in operation with the help of non-stop swords. Adjustments on the feeder can be made with micro adjustments.Masterwork explains the Duopress MK21060STEs has enhanced tension control during foil feeding and its error tolerance of 1 mm during foil unwinds. A PID heating system controls its 20 independent heating zones. The operator workload is reduced due to a pneumatic plate locking device.The machine's stripping station features stripping frames, a stripping concave template, and stripping boards. The transmission mechanism and cam movement curve are designed for stripping stability and accuracy. The centre-line registration system used for the stripping board provides accurate positioning and easy adjustment.The non-stop delivery system is equipped with a delivery curtain. The delivery system has a double-sided pneumatic operating system, making it quicker and easier to control. An additional benefit in the delivery is the pneumatic sampling device, explains the company, which allows the operator to check the product as the machine is in production. The machine operator is provided with two fullly functioning top screens to control production. The screens display every machine function, including working speed, yield, fault diagnosis, and pressure. "The past 20 years has seen rapid product development,” said Zheng. “Masterwork has introduced six major lines including 70 different specification products, covering hot foil stamping, die-cutting, inspection, folding-gluing, digital inkjet, and gravure printing presses.”

Independent consulting firm Wohlers Associates has entered into a partnership with Québec Industrial Research Centre (CRIQ) to offer three days of intensive training on design for additive manufacturing (DfAM).The course is targeted at designers, engineers and managers wanting to learn how to design parts that fully benefit from additive manufacturing.

There is no single “true path” for innovation. In fact, there are as many ways to innovate as there are problems that need solving.

International environmental not-for-profit Canopy, based in Vancouver, BC, has unveiled the 2017 update to its annual Blueline Ranking, a print-buying tool that profiles and ranks the sustainability performance of North America’s largest printers. Printers analyzed in this year’s assessment represent $34 billion in annual sales. Canopy collaborates with more than 750 companies to develop processes to make their supply chains more sustainable.Five of the Top 10 printers on Canopy’s North America ranking are Canadian, while another three are within the Top 15, including: TPH The Printing House, TC Transcontinental Printing, Hemlock Printers, MET Fine Printers, The Lowe-Martin Group, Webcom, St. Joseph Communications and Torstar Printing Group.“As businesses across North America step up to address climate change, it is time to think about the high carbon footprint of printing, which is mainly attributable to paper choices,” said Canopy’s Executive Director, Nicole Rycroft. “Many papers are sourced from the logging of high carbon forests which carries a much bigger climate footprint than processing or transportation within the print sector. We’re encouraged to see strong leadership by many important players in the print sector.”Based on the report, Canopy reports that 45 percent (20/44) of the printers ranked understand the value of communicating sustainability successes to their clients and have strong sustainability content on their websites. Forty-one percent (18/44) of Blueline printers have policies that support ancient and endangered forest conservation. In just under two years, five of North America’s largest printers have developed new and leading policies, reports Canopy, reflecting clients’ increasing requirements for sustainable printing services.“The Blueline Ranking aligns with our own sustainability goals and is an invaluable resource for cross-checking our print service providers and monitoring progress," stated Jenny Dela Cruz, Director of Sustainability for HH Global, which is one of a growing number of Fortune 500 companies and leading brands that use the Blueline Ranking as a resource in choosing their print partners.“As one of the largest providers of marketing communications in North America, it’s important that our customers – both current and future – recognize our commitment to achieving a sustainable supply chain with a reduced carbon footprint,” said Mark O’Leary, President, Taylor Communications, which improved its ranking the most, moving from 18th to 3rd place with strong policy updates and implementation engagement. “We are thrilled to move to third place in the 2017 Blueline Ranking.”EarthColor and The Printing House, explains Canopy, continue to lead the ranking with strong policies, rigorous policy implementation and transparent reporting on progress and successes.The Blueline Ranking rates major printers on a set of 32 key sustainability criteria and highlights sector leaders to consumer brands. Those that top the ranking are outperforming their peers in areas such as reducing their use of papers that contain ancient and endangered forest fiber, supporting the advancement conservation solutions, supporting the development of new environmental papers such as those made with high recycled content or straw, and bringing a high degree of transparency to their sustainability initiatives.This year’s Blueline Ranking is dedicated to the memory of Dick Kouwenhoven, the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hemlock Printers Ltd., noted by Canopy as a champion in sustainability in the print sector.The interactive online ranking can be viewed here.

The Newspaper Association of America, to better reflect “the news media industry’s evolution to multi-platform, digitally-savvy businesses and premium content providers,” has changed its name to News Media Alliance and launched a new website, newsmediaalliance.org. The association explains this new focus aligns with its membership, approximately 2,000 news organizations, and the new website visually depicts this expansion of news media into digital and mobile formats. The approach focuses on what it means to be a news media organization today, explains the association: communicating in real-time across multiple platforms. “Our transformation efforts are designed to show the positive trajectory of the industry and to share the innovation and growth taking place, especially in the digital space,” said News Media Alliance Vice President of Innovation Michael MaLoon. “There are so many great things happening in our industry right now, and our job is to tell those stories.”In addition, for the first time the association is broadening its membership requirements to allow digital-first and digital-only news organizations publishing original content to become members. The association states it has a number of new tools and resources it will be making available to members in the coming months that reflect the digital focus of its membership, including:ideaXchange, a new online community for News Media Alliance members launching this fall, which is to provide a platform that will make sharing, brainstorming and learning from one another easier than ever.metricsXchange, a new digital benchmarking tool exclusively for members, that will allow comparisons between markets and publications, providing new insights into the news media industry’s digital business efforts. The Alliance will also provide analyses and highlight newsworthy trends mined from the tool.mediaXchange, the News Media Alliance’s major annual event, will take a reimagined approach. Taking place in New Orleans in 2017, the event will focus on the future of the news media industry. “The news media industry should be optimistic. All evidence shows that people of all ages want and consume more news than ever,” stated News Media Alliance President and CEO David Chavern. “We need to focus on new ways to address the needs of audience and advertisers. Advertising on news media digital and print platforms continues to be one of the most effective ways for advertisers to reach important audiences. Publishers are working to adapt advertising across all platforms, make ads less intrusive and increase consumer engagement.”

When the term Web 2.0 seeped into business vernacular in the mid-2000s, it seemed to hold little concrete meaning. It was Internet ether following crazed venture capital funding of nascent but often flawed online business strategies. Web 2.0 initially seemed like a make-good promise for millions of lost dollars.In hindsight, Web 2.0 is now the descriptor for the foundation of user-generated content manifested most obviously as billion-dollar social media platforms. It has created completely new businesses amassing enormous wealth – in a matter of years as opposed to decades – as younger generations successfully tap into a robust online economy.Industry 4.0 is a much more relevant evolutionary term for the printing industry. Unlike Web 2.0, which certainly drove the Internet to become a GDP factor, Industry 4.0 ultimately involves the deployment of tangible goods, factories, machines and equipment. The Internet of Things is an important business term to understand, but perhaps more of an acknowledgement for the revolutionary – existing –  network infrastructure built by the likes of Cisco, Sun and Oracle. Industry 4.0, which includes The Internet of Things amid its most prevailing and complicated definitions, is a term to describe the new wealth to be generated from an overdue return to industrialism.For more than 50 years, the greatest business innovations to emerge out of stable economies have been generated around computing, from software and graphical user interfaces to processor chips and communications networks (both micro and macro). As Moore’s Law reaches its limit, which Intel’s CEO stated to be a reality in 2015, Industry 4.0 arrives for business visionaries to begin leveraging decades of computing power to drive industrial equipment.Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa but also holds Canadian and American citizenships, is the ultimate Industry 4.0 visionary. In 1995, Musk and his brother, Kimbal, used a small family loan to start Zip2 and develop online city guides for newspaper publishers, leading to contracts with The New York Times and Chicago Tribune. In 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash and, within weeks, Musk’s proceeds co-founded an Internet-based financial services company called X.com. A year later, X.com merged with Confinity, which held a money transfer service called PayPal. Musk was PayPal’s largest shareholder when eBay bought it for $1.5 billion in 2002. Within weeks, Musk founded a new company called SpaceX with the ambitious goal of jumping the commercial space industry by building rockets.With NASA’s retirement of its Space Shuttle program and mounting U.S. tensions with Russia, whose Soyuz rockets are today relied on by most space agencies to carry cargo and people beyond Earth’s gravitational influence, Musk saw opportunity to undercut the dormant astronautic activities of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Focused at the time on aeronautics, these defense giants reacted by forming the United Launch Alliance (ULA). Today, with a base $1.6 billion NASA contract for 12 resupply flights, it costs SpaceX around $60 million to launch a payload aboard one of its Falcon 9 rockets. A ULA launch costs around $225 million – Space Shuttle missions were upwards of $1.5 billion per launch, depending on cargo. Driven to make money, SpaceX developed a reusable  Falcon 9 rocket (first stage) that in 2016 has twice successfully returned to Earth, landing on barge in the middle of the ocean after delivering an ISS payload. A SpaceX launch burns relatively little in fuel ($300,000), meaning there are significant cost savings with a reusable first stage rocket. The company estimates it would save 30 percent, around $43 million a launch. Commercial space company Blue Origin, controlled by another online magnet in Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, has also successfully landed reusable rockets, although much smaller. None of this would be possible without taking advantage of Industry 4.0, applying incredible processing power to industrial equipment. Tesla is another prime example of Musk’s Industry 4.0 leadership, applying processing power to self-drive his battery-powered Tesla cars. Robotics will play a major role in Industry 4.0 and happen to be a Canadian specialty – driven by the Canadian Space Agency. Robotics will become a force for all manufacturing. Industry 4.0 is well underway and it is a positive development for the printing industry, which has lived on the edges of this business term for decades, processing billions of bits and bytes to million-dollar machines, offset, inkjet and toner. An industry that spent the past two decades forcing its machines to speak fluently with each other is ready for Industry 4.0.

A revolution in paper production driven by agricultural-residue pulp mills is on Canada’s horizon (originally published in PrintAction June 2016 magazine).The potential impact of papers made from agricultural residue is becoming an exciting new sector to watch in Canada. Canopy has just launched its “Say Yes!” project across the North American wheat, rye and sorghum belt. Dubbed YIMBY! – Yes In My Back Yard! – This innovative enterprise is reaching out to agricultural communities asking if they have the straw supply, town infrastructure and other qualities necessary to become a candidate site for a new, green-job-creating straw pulp mills.The Canadian prairies are being hit hard right now, with economic downturns in Saskatchewan and Alberta taking a toll on jobs and regional stability. New opportunities for rural communities across the Prairies, adding value to agricultural residues typically treated as ‘waste’ products could bring new hope and green jobs to a hard hit part of the country.The Federal government made bold commitments in at the 2015 UN Conference in Paris to seriously tackle climate change. Intact forest landscapes and their significant contribution to carbon storage are bound to come to the forefront as a means to reduce Canadian greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and contribute to climate stabilization. Canopy expects this to inevitably lead to greater protection of the boreal forest and a concurrent push to develop alternative fibre sources. The future of straw paper just keeps getting brighter.Some Canadian printers are early adopters of wheat straw-based papers. The Printing House, Hemlock Printers and MET Fine Printers, for example, offer uncoated free sheet wheat straw-based paper and more printers are bound to join the ranks of these forward-thinking businesses.Since before Canadian Geographic and Dollco (purchased by Lowe-Martin in 2012) worked with Canopy in 2008 to print a magazine issue on wheat straw-based paper, Canopy has been growing the market for straw-based papers to facilitate the development of agricultural residue pulping capacity. To date we have identified 1.3 million tons of unmet annual demand for printing and writing grade papers made with straw. That market keeps growing as more print users look to improve their standing on sustainability issues. Now we just need the supply – and it’s looking promising.Following the launch of YIMBY!, the response from farming communities has been immediate and enthusiastic. Within 24 hours of launching the campaign, Canopy was receiving applications from interested districts. Our detailed questionnaire will delve into the viability of each of these applicants. Do they have a high enough volume of straw available within a set radius? Do they have the water, road and power infrastructure needed to support a pulp mill? Is the work force available? We’ve done the research, established the criteria with the advice and assistance of experts in the field, and we know the potential exists for many straw pulp mills to be built.At the same time, we are liaising with entrepreneurs and investors, filling them in on the immense market demand for straw-based papers we have already quantified, the viable community opportunities for mill construction and the green-tech revolution that is ready to launch.Through our ongoing Second Harvest work, we’ve been privileged to be given confidential access to some of the latest developments and innovations. The revolution is truly gaining momentum.As new scientific research highlights the critical importance of forests in stabilizing the global climate and mitigating the impacts of climate change, more and more governments will be forced to take action to protect high carbon value ancient forests. And more and more print customers will be looking to avoid contentious forest fibre and seeking viable alternatives to tree paper.Straw papers will be a game-changer for the availability of publication grade eco-papers and lighten the footprint of print materials. The future of straw can revolutionize the printing industry. Are you ready?

Leveraging Customer Relationship Management and Voice Over Protocol tools to bind your print sales and production teams (Originally published in PrintAction June 2016 magazine).What can Buddy Guy’s blues band teach us about collaboration? Buddy Guy, the Chicago blues guitarist whom Eric Clapton once called “the best guitarist alive”, is still touring with his Damn Right Blues Band at 79 years of age. I’m a fan and play a bit of music each week because it feels so good to get together with friends and jam. A live blues band is an improvisational exercise in collaboration and innovation. Could that be an analogy for the printing business these days?I drove down to Buffalo with a fellow blues/jazz fan to see Buddy last month. We both love live music. Buddy opened by telling the adoring crowd, “I’m not sure what’s going to happen tonight. It keeps my band on their toes. There will be some surprises.”  And that, in a nutshell, is why I love live blues and jazz music. It is spontaneous and, to do it well, all the players must effectively communicate what’s going on in the moment, where the tune is going and who’s going to take the lead and when. The skill with which a great band navigates this tricky live improvisational experience is what I admire most.The key is clear communications and exchange of information among the players. The drummer gets a cue to end a song from the subtle lifting of the guitar neck, a slight nod signals a soloist to begin, a hand in the air telegraphs the bridge and a tap on the head means take it to the top. Hold up three fingers at the start of a song and you signal the three flats in the key of E.Enough riffing on the music, this brings me to how we manage internal business communications, which is increasingly becoming an experience of working in the moment. Sharing, collaborating and being prepared for improvising in new business situations has never been easier. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools are the foundation of great customer experiences, because they allow for the easy sharing of information among your team about the customer’s contact information, the stage in the sales pipeline and recent communications with them. Most high-end Management Information Systems today have integrated dashboards for sales reps to help manage clients, but CRM is well supported by tools such as VOIP phones, chat tools and video conferencing. There are so many channels to engage with a customer and also to exchange information amongst your employees to make great music together. I have worked with several of these CRM and VOIP tools  that have proved beneficial in the fast-paced printing business.CRM toolsLet’s start with the CRM tools. These are basically the recent digital take on the paper Rolodex or address book. When all of your company can share addresses and contact information, you will be a stronger organization for it. Best of all, most are in the cloud, so they are scalable, mobile friendly and available wherever your team works. There will be no more time wasted searching out the right contact name for a customer or wondering who is the main contact, who pays the invoices or who has left the operation. Our CRM also keeps a log of all email back and forth between clients and the company. It simplifies understanding the state of a project and acts as a record of past exchanges.CRM is often associated with tracking the sales pipeline. This simply means that “opportunities” are logged in this central repository and this makes it possible to see how sales targets are being met, where leads are coming from and who is cultivating them at what stage – all great information to help you understand how your sales efforts are progressing. You can even automate some steps. For instance, when a new client is added or a sale completed, the sales manager can receive an email notification alert (the CRM equivalent of a guitar neck lift to signal the end of a song). The latest twist on this is the link between online forms, social media follows and your CRM. In other words, every point where a customer interacts with your company can be tracked and managed from the best CRM tools. It is now easy to compare different CRM tools functionality and an extra hour of research will find the best tool (at the right cost) for your employees. It’s like the whole band is facing each other, has eye contact and can see where the improvised tune is headed. Companies just perform better when they can collaborate easily.Even vendor information can be kept on the CRM, so nobody at your firm is scrambling trying to find the name of that special source for cartons, blade sharpening or specialty ink. Once you add a vendor name, the best practice is to add a few searchable keywords to make finding them easy. We add “plumber”, “electrician” and so on to our vendor names. You can even decide to rate your vendors so that others at the firm know if your electrician arrived late, charged too much or was the friendliest one you’d ever met. This just makes it easier to manage vendors of services, ink, paper, whatever else you purchase in the course of business.But the communication exchange can also benefit from new channels available at low cost. Some we are familiar with, and some we do not associate with business. Nearly all of us send SMS text messages these days. Our mobile devices help us connect with family and friends and increasingly with work. Having an internal chat tool (Google for Work has one built in) can mean time savings when quick answers are required. Messenger, now part of Facebook, is a growing tool for chat and even has a phone/video feature. You may be wondering why you’d use a Facebook tool in your print business, but you only have to ask the 900 million users (up 700 million in two years) about the benefits, or listen to Mark Zuckerberg’s latest 10-year plan to use Messenger in new ways in our business life.VOIP toolsI’m also a fan of VOIP phones as they help make collaboration easier. We once thought it was good enough to have a toll-free number, but nowadays you want to be able to have your calls follow your employees to their mobile devices, and offer easy conferencing and transferring, even if they are working from home or from a mobile device. VOIP seems to offer the widest number of options for making phone communications more effective at work.But don’t think that just having tools will make the whole thing gel. Your band of employees have to rehearse. By this I mean that they need to be trained and work out the new etiquette for these channels of communication. When should they choose Chat over an email and when should I invite a colleague to join me on a call or share a video of a bindery process with a repairman so they can see what is acting up in the plant?  Without having some policies and sharing best practices among your team, however, you’ll have a train wreck (that’s band talk for a song gone off the rails).These channels are constantly evolving. You cannot wait for it to all settle and then make your move. Start tuning up your internal and customer communications today and you’ll all make pretty music together, and maybe a bit more money too, as the experience improves and your costs to manage collaboration reduce.

Tips on preparing your business for loss before having to turn unprepared to an insurance claim (originally published in PrintAction June 2016 magazine).Think taking a terror-filled ride on Zumanjaro is the ultimate scariest you could possibly feel? Then you probably have not been through the life-changing horror of a major insurance claim. No doubt about it, the Six Flags Great Adventure ride in New Jersey is sure to suck the life out of you with its 415-foot drop reaching 90 miles per hour in just 10 seconds. Getting a phone call explaining that your building is on fire or the roof collapsed, however, will overcome any fears of Zumanjaro.There are so many angles to an insurance claim that it is virtually impossible to write a guidance manual on what to do, how to do it, or – even more importantly – how to avoid the possibility of seeing your hard-earned work collapse in rubble.  But there are ways and means to help prevent insurance catastrophes and I’d like to share some with you.Protecting your investmentEvery establishment has some type of insurance policy, but coverage is such a boring and mundane topic most of us do not dwell on it and quickly file documents away once established. Business interruption coverage is very common, but if a claim is made there is plenty of work the insured must do to prove the loss and this may come as a surprise to some. First suggestion: Keep good records and keep those records updated and in a safe place.Over the years, I have worked on both sides of an insurance claim. I’ve been hired by insurance firms, adjusters, forensic investigators, public adjusters, as well as the insured themselves. Having seen both sides of the equation, it becomes quite clear how much knowledge and communication is lacking.A good example is a file on which I was engaged by the insured. This company runs a profitable and well-organized business. A major weather-related structural failure in part of the company’s plant caused half of its machinery to become involved in a serious claim due to water and falling infrastructure. Months later, I was called to come and access some of the damaged machinery. The claim had gone nowhere and, as is quite typical, the insured called in a public adjuster. Public adjusters are firms that work specifically for the insured and not the insurance company. This happens quite often when things get testy between parties. They are well versed on the protocols of a claim and the mechanics required to settle one. Public adjusters typically work for a percentage of the claim and this comes out of the insured’s settlement. In this case, the machinery sat exposed and rusting in the elements. To make matters worse, the surrounding areas were dangerous and essentially off limits. At the on-site meeting about the accident, you could cut the tension and anger with a knife. Adjusters are firms that are hired by insurance companies to access and recommend needed steps to get the insured back up and running. Although the majority of adjusters are competent, as with any industry, there are also some disappointments and blow-hards that work to grind the claim process to a virtual halt. Obviously, insurance companies know they have responsibilities but they also want to mitigate the claims and pay out as little as they can. The word mitigate is important here, because it is not as well discussed that the insured must also try to mitigate their claim too, taking any steps to preserve or reduce damage to equipment and furnishings.In this case, we had a disturbing adjuster who seemed to relish his role and enjoy the fact he was being paid handsomely to travel across the country, write reports, argue the merits of visible damage and drive just about everyone – especially the insured – to look for sharp objects. Dealing with claimsAfter months of deadlock, thousands of dollars spent to argue the claim, total disruption of their scheduling, lack of key machinery. which in this case was very specific and hard to replace, it came down to total anger. Usually a competent adjuster can come up with a good plan. He or she knows, that when it comes to machinery, the best the manufacturer can do is provide a ballpark repair quote and a new replacement price. But what happens when the repair comes without a firm warranty? In almost all cases, it does not. And so the claim discussion moves forward around getting new replacement machinery, which is a significant discussion point to understand.Talk to your agent and tell them you wish to be covered for full new replacement. If not, the claim continues down a rabbit hole: “The press is 12 years old? Then we need to value such an asset prior to the claim.” This is the essential problem and an active files quickly becomes a bickering and depressing period that can take years to settle and will in the end, probably – surely – mean you will come out of the whole ordeal worse off than you were before. Even with various opinions and quotations (for repairs), if the adjuster is lacking in specific knowledge and does not go out and seek someone who can provide this, then it may be impossible for both the insurer and the insured to agree on a fair settlement.There is, of course, another side to the insurance business in faulty claims or at the very least a case of very suspicious origins. We were called in by an insurance company over a claim to do with one machine – almost brand new. The story was an apparent break-in and vandalism on the press. Rags and paper were set alight placed on various parts of the press and a few control cabinets were tipped over. The heat activated the sprinklers which then put out the fire but drenched everything in the plant including offices. There was something wrong here. I felt it and was rather surprised when I discussed my thoughts with the insurance rep. He didn’t much care really. He told me that the integrity of the insured really didn’t matter much. Insurance had to quantify the claim and close the file. But this was an exception and it should be noted, having worked many times on the insurance side, very little is left unknown when investigators get to work. They will know where the “oven” is, which is the term used by insurers in reference to the initial location of a fire. They will also be able to track the damage and spot oddities like accelerants. Forensic work like finding out about the financial wellbeing of a claimant is the norm not the exception. In the end, this printer was forced to close.When there was still a very healthy business climate for printing machinery, we regularly bought and rebuilt countless machines. I remember one purchase vividly from in 1994, shortly after southern California had a major earthquake. Bridges collapsed, buildings were damaged, and all sorts of businesses had claims. One damaged printer had two 40-inch presses – a 6-colour and a 5-colour. The claim was settled before we were involved and I went to look at the machinery, which was now dismantled and sitting outside in a temporary tent.  The manufacturer’s service manager was there and he tried to explain to me that the earthquake had uplifted the machine from its leveling feet and somehow twisted the frames. His evidence was one elongated hole which was part of six holes on each unit that were bolt holes for assembly. One hole? Clearly whoever had taken apart the press had a whole lot of trouble getting one bolt out! There was obviously no damage to the frames – it was all nonsense. But the printer did get new machines and we did bring both machines back to life and eventually resold them. Some common sense could have saved somebody a lot of money.Many damaged machines came through our plant: Lightning strikes, floods, transit (by water or road), but the most damage by far was caused by fire. Delivery fires are common – caused by filthy deliveries with lots of spray powder. Dropped sheets mixed with very hot infrared or UV lamps can cause tremendous damage. Overheated motors such as ring blowers near the delivery, are another common reason. An obvious remedy is to keep machinery clean and free of debris. Another suggestion few think about is to have plenty of fire extinguishers around and know how to use them. This last one would have helped a UK company after its 6-colour double coater and double dryer (LYYLX) was set alight via a dropped sheet and interdeck UV lamp. That press took us over 6,000 man-hours to restore.Insurance common senseOver the years, we must have been involved in over 30 substantial rebuilding projects. Almost all were equipment that we purchased when a claim was settled. I learned to quantify costs of repairs using some basic grade-nine chemistry, calculating what temperatures were reached, how it affected the guts and understanding how cast iron has a memory. Heat-twisted cast iron will return to its original position with re-heating. Fires that occur near melted polyethylene and polypropylene (plastic skids for example), produce toxic gases and when mixed with water become an acid that will attack bare steel and cast iron. I still see a great deal of waste within the insurance claim process when the wrong so-called experts are in a position to determine repairs. A good talker can needlessly cost both sides a lot of money.So far I’ve yet to meet any insured who felt that they came out ahead after a claim. This should be a warning to everyone, that even though we have insurance, in the end, after all the pain and disruption, you will often wish you did not file a claim. Insurance is important and can save a business, but do not assume you’ll finally get rid of that old machine or upgrade your whole plant simply because you have business disruption coverage and replacement coverage. Take steps to protect your investments now. Do simple things like buy more fire extinguishers, improve your housekeeping, and update your records.If a disaster happens, take steps to reduce your claim and get solid advice from a professional. Be completely honest and upfront. Do not try and pile-on things that will be spotted as marginal by a good adjuster. One final suggestion: consider increasing your deductible. You should be trying to prevent a life changing moment not small repairs like as a bolt going through a press. Raising your deductible can lower your premiums and even afford you the budget to increase your protection if and when the big claim hits.That’s about all you can do and it’s really important that you do it now before something horrible happens. Zumanjaro is nicknamed the Drop of Doom. But you know that when you buckle in. Insurance claims can have the same moniker but be even more terrifying and without warning.

During the premier event for research in North American print, five keynotes address industry progress (originally published in PrintAction's May 2016 issue). The middle of March is a time of year when researchers and technology evangelists from the printing world gather at the annual Technical Association of the Graphic Arts  (TAGA) conference, held this year in Memphis, Tennessee. An unusual aspect of this year’s TAGA conference was that there were five keynote addresses, instead of the traditional four, addressing the future of technology. The first keynote presented by Mike D’Angelo, Managing Director Americas for Goss International, focused on why offset printing remains today’s dominant printing process around the world. D’Angelo pointed to a key trends affecting the current print market, including: Many magazines are still being printed, the book market is stable, the newspaper decline has stopped, and packaging is a growth business. Commercial printing seems to have turned a corner, according to D’Angelo, but there is no doubt the run lengths are shorter, less pages per job are printed, more localized versions are produced, and the use of automation has increased. Newspaper printing needs a new business model, according to D’Angelo, with smaller, more agile presses. This in turn will translate into printing localized content to help stabilize newspaper sectors. The packaging market sees increased competition and more versions of the same product are being printed. Web offset printing also offers some price and speed advantages in comparison to sheetfed offset. Offset plates are cheaper to make than flexo plates and web offset printing offers a unique speed advantage, not only in press terms, but also in the number of times materials need to be handled and stored.The second keynote was given by Liz Logue, Senior Director Corporate Business Development with EFI, speaking about printing on textiles and ceramics with inkjet technology. Logue stressed a little-known fact that 50 percent of ceramic tiles and 40 percent of display graphics are digitally printed. Digital textile printing is gaining traction and currently only five percent of all textiles are digitally printed.Rotary screen printing is still the dominant print technology for textile printing. Inkjet inks are adapted for textile printing and fast fashion turnover provides digital-printing textile opportunities. New digital designs enable new profits. Increases in print speed and resolution for digital textile printing helps with the transition from conventional to digital print technologies. From an environmental standpoint, Logue explains digital printing is also less water polluting than conventional print methods.The next keynote speaker was Kevin Berisso from the University of Memphis, who talked about The Internet of Things (IoT) and posed an intriguing question to the crowd by referencing The Terminator movie series: Are we building Skynet? In truth, Berisso was really asking what exactly is IoT, because there are now so many definitions out there about this critical movement in business processes.Berisso explains IoT is based on physical devices that are networked, collect data and make automatic decisions. An IoT solution needs to combine hardware and software, has to interconnected, and must interact with its environment.  The fourth keynote was given by Janos Verres, Program Manager at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), speaking about the next generation of Printed Electronics. First, Verres give a brief historical overview of PARC and some of the many innovations made there that are now part of everyday live, such as the Graphical User Interface, ethernet connection and laser printing. Verres also talked about how energy will be democratized and why the future will be personalized. He explained how this future will be driven by smart devices, smart analytics and smart infrastructure. In the future, electronics will have any form, any shape and will reach new levels of complexity. Yet, they still need to be easy to fabricate using flexible printed and hybrid electronics. IoT will change from Internet of Things to Internet of Everything. This will lead to ubiquitous intelligence and computing. Printing technologies will help shape the Internet of Everything, with integrated printing platforms that will be part of multi-process printing workflows. Simple electronics will be printed with very small memory capacity, which will be printed.The fifth keynote was given by Don Schroeder, Director of Solutions Development at Fujifilm North America, speaking about key trends in inkjet printing. The use of inkjet technology is growing fast based on new print heads even as more paper products must be adapted to work well with inkjet inks. Although the use of inkjet printing is growing, Schroeder explains it still is only 0.5 percent of global print production volume.High-speed inkjet printing is gaining traction beyond its current primary use for transactional printing. Its main challenges remain paper quality, costs and availability, in addition to capital costs and printing speed. Inkjet presses have become more expensive and people shy away from the risk of buying a new, expensive inkjet press that might become superseded in two years time. The amortization period is too short.Schroeder also pointed to inkjet printing benefits: Less set up time, less waste, quick turnaround, variable data printing, low volume reprints, less consumables and less maintenance. Inkjet printing also offers a larger gamut than offset printing, as it makes inroads into the packaging and label markets. Looking at folding cartons, for example, the new Heidelberg Primefire 106 will be shown at drupa 2016 running with Fujifilm’s inkjet technology, reaching speeds of 2,000 sheets per hour.The remaining TAGA program outlined critical technology progress, including a presentation on expanded gamut printing and, importantly, asking what is the correct colour sequence of CMYK plus OGV (seven colours) to find the best combination to achieve maximum gamut.Another presentation showed how the FOGRA 51 dataset and resulting ICC profile was put together before its public release. Other key topics printers should investigate included: Cross-media communications, PDF X/4, the influence of optical brighteners, new colour management tools for digital printing, shorter product cycles for packaging, print quality of 3D objects, printable films based on hemicellulose, inline direct-mail automation, on-press control of metallic inks using M3 measurement condition, CxF/X4, lamination for consumer packaging, spectral colour control, resistive gravure inks made with soy protein, print gloss, and how to extract capacitors out of recycled printed electronics.TAGA once again delivered the message that innovation remains a key driver of the printing industry and that its proprietors must embrace change.

From PrintAction's April 2016 print issue, Wendy Weiss, The Queen of Cold Calling, combines sales insight and print experience to describe how to leverage one of the most important, yet vanishing, skills of lead generation.What do ballet dancing and print sales have in common: Wendy Weiss, a.k.a. The Queen of Cold Calling, a widely quoted New-York-City-based sales training and coaching consultant specializing in lead generation and business development.“I cut my teeth doing new business development in the print and graphic arts industry. Many of my clients are still printers and graphic artists,” says Weiss, who was preparing to present four sales seminars at the National Print Owners Association’s April conference in Texas. “I was never supposed to be The Queen of Cold Calling. I was supposed to be a ballerina,” Weiss laughs.  As a teenager, she moved from Pennsylvania to New York City to dance. She needed a day job and, tired of waiting on tables, landed a telemarketing position setting up B2B appointments. The telemarketing company did not have enough work for her, but, after discovered she was good at prospecting, print broker friend soon hired Weiss to set appointments. She then worked in sales for a number of New York printers, one of whom nicknamed her The Queen of Cold Calling.“A big mistake people make when prospecting by phone is talking too much about what they do. Typically printers talk too much about their equipment,” she says. “But I didn’t know any of that stuff back then. I just got on the phone and talked about what a great printer I was setting appointments for... That’s how my sales career started – totally by accident.” Weiss continued to dance and prospect for businesses for a while, but ultimately turned toward training salespeople, sales managers, and business owners.Cold calling is indispensableWeiss believes cold calling is more critical than ever in today’s marketplace. In an interview on the BizTalk Radio Show (one of many free resources archived on her Website), she explains ultimately you can only generate a sales lead four ways: Through marketing; referrals; networking; and cold calling (targeting and telephoning a prospect with whom you have had little or no previous contact).Weiss explains the first three methods are all essentially passive, because you have to wait for somebody else to act. With marketing, you have to wait for prospects to contact you. With referrals, you have to wait for others to facilitate introductions. With networking, you rarely meet the prospect, only the person who knows them.“[Cold calling] is actually the only appointment-generating or opportunity-generating activity that is directly under your control, and it’s the only way to make up the difference between the number of leads or opportunities that you are finding through marketing, referrals, and networking, and the number of leads or opportunities that you actually need to hit whatever revenue number you’re looking to hit,” she says. “So the issue today is not that cold calling is outmoded... it has changed and most people do it really badly.”Weiss says email and social media channels lead some sales professionals to conclude incorrectly that they do not need telephone skills: “What if somebody calls you and you blow the conversation? You’re not going to get the customer. It’s also a fallacy that you can use social media as the main driver and not have to talk to people. For our clients to be effective in today’s environment, we teach them to reach out to prospects strategically and consistently over time, using the phone along with other types of communication and software to track their progress.”Weiss emphasizes that cold calling is a communications skill that can be improved on, but also, “This is not something that you can just wing. There is a certain progression of what needs to be done to get where you want to be.” To teach clients the nuts and bolts of cold calling, Weiss uses a performance model based on her former career as a dancer. The first step in her model is warming up: “When you’re a dancer, warming up is the first thing you do so you don’t hurt yourself,” she explains. “And as a second step, you always rehearse, because that’s how you create the muscle memory that makes your performance automatic. After you have warmed up and rehearsed, then and only then do you pick up the phone.”In Weiss’s model, warming up means compiling a highly targeted list of the people who are most likely to need what you’re selling: “In the old days we didn’t have a lot of information about prospects, but today a wealth of information about them is available to help you decide who might possibly buy something from you, who are most likely to buy from you, and who are most likely to come back and buy a whole lot more.” Her warm up also requires determining what messaging to use when you get prospects on the phone, as well as in your email and voice-mail messages. “The rule of thumb is that nobody cares what you do, so the words matter.“Do you have an attention-grabbing introduction, do your voice-mail messages get people to call back, do your emails get people to respond? If someone you talk to says, ‘I’m not interested,’ it means you’re not saying anything interesting. So you need to do some up-front work to figure out what words will be compelling to the market that you’re talking to and make people want to engage with you.”Changing thoughts and processesBesides instilling skills, Weiss also helps people who dread cold calling change the way they think about it. She says these clients are prone to counterproductive mindreading or fortunetelling.“Cold calling isn’t an emotional experience. It’s marketing,” she insists. “The opposite of hating cold calling is not that you love it. It’s that you’re neutral, which is the mindset you want to maintain. You can’t function if you’re hysterical.” Weiss diffuses fear by pointing out that telephone prospecting, especially appointment setting, is highly predictable – most prospects will respond in only a few different ways.One typical response is, “Send me information.” Weiss explains this usually means a prospect has not read the information sent, because either you have not said anything compelling or the prospect is too busy. If it is the latter, and since your goal is to set up a meeting, Weiss suggests focusing on the fact that they have not said no. “Find a way to make the prospects right or agree with them by countering with something like, ‘I understand you are very busy, but I only need 10 or 15 minutes.  When would work for you?’ Many times prospects’ responses are not a stumbling block but a negotiation.”If a prospect responds with, “I already have a vendor I’m happy with,” Weiss suggests focusing on the fact that this automatically places them in the desirable qualified-prospect category.Weiss describes another scenario in which a printer asked her to help hire a salesperson. When she asked him what procedures were in place for the salesperson, he lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. “A big mistake printers make is to hire someone, teach him or her everything about printing, and then tell them to go and sell with no source of qualified leads and no process to follow. Generally speaking, companies seem to have processes in place for everything except prospecting.“Yet as managers or business owners, if we lay out a process with steps for our sales reps to follow, it makes things so much easier, and they are so much more likely to succeed, especially inexperienced new hires or somebody who is struggling.”Although the attrition rate for new hires can be as high as 50 percent, Weiss explains companies usually pay new sales hires up to two-and-a-half years’ salary before deciding to replace them via a corporate hiring cycle that typically costs another two times the salesperson’s annual salary.“To avoid these mistakes, the advice I would give the head of a company is to put in place a comprehensive process, including things like a targeted list, messaging, skills training for your people, and software that tracks and measures what they are doing so you know what is actually working. If any of these essential elements are missing from your process, your telephone-prospecting campaigns are not going to work well,” she says.Weiss explains setting appointments should be the first step of staff training: “They don’t have to know every single thing about printing. You can easily teach them how to make appointments, then use software to track what they’re doing, so you know how to coach them appropriately and have some measure of their progress... If they can’t set appointments, they’re probably not going to sell a lot, so you don’t need to wait a full two years before deciding whether or not to keep them.”Weiss says many printers experience a boom-bust cycle (a busy month followed by an insufficient number of orders the next month) and the bust is frequently the result of not having enough prospects. Her antidote is to prospect every day. “It’s a very common scenario that owners don’t prospect regularly because they get busy doing other stuff. Lots of entrepreneurs also have only one or two really big clients, and if they lose their business, they’re screwed. While it’s a myth in cold calling that you have to do hundreds of dials every day, you still have to do some. You need to take action every day and keep looking for opportunities to move your business forward.”

Breaking down one of the most-significant operational issues Canadian printers will face for the next several months.Back in the spring of 2011 Canada’s dollar was flying high. It hit a level of almost five cents above the American greenback. As experts pointed to the advantages of Canada’s banking regulations, the Great White North was outpacing the United States coming out of the 2008 worldwide recession.  The purchasing power of Canada’s printing industry was fantastic. Machinery was at an all-time low – as much as 40 percent less than 2003 levels. It was never going to last, however, and today we face US$30-per-barrel oil, metal prices spiraling to near historic lows and our dollar is trading in the 70-cent range relative to the once again mighty U.S. buck (USD).There are serious implications for domestic manufacturers facing a low Canadian dollar. First and foremost are the wild swings occurring as the Loonie bobs about finding its true value. This is our most difficult issue. If the Loonie would just park itself somewhere we might be able to cope, adjust. But fast moving exchange rates bring chaos to budgets and quotations. Very few businesses can benefit like billionaire George Soros has amid these FX swings. Besides machinery, a great deal of materials and consumables are priced in USD. Printers quoting work – even a few weeks ahead are now finding it difficult to hold firm prices. The Bank of Canada’s Stephen Poloz opined that it could be two years before we see the fallout (both good and bad) from the recent and drastic decline in our currency. It is not a simple remedy to buy Canadian products or to create an artificially lower exchange rate in-house. Behind the scenes, financial markets and a global community are going to close the door. Products made in Canada will always be valued not so much on their cost but on their value in USD. Almost everything made here has some element of American content. If by chance they do not have U.S. content, it still will not matter and prices will rise just because they can! This effect will be best exemplified by paper, an everyday ingredient of printing, regardless of whether it is produced in Canada, Asia, Europe or the United States. Paper is a worldwide commodity and even if it left the factory in Indonesia it will be priced in USD. Canadian paper, with whatever portion of American value added, will rise to reflect a world value and not a Canadian value. You cannot escape the future higher costs of anything you purchase.Machinery, the most expensive product printer’s purchase, will see prices rise dramatically in the next few months. Whether these machines come from Germany, Japan, China or the U.S., they are usually imported by American companies first and converted into USD. With machine inventories mostly American held, you will pay accordingly. Meanwhile, China’s Yuan currency rides the USD and Chinese manufacturers price their products in USD.It is not just our Loonie that has been seeing declines. The Euro has dropped substantially in 2015 versus the USD. Companies like Heidelberg have the ability to play the FX markets and it’s possible they are able to sell their machinery in Canadian dollars exchanged against the Euro. Japan’s manufacturers work through their American subsidiaries or dealers and while the machinery may leave Japan in Yen it’s bought with USD in a sometimes forward contract. Realities of the negative exchange facing Canadian printers can hit home hardest when it comes to obtaining needed parts for their machines. This revenue stream becomes particularly important for Canadian dealers if the sale of large machinery declines. There is a general assumption around the world that if a country’s currency tumbles then it becomes a great place to shop. This is largely untrue, especially with equipment. Everyone wants and expects a world price. Press makers will not sell any cheaper in Canada than they do anywhere else. If this were the case then we could assume all of us Canadians would be paying even less to for oil and gas, which is unlikely to ever happen.Besides labour, occupancy costs and taxes are safe from a falling dollar. Little else is and Canada continually faces another major issue, competitiveness. In 1998, when our dollar started to fall, Canadian printers like most other manufacturers used it like a golf handicap. Great – we just got some free strokes! The lower dollar maintained our historical position as faux Americans. The appetite to compete has been at the centre of Canadiana since confederation and why, even in 2016, we find ourselves not able to keep up with U.S. entrepreneurship.  The immense size of the U.S. absorbs much of what it produces. Canada is a nation with risk adverse businesses, conservative banking and a labour pool that demands a social net.Inflation is a by-product of a low dollar, which may not be as negative as it sounds. Large printers who do business in the U.S. can shield themselves from some of the risk by offsetting their materials purchases against sales made, both in USD. This leaves truly Canadian costs (labour) to be more profitable. The dwindling middle class of print – companies with limited sales reach – will face more systemic challenges.As printers wait for calmness in the big-ticket market, the best thing they can do is sell products in the U.S. This alone will not only dampen the effect of bad rates but help us all in Canada to be more competitive as we go head to head with some of the best businesses in the world.The low Loonie may not be forever. Oil will shoot back up eventually and China will hopefully resume its bullishness for Canadian raw materials. When this happens our dollar will strengthen. Not because of our small manufacturing base, but because of what we draw out of the ground.

Conductive inks are a wonderfully adaptive technology. This characteristic has enabled them to stay relevant and to rejuvenate themselves over the past several decades. This is because as old markets have struggled or declined the technology has managed to find and/or create new uses.

It was once said, “Don’t reinvent the wheel – just realign it.” As print customers increasingly seek to improve their environmental footprint and their company’s social responsibility ranking, relevant information can be gleaned from other sectors’ sustainability efforts.

A group of journalists over four days in late-January were given a tour of the Indonesian-based business activities of Asia Pulp & Paper, which has grown to become one of the world’s largest integrated pulp and paper entities.

Decades ago an older gentleman wandered into the foyer of a five-star hotel. He was carrying a shopping bag and dressed in less than appropriate garb for such an establishment. He asked for a room. The front desk clerk, assuming him he was a bum, suggested he try another hotel down the street. The bum, however, owned the hotel property. Looks can be deceiving. Some of the richest people in both Canada and the United States are seldom seen or heard.

How the Iron Curtain ushered in the half-size web in the face of large-format offset to forever change print.

With the introduction of the M measurement modes, the past couple of years have brought a range of incredible new measurement devices that can change the way any commercial printer approaches their pressroom (originally publshed in PrintAction's October 2015 issue).

An in-depth test review of Affinity Photo v1.3.5 (available from the Mac Store for $57.99 or as a free trial) to better understand if Serif Software can continue to shake up the graphics software market with its inexpensive applications.Within a span of 12 short months, UK-based Serif Software has turned the Mac graphics software market on its ear! Its first salvo – Affinity Designer – was released in October 2014 (reviewed in PrintAction February 2015) and cut a broad swath into the design, pre-media and prepress software market with powerful and useful features aimed squarely at graphic arts professionals. And instead of exacting a monthly toll from its users, Serif chose to sell perpetual licenses of Affinity Designer through Apple’s online store for a fraction the cost of competing applications.Now Serif is poised to disrupt the image-editing and photography market with its next product for graphics professionals and amateurs alike – Affinity Photo. As with Designer, Serif has engineered Affinity Photo as a Mac application from the first line of code instead of porting their popular PhotoPlus application from the Windows side of its business. And based on my initial impressions and early industry buzz, Affinity Photo is a strong sophomore effort for the company as it courts the Mac design, photo and graphics pro.Personas for the peopleWhen first launching Affinity Photo (AP) the default user interface opens in an application window and presents a familiar looking array of image-editing tools and panels that are relatively easy to navigate for both experienced image pros and amateurs. As with Designer, Affinity Photo groups tools and functions into task specific workspaces called Personas – good for those keen to organize their workflow. Initially, Photo opens with the Photo Persona active, presenting a familiar looking Tool Dock on the left chock full of the usual (image-editing) suspects including: Move Tool; Selection Brush; Cropping; various paint brush and fill tools; dodging and cloning tools; as well as a few mystery tools. Mystery tool #1: The AP Flood Select tool enables users to select pixels by colour similarity. As you drag the tool across a range of pixels, the selection size grows to encompass a wider range of colour. Flood Select is especially useful in isolating shadow areas in high contrast images. Mystery tool #2 is the Inpainting Brush, another tool unique to AP that can be used to identify damaged areas within an image, and then used to paint over the missing data with new pixels reconstructed based on image information from the surrounding pixels. It sounds complex, but is really just a new and innovative approach to content-aware restoration.The toolbar running horizontally along top of the Photo Persona application window houses auto levels, contrast, colour and white balance buttons in addition to selection and quick mask tools. In particular, AP’s Quick Mask feature enables users to easily build masks to isolate key elements within their images, then toggle how the selection is displayed. Other toolbar inhabitants include a nifty Force Pixel Alignment tool that will snap vector objects or pixel selections to full pixels – very useful for Web graphics – as well as a full range of arrange, insert and alignment functions. A full range of filters can be found in the Photo Persona menubar, including the varied flavours of Blur; Sharpen; Distort; Noise; Edge Detection; Shadows/Highlights and so on. When launched each Filter pops up in its own window with all the appropriate controls and parameters for the user to adjust. Split Screen, a feature borrowed from Designer, is built into the filter window and enables users to view images in full screen, split screen or mirrored screen to preview the effect alongside the original image in real-time.As you might expect, the right side of the default AP workspace contains a familiar set of panels relevant to the Persona that the user is working in. For example, the Photo Persona includes essential panels such as Layers; Effects; Swatches; Brushes; Histogram; Navigator; and so on. All panels can be rearranged to suit individual preferences within the application window to create a customized workspace. The chaotically minded can opt to do away with the window altogether by choosing to work in Separated Mode, which breaks all the aforementioned toolbars and panels into free-floating elements that can be placed anywhere on your screen.Using Layers, AP provides a comprehensive non-destructive editing workflow allowing users to apply any adjustment or effect to underlying Layers. Colour images can be converted to greyscale using a B+W adjustment layer similar to a channel mixer you might find in other photo-editing applications. Unique to Affinity Photo, Live Filter Layers can be applied to any layer and modified in real-time. Portrait photographers and prepress techs dealing with a lot of headshots will appreciate AP’s Frequency Separation filter which enables users to correct texture and colour independently – great for blemish removal and smoothing coarse skin textures without affecting skin tone.Liquify & DevelopAffinity Photo includes three additional Personas for users: Liquify; Develop; and Export. As the name implies, Liquify Persona is the workspace for distorting pixels in images. When switching to the Liquify workspace, a grid is immediately applied to your image showing brush size and distortion effect. The Toolbar displays a selection of distortion tools, such as Twirl; Pinch; Liquify Turbulence Tool; as well as a Freeze Tool that creates a mask to protect an area in your image from distortion, and a Thaw Tool to remove it.Opening a Camera RAW file in Affinity Photo automatically defaults to the Develop Persona – AP’s robust RAW editing workspace. In addition to RAW, the Develop Persona works with other standard image formats and Photo’s tabbed UI means that users can work with RAW images alongside other files. Develop enables users to apply multiple adjustments to images encompassing exposure; white balance; and black point along with a variety of other professional-grade adjustments. The AP Scope panel shows users the distribution of chrominance and luminance within their image – a capability I have not previously seen in an image-editing application.I was particularly impressed with the powerful lens correction features in the AP Develop Persona, including notable noise reduction for high ISO images. That said: Affinity Photo has the ability to create and save presets for rectifying lens distortion, but this version does not appear to include profiles for specific lenses. Hopefully, some popular lens profiles will show up in a future version. When finished perfecting your RAW image, Affinity Photo prompts you to ‘Develop’ before changing Personas in a nod to the analog roots of darkroom wizardry. The Export Persona affords users very precise control over getting an image out of Affinity Photo in a variety of formats. At this point, I should mention that AP has its own propriety file structure for saving files you are actively working with. The .afphoto file type contains all layer, filter, mask and effect information in addition to the pixels in your image. Although this format is both efficient and convenient, users will still need to export more common image formats for prepress use. Fortunately, the Export Persona makes short work of this task with all the options necessary to export SVG, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, EPS and PDF available in one convenient workspace. Interestingly, I saved the same test image in Photoshop and Affinity Photo –  the Affinity Photo file was about 70 percent smaller while maintaining the same pixel density.Under the hoodIt is easy to get wrapped up in all the bells and whistles Affinity Photo provides for image-editing pros and overlook a few other pretty remarkable attributes. Under the hood, AP uses a 64-bit architecture and harnesses every graphics advantage the Mac ecosystem has to offer, such as: Support for Open GL; Grand Central Dispatch; Core Graphics; and the Retina display UI. In plain English this translates to fast, live processing and instantaneous previews of a huge range of high-end filters and effects; masking effects and advanced adjustment layers as well as live blending modes. Affinity Photo is very fast, even on modestly configured equipment such as my aging 2012 Macbook Air.Prepress pros will be glad to hear that in addition to support for RGB, Greyscale and LAB colour spaces (both 8- and 16-bit), AP provides users with a start-to-finish CMYK workflow, something of a rarity in image-editing applications within this price range. Add to that a multi-document tabbed interface, support for unlimited layers and impressive live preview performance even when applying effects to massive layered images and its pretty tough to see a downside to working in Affinity Photo!That’s not to suggest Affinity Photo provides everything a photographer, designer or prepress pro wants or needs. A few useful production capabilities are missing in action with this version, including support for scripts, HDR image compositing and panorama stitching. Also, minor conveniences such as the application recognizing the pixel dimensions of an image in the clipboard when creating a new file have been overlooked – in this version at least. The good in Affinity Photo’s imperfections is that Serif has fodder for future updates – something they have established a good reputation for with Affinity Designer.Elephant in the prepress department“Gee, Affinity Photo sounds an awful lot like Photoshop! How does it compare?” Google “Affinity Photo” and you will see “Photoshop Alternative” or “Photoshop Challenger” as the headline or opening stanza in dozens of articles. When assessing Affinity Photo, I tried to put more than two decades of Photoshop experience on the back burner and take an unbiased look at this new application instead comparing the two programs feature-by-feature. As a result, I have concluded that Affinity Photo is the first image-editing application I’ve worked with that can meet the day-to-day production needs of most designers, photographers and image-editing specialists that didn’t have an Adobe logo on its welcome screen. This application provides all tools needed to work with CMYK images with full Photoshop import (.PSD and .PSB) and export capability (.PSD) while maintaining layers and effects.Does Affinity Photo do everything Photoshop does? Of course not! Photoshop benefits from more than 25 years of development and includes arcane features such ad-hoc video editing and 3D model rendering and printing – neither which might be relevant to many designers, premedia and prepress specialists.And if, like myself, you have been working with Photoshop on a professional level for more than 20 years you have also likely memorized plenty of key commands and know where to access every single function with a flick of the wrist. With that level of muscle memory dedicated to working in Photoshop, you will have some re-learning to do before becoming as effective in Affinity Photo. The key takeaway here is that in most cases you can eventually be as effective once you are on the downhill side of the Affinity Photo learning curve… a pretty big accomplishment for Serif’s new kid on the image-editing block.Zac Bolan can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Earn more business by reducing your prospect’s marketing cost by up to 75% while maintaining maximum marginsMost account executives are facing the same two print sales challenges: How do I differentiate my services when my competitors are capable of supplying the same job and how can I be competitive when there is always someone willing to print the same job for less? Although co-op marketing does not apply to every print sales situation, if your prospect is a neighborhood business that is print marketing collateral then co-op marketing offers a unique solution to this print sales challenge. What is co-op marketing?With summer now in swing, businesses that offer home services like lawn care, carpet cleaning, door and window sales, heating and air conditioning sales, eaves trough installers, roofers, driveway paving, kitchen and bathroom renovators, home improvement contractors and landscapers are getting ready for their summer marketing drive, which usually entails distributing fliers, brochures and door hangers throughout the local neighborhood. This need for marketing collateral presents an excellent opportunity for anyone in the printing industry to grow their sales and earnings.But landing these accounts is not that easy, after all, most of them are already dealing with a printer and the vast majority – a whopping 80 percent – are happy with their existing supplier. So why should any of these companies endure the risk and inconvenience of changing suppliers?  Well the fact is that in most cases they won’t, unless:You have something to offer that they can’t get from their existing supplier, You can show them how to get a better ROI, and Your quote is very competitive.Co-op marketing allows you to meet all three of these criteria. Co-op marketing simply means sharing the printing and distribution costs between two or more noncompetitive businesses. CO-OP Marketing advantages 1. It lowers your prospect’s cost   For example, the lawn care service provider is ready to invest $3,000 to print and distribute a promotional flier; the roofing company is also planning to send promotional fliers to the same target market; and so is the driveway paving service and the eaves trough installers. If only two of these businesses got together to share the cost of the flier and distribution, they could reduce their marketing costs by up to 50 percent; and if all four got together their savings could be as high as 75 percent. From a print sales perspective creating a co-op marketing program allows you to differentiate your service by telling the prospect that you can reduce their marketing costs by up to 75 percent!  2. It will increase sales    For your prospect a reduction in marketing costs means much more than just saving money; it also means an increase in sales and higher profits. For example, take any business person; a real estate agent; the owner of a lawn care service or the owner of the local pizzeria, their success requires marketing. They need to tell everyone in their neighborhood about the service or product and the more often they get their message out, the higher their sales. But small business owners have a limited marketing budget, so although they’d like to advertise more, they cannot afford it. Small business owners will welcome an idea that allows them to promote their services more often for the same cost and co-op marketing provides this opportunity. From a print sales perspective, creating a co-op marketing program allows you to differentiate your service by telling the prospect that you can share an idea that will increase their sales and gain market share.3. It makes your prospect’s marketing material more effective  Diversity increases readership. For example, a Healthcare Newsletter that included an article and ad from a dentist, a dermatologist, a chiropractor and a nutritionist would have a much higher readership then a newsletter that only focused on one of these topics. So while sharing the cost of printing and distributing a brochure, flier or door hanger will greatly reduce your prospect’s marketing cost, co-op marketing will also increase readership and, for the prospect, that means generating a higher response. From a print sales perspective, creating a co-op marketing program means that you differentiate your service by telling the prospect that you can share an idea that will increase response and make their marketing collateral more effective.While offering your prospects a co-op marketing opportunity is an extremely effective way to differentiate your services and eliminate price competition, you can maximize your sales and earnings by offering the prospect a marketing campaign instead of a single co-op distribution. For example, if you created a co-op Home Services Newsletter or Door Hanger your promotional package could include printing and distribution to 5-million homes once a month for six months. How to create a co-op marketing package 1. Select the productAny printed material can be turned into a co-op marketing program, a note pad, flier, postcard, calendar, oversized door hangers, or an 11 x 17 sheet can be turned into 4-page newsletter.      2. Select an area for distribution5,000 homes along specified postal routes, all the businesses within a target area3. Pick a theme Again, there are lots of themes to choose from, primarily depending on time of year: Home improvements, real estate, food and entertainment, health and fitness, business services, etc.4. List the different types of business that fit under your themeHome improvements: Carpet cleaning, door and window sale, heating and air conditioning sale, eaves trough installers, roofers, driveway paving, kitchen and bathroom renovators, home improvements contractors, landscapers, lawn care, plumbers and electricians. Food and entertainment: Restaurants, theatres, pubs, country clubs, caterers, wine making outlets, butchers, home delivery, bakers and even farms that sell to the public.Business services: Office cleaning, office supplies, office equipment, business insurance, car leasing, temp services, accounting, bookkeeping and computer services, courier, shipping.5. Create a prospecting listUse the phone directory and Internet to identify all the local businesses on your list. 6. Contact everyone on your listTell them about the benefits. Offer everyone exclusivity by only including one company for each service. For example if your theme was dinning you could make it exclusive by including only one Italian, one Chinese and one Mexican restaurant.

For three days in March, some of  the brightest technological minds in print gathered in New Mexico to discuss RFID, Ultra Violet, omni-marketing and colour management The Technical Association of the Graphic Arts held its annual conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in late March. As is tradition, the conference, focusing on the newest technological developments in printing systems kicked off with four high-profile keynote speakers.The first keynote came from Chris Travis of KBA North America. He talked about many advances still being made in press technology, with more sales of complex machines, combining different   printing features and more automation. Presses are being ordered with double coaters for spot UV, spot matte and special effect coatings. Sometimes the coating units are before the printing units for laying white down first, to print on foils and for the application of sizing. The goal of all these various press configurations is to get everything done in  one pass. Travis also points out that the decision to print a job digitally or offset starts at a relatively low good-copy count. He says any job with more than 191 good print copies is more cost effective when the job is printed offset. UV technology is also changing, as the light tubes change from the standard mercury vapour to iron-doped mercury vapour light tubes. This little change results in higher gloss levels for UV coatings. The coating manufacturers have to adjust the phot0-initiator mix so it will work with the iron-doped UV light tubes and UV LED technology is gaining more of a foothold in the print industry. Travis also points out that flexographic printing is growing and holds the most potential in the print industry. The industry overall is finally growing again even as a lot of mergers and acquisitions take place.The second keynote was given by Patrick Younk from Los Alamos National Lab, introducing conference attendees to some of their incredible work. Many fundamental research projects are carried out by this research institute. Younk talked about the High Altitude Water Cherenkov observatory for the detection of gamma rays originating from the sun. He also talked about an ultra-fast optical ranging measurement system. It is a non-contact position measurement system that works with a 1-micron accuracy and it could be used to measure ink film thickness or colour registration.Michael Van Haren from Quad/Graphics presented the third keynote on omni-channel marketing. He began by describing the differences between multi-channel and omni-channel marketing. Omni-channel marketing is the same message on all media. Print of course is still the main driver of this. Why – because it works. It delivers the right message in the right place at the  right time. With the emergence of high-speed inkjet printing it is possible to personalize the message and with full colour inkjet the message to the consumer becomes very personalized. A highly targeted variable data print uses personalized URLs or PURLs. Through QR codes and image recognition apps, the printed piece has some augmented reality to it. For all this technology to work well, data is needed to drive the campaign. The contact strategy needs to be build with print being in sync with digital channels. Any digital tools that interact with the customer need to be tested over and over again to make sure they all work as intended.The fourth keynote was given by Bruce Khan from Clemson University and his topic was printed electronics. He said that print is and will be the manufacturing method of choice in this area, because it is fast and produces the electronic components at a relatively low cost. Khan also says that false hopes had been given by nanotechnology and RFID technology. The most successful printed electronic component is the glucose sensor strip for diabetics. Many obstacles still need to be overcome to successfully print something like flexible hybrid electronics.Colour and optical brightenersOn the second day of the TAGA conference, the series of presentations started with a diverse range of topics. John Anderson from Kodak talked about the  Flexcel NX flexographic printing plate that allows the manufacturing of plates with flat top dots. The Flexcel NX plate is coupled with DigiCapNX technology to achieve higher solid ink densities than with conventional plate technology. This technology allows for creating halftones from a 0.4 to a 99.6 percent tint. Through Hyperflex NX technology, the floor of the flexographic printing plate gets extended to support low tint value halftone dots. This presentation was an example of the advances that are currently made in flexography that allow the printing of finer details and more vibrant solids.Don Schroeder from Fujifilm was one of the first speakers to talk about the influence of optical brighteners in papers and that proofing papers have no or very little optical brighteners in them. This discrepancy causes colour differences between press sheet and proof, especially if the paper has a very blueish white colour. The new measurement conditions M1 as outlined in ISO 13655 requires a light source with UV component, so the optical brighteners in the paper get excited and influence the measurement of the printed colours. The standard datasets that many colour management solutions are built upon were created in 2006 and they have been measured under the M0 measurement conditions, which are without a UV component in the light source. The new dataset created in 2013 use measurements taken under the M1 conditions.Many other presenters talked about the new M1 measurement conditions and how they will influence the printing industry, but there is a drawback to this new measurement condition. An extreme example is that two M1 compliant light sources can have 50 and 150 percent of UV component in them and this results in a b* difference of 7. This can be quite significant for the overall colour difference and can result in a pass or fail of a colour. In conjunction with ISO 13655, for the measurement conditions of light booths, ISO 3664 has also been updated, so that the light source in the viewing booths also has a UV component in them. The compliance of a viewing booth with this updated ISO standard can be verified with a measurement device from GL Optics. Overall there were six presentations about the new M1 measurement condition and how it influences measured colours, the proofing stage and also the colour management part of any print job.Although the DE2000 colour difference equation is not (yet) part of an ISO standard, work is being done to develop a colour space that is based on DE2000. John Seymour from QuadTech presented his advances in this project. His goal is to create a colour space with modified L*a*b*-axis that allow for the use the DeltaLab colour difference formula.A presentation was given on the strategies of managing spot colours using traditional metrics and how to predict the colour outcome using simulated colours on screen. Research is also being done regarding working with expanded gamut printing using 7 colours (CMYK plus orange, green and violet). The use GCR and optimized colour sequence (KOVCGMY) are instrumental to more stable and predictable print results.Raia Slivniak-Zorin from HP in Israel talked about the work she and her team did with regard to digitally printed flexible packaging. The work was done on an HP Indigo and the prints were also laminated. One of her main findings is that a primer needs to applied to the flexible substrate first, so the ElectroInk will adhere properly. Also an adhesive has to be applied first, before the printed material can be laminated. A corona treatment of the substrate greatly enhances the bonding of primer and ink.The 2015 TAGA conference was a very high profile conference with many cutting-edge research  presentations that will have an  influence on the print industry in the coming years. The fact that the M1 measurement condition  received so much attention during the conference shows that the new ISO standard requires more  investigation.

Makers of electrophoretic ink discuss how technology that began life as an MIT Media Lab research project is transforming information consumptionSimple demographics are one of the biggest threats to the viability of print. Younger generations consume more and more media with little need for the printed page. Digital display companies are keenly focused on the functionality of their user interfaces, but readability remains an allusive metric for most. From consumer reports it seems the tablet reading experience on devices such as Apple’s iPad or Samsung’s Galaxy leaves something to be desired. The tablet’s glossy backlit LCD screen is great for watching videos, but reflections tire the reader’s eye and the words are difficult to read outdoors. Emissive displays also draw a lot of power causing tablet batteries to fade after only a few hours in many cases.On the other hand many avid e-book fans will tell you that a Kindle or Kobo with crisp black type on a paper-white background provides a much better reading experience. Though by no means a replacement for the multi-media friendly tablet, former consumers of the printed page have been increasingly adopting this style of e-reader for ease of reading both indoors and out while enjoying longer battery life. But what makes these e-readers so different from tablets? The answer is E InkE Ink takes its name from its technology – electrophoretic ink – and is the visible component used in Electronic Paper Displays (EPDs). This promising technology began life in 1996 as a research project in the MIT Media Lab before becoming the foundation of E Ink Corporation, which sought to commercialize the digital paper concept as the preferred display for e-readers. E Ink is made of microcapsules about the diameter of a human hair sandwiched between two thin layers of film containing a transparent top electrode, and a bottom electrode. Each microcapsule contains negatively charged black pigment and positively charged white pigment suspended in a clear fluid. When the top electrode charges positive, the black pigment rises to the surface, morphing the microcapsule from white to black. The microcapsules are bi-stable and reflective – meaning the image will remain on the digital page without electricity and requires only ambient light to be visible. That’s why E Ink displays draw very little power.E Ink displays are well suited for viewing static images that change sporadically – simulating book, newspaper or magazine pages for example. Because the display reflects natural light, it much more closely resembles the printed page with readability improving as the light gets brighter – working especially well in full sunlight. E Ink Corporation announced new concepts at CES 2015 and demonstrated E Ink products developed by licensees that evolve the digital paper paradigm beyond the e-reader.New E Ink models“One of the more interesting products we are showing at CES is the Sony DPT S1 business e-reader,” reveals Giovanni Mancini, head of global marketing for E Ink. “Designed for the business user, this device is the size of an A4 sheet of paper, extremely rugged and weighs only about six ounces.“The DPT S1 has touch capability, but it also has an extremely responsive digitizer. This is intended for business users who want to take a large number of documents with them, but don’t want the bulk of the paper,” he continues. “Users can annotate documents with their fingertip while in the field, then have the information captured into the document control system back in the office.”The Sony DPT S1 comes with 4gb storage, capable of carrying thousands of monochrome pages and has a micro SD slot for expansion.Mancini then demonstrates another innovative use for E Ink in the form of a mobile phone display. The Russian-made YotaPhone is an Android mobile phone featuring a standard high-resolution colour display on the front, and a monochrome E Ink display on the back of the handset.“The idea is to attach different information feeds, such as email or text messages, that you want to keep monitoring to the E Ink display on the back,” Mancini explains. “This way you don’t have to constantly turn on the screen on the front of your phone and cycle through the various apps to get the information. This really extends the battery life of the YotaPhone because of the very low power consumption of E Ink displays.“To really conserve power, the user can completely disable the front colour display and get the full Android interface on the E Ink display. You can even use the Kindle App to read books on the back of the YotaPhone! “Another innovative use of an E ink display can be seen on the Sony Smartband Talk – a sports watch and fitness device that pairs up with an Android phone. The Smartband Talk enables you to track your fitness during the day and get information from your smartphone, all displayed on a controllable E Ink display,” explains Mancini.While EPDs are already well established in the retail display category, E Ink Corporation announced and demonstrated innovative new solutions at CES 2015 targeting both the indoor and outdoor signage markets.“These E Ink 32-inch digital displays are great for small businesses such as coffee shops or restaurants, for example, that might want to use them as menu boards,” says Mancini. “They are also well-suited for information displays in public spaces such as bus shelters. Because of low energy requirements, batteries or even solar power can power these E Ink displays without the need to run cables.“Another thing that we announced at CES this year is our E ink Prism product,” Mancini continues. “We’ve taken our E ink technology and encapsulated many different colours of pigments within the same microsphere and laminated them into a colour changing film to incorporate into architectural products.”E Ink Corporation demonstrated a 20-foot wall of colour-shifting Prism tiles at CES. Controlled by a PC, these tiles are designed to change colours, providing a different aesthetic and changing the mood of a hotel lobby or an airport terminal.“Right now this is a concept product for us,” Mancini continues, “created through collaboration with architects and design firms over the past year. We hope to have a public installation of Prism by the end of 2015. We also plan to use Prism in horizontal surfaces such as glass counters or coffee tables.”Nemesis of printFrom the products on display at CES 2015 it’s logical to conclude that E Ink has already done most of the damage it’s going to do to the conventional printed page. After all, e-readers already represent an established market for publishers, and the line has been drawn between those who prefer to read the printed page, and those who choose digital. Instead, the future of E Ink and Electronic Page Displays lies in enabling the next generation of signage, personal document readers, smart devices and wearable technology – where low-power displays and control surfaces are essential to ensure functionality and energy efficiency.

With drupa 2016 a year away, I began thinking about the last time the giant German tradeshow in Düsseldorf took place in 2012 and the crowds at Landa Digital Printing’s exhibition space. Mostly, I remember the blue-and-black futuristic design of Landa’s new Nanographic Printing Presses, including the unique control panel mounted to the side of each press like a giant iPhone. I wondered aloud, “Shouldn’t there be a few presses already installed in print shops by this time?”Providing as much function as form, the control screen GUI appeared to be well designed to meet the needs of a busy operator. There was even a digital microscope that came with each press, which I was immediately impressed with because it allows both operators and customers to look at the details of a printed sheet. Over the first days of the 14-day trade show, heavy iron manufacturers like Heidelberg, manroland and Komori joined Landa’s marketing buzz by announcing Nanographic technology partnerships, albeit a little vague. Benny Landa, who founded the company in 2002, told drupa 2012 visitors the Nanographic presses could reach first adopters by the end of 2013 at the earliest, with initial machines hitting the market during the first months of 2014. I thought to myself: Let’s see if he can keep this deadline.Nanography nutshell The year 2013 came and went without any Landa Digital presses going into potential customers, although there may have well been quiet alpha testing going on inside an eager print shop. In March 2013, I attended the annual TAGA conference in Portland, Oregon, where Gilad Tzori, VP of Product Strategy of Landa Digital Printing gave the event’s third keynote presentation.Tzori provided conference attendees, who primarily serve on the technical side of printing, an overview of how Landa Nanography works and differs from existing printing presses. Emphasis was put on Landa’s jetting of water-based inks which do not soak the paper, so the sheet does not come out wavy at the end of the press run.Many people will have experienced this water-soaking problem when they print a sheet of paper with heavy coverage on their home or office inkjet printer. Tzori explained how the Nanographic printing process first inkjets the image onto a heated transfer belt, and secondly how the ink turns into a semi-solid type material on the transfer belt, which is then transferred onto the paper. Unique properties of Landa’s belt, explained Tzori, ensures a 100 percent transfer of the image onto the paper. He then showed images of a printed dot produced with Nanography and compared it to the same magenta dot printed with different technologies currently on the market. The superior quality of the Nanographic process, in regards to the roundness and sharpness of the printed dot, was then described in Tzori’s marketing presentation. A clear advantage of Nanography indicates the process allows for printing on almost any substrate.Nano pigments deliver a broader colour gamut than standard offset inks. The Landa black has L*a*b*-values of 5.4, 0.7 and 0.05 compared to the ISO standard of 16, -0.1, 0.1. The ink film is 500-nano-meters thick, which is a lot less than that of any other conventional printing process. The printed density for coated and uncoated paper is the same, since the ink does not sink into the uncoated paper but rather sits on top of the paper. De-inkability studies, explained Tzori, have also shown good results. De-inkability is a significant problem with regular inkjet printed sheets.Nanography nicheAfter describing the technical architecture of Nanography, Tzori explained where Landa Digital sees its market niche and how it plans to bridge a gap between short-run digital and longer-run offset jobs. This includes targeting offset sheetfed work with a 40-inch or B1-format press model. Tzori stressed that Landa is not reinventing existing machine technology like paper feeding and delivery, which is why the company is working with traditional press makers, most notably Komori.A key question to come from the conference crowd that day asked about the future availability of these new Nanographic printing presses. A careful answer was given, which I interrupted to mean it would be at the beginning of 2014, while the company’s main challenge was to achieve the desired print quality at the necessary resolution.Year 2014 came and went and, without hearing much more from Landa in terms of press installations, I naturally started wondering if the past two years of Nanographic marketing had been all smoke and mirrors? In February of 2014, Landa Digital and EFI announced a strategic alliance and in June 2014 Altana invested €100 million into Landa Digital, which had also received a number of press down payments from printers wanting to be first in line. It is my guess that Altana will manufacture the Landa inks and EFI will deliver the digital front-end to the presses. On December 9, 2014, Landa Digital made a public statement about its technology development, including its intent to focus on the 40-inch folding-carton market with its S10 press. The press has undergone some radical design changes, including the addition of a coating unit. The operator’s side-mounted touchscreen, as it was seen at drupa 2012, had to be moved to the delivery end – transforming its look more toward a traditional press design. The weight of the press has increased also from 10 tons to 30 tons.Landa Digital explained the S10 operator now has a more ergonomic workplace showing all the required information for running jobs. Personally, I like the video feeds from inside the press to the operator cockpit. The press operator can see if any sheets have been dropped or if they are causing a jam. The presses also have an inline inspection unit from Advanced Vision Technology. Within its online marketing material, Landa Digital writes: “The quality control solution will combine innovative nozzle performance and colour control techniques to maintain print quality and increase press productivity. The quality control system will also control colour-to-colour registration, image placement and front-to-back registration.”  The print resolution of the S10 press is now at 1,200 dpi and the press also makes it possible to print on both sides of the carton sheet before entering the coating unit.Nanography 2015In early 2015, I spoke with Tzori on the phone to discuss recent developments at Landa Digital Printing. He indicated the first presses are scheduled to be commercially available in the second half of 2015. Beta machine are currently set up at Landa’s facilities in Israel, where potential customers can see the presses in action. During our phone conversation, Tzori also discussed what kind of drying technology is installed between the coating unit and the delivery end of the press. Depending on what kind of coating the customer wants to use, there will be IR drying lamps installed for water-based coatings and UV-curing lamps for UV coatings. The UV-curing technology can either be UV-mercury vapour lamps or UV-LED.Tzori points out that the IR or UV technology is only necessary for the coatings that are applied to the printed sheets. The sheets printed with the Nanography ink come dry out of the press.Thinking ahead to drupa 2016, which surely will be another important exhibition for Landa Digital technology, I asked Tzori what is to come with regard to the company’s web-fed printing machines. The first web-fed printing machine will be geared towards the flexible packaging market. Landa Digital expects this to make a huge impact on the flexible packaging sector, especially with many of the other digital press manufacturers also developing printing solutions for the short-run flexible packaging market. I have every intention of attending drupa 2016 for a firsthand view of Landa’s developments and I expect they will be as interesting as Nanography’s unveiling three years ago.

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS FEATURED IN PRINTACTION'S FEBRUARY 2015 ISSUEAs in nature, the software ecosystem abhors a vacuum! Introduced for the Mac in 1987, Adobe Illustrator evolved from Adobe’s in-house font development software to become the industry standard line-work editor and has all but dominated the desktop vector graphics market.Twenty-eight years later, Illustrator is so pervasive in the graphic arts few prepress pros would even consider an alternative were one available. While a few innovative Mac applications such as iDraw and Sketch have nipped at Adobe’s heels, to date no application has presented a credible challenge to Illustrator’s dominance on the Mac platform, creating a competitive vacuum. That might be about to change.Though unknown to many Mac users, Serif Software is a dominant player in the lucrative Windows desktop publishing software world. Founded in 1987, Serif’s original mandate was to produce powerful yet cost-effective alternatives to expensive desktop publishing and graphic design applications for the PC. Its critically acclaimed PagePlus, DrawPlus and PhotoPlus applications have garnered a large and loyal following in the Windows world – extending from casual creatives to business and education users. After years of planning and development, Serif stepped across the OS barrier in June 2014 with its first Mac App, Affinity Designer. While still in public beta, Affinity Designer turned heads while generating a great deal of online buzz before the October 2014 launch of version 1.0 on the Mac App Store. Since release, Affinity Designer has raced up the App Store charts and finished the year as Editor’s Choice Best of 2014! But does all that hype make any difference in the prepress and print world? Can a PC software developer give Adobe a run for its money on Adobe’s home turf?Vector contender or pretenderWell, for starters it is pretty clear that Affinity Designer was engineered from the ground up as a production environment for professional-grade vector drawing destined for a variety of output intents, including both print and Web.Where Designer differs from other line-work editors is in its ability to work with raster images and create pixel-based effects and textures within the same file as vector layers. And while Designer has its own file format, the App can import a wide variety of file types including: Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, Photoshop, EPS, JPEG, PDF and SVG. Additionally Designer can export: Photoshop, EPS, GIF, JPEG, PNG, SVG and PDF – although direct export of AI format is not supported. Users wanting to bring their Designer files into Illustrator will have to pass through PDF-land first.When launching Designer for the first time users are presented with a clean, uncluttered user interface that is unique yet somewhat reminiscent of an Adobe Creative Cloud application. As a result, anyone with Illustrator chops should be able to find their way around Affinity Designer in fairly short order. The default application window follows the familiar axiom of toolbar on the left, functions along the top and tabbed palettes on the right hand side of the workspace.  Users can also choose to work in Separated Mode meaning the Designer toolbars, workspace and palettes are free floating and can be reconfigured to individual tastes. Designer diverges from other editors by breaking down the workflow into Personas (Draw, Pixel and Export) represented by icons on the upper left side of the workspace. The icon for the active Persona appears in colour and each features tools, functions and palettes specifically configured for the appropriate tasks. The Draw Persona toolbar contains recognizable drawing tools you would expect to find, such as a Move Tool, Vector Brush Tool for creating painted effects and a Pencil Tool for free drawing vector lines, as well as Gradient and Transparency tools. Additionally, the toolbar houses a wide variety of shape tools ranging from standard rectangles and ellipses to diverse polygons, clouds and call-outs. Each shape can be quickly and radically altered either with the Node Tool, or the context-sensitive settings in the Draw Persona tool set. There is even a special hidden Easter Egg feature that enables users to make a cat shape – see if you can find it!The Pixel Persona enables a variety of marquee and selection tools along with essential raster editing tools in the toolbar, such as erase, fill, dodge, burn, blur and sharpen. It is important to remember that while Designer is equipped to create, alter and apply raster effects within a vector file, it is definitely not a replacement for a full image editor such as Photoshop or Pixelmator as there are no tools that I can find for adjusting the contrast, saturation or hue of photographic images.As the name implies, the Export Persona provides a straightforward workflow for getting your image online with several presets, support for ICC profiles as well as layers and image slices. Speaking of online, Designer has a number of features targeting the Web slinger, such as a powerful pixel preview of vector images for both standard and retina displays, as well as instant export of multiple objects – each with independent output settings.Designer also brings back one of my favourite old Illustrator features with a new twist. The Split View divides the image workspace vertically enabling the user to see any combination of Frame, Vector, Pixel or Retina previews and drag the dividing line back and forth across the image – changing the preview instantly.Of course, any mention of ‘instant preview’ inevitably brings up the topic of Designer performance. Whether opening a complex vector graphic or a massive layered Photoshop file, it is immediately apparent that Designer is blazingly fast. This 64-bit application is fully optimized for the latest Mac OS and Retina 5K displays, enabling users to pan and zoom across their images with little perceptible lag as well as apply and view effects in real-time. This is especially impressive when you consider that Designer offers a staggering 1,000,000 percent zoom, as well as super smooth gradients that can be edited in real time at any magnification. For such a young App, Designer offers some impressively mature workflow features like non-destructive editing and robust support for layers, including vector, pixel and adjustment layers. Ready for the big leagueWorking with Affinity Designer is comfortable once you get used to multiple Personas, however, the software is lacking in a few key areas of importance to design and production pros. For example, Designer currently only supports a single page per file, something designers who are used to building multiple art boards will find hard to live with. And what prepress pro has not used Illustrator’s Auto-Trace to quickly build a logo for a job they are working on? Designer will need to implement some sort of raster to vector workflow to really gain print market share.And while Designer seems to be able to import a wide variety of file formats, I have experienced mixed results when opening old EPS files containing complex vector gradients. Mind you, Designer has only been in the field for a few months and to Serif’s credit they’ve already built an active, lively and supportive user community that fuels its development team with bug reports and feature requests. Within just three months of launch, Serif has already revved Designer to v1.1.2 – not only with bug fixes but also significant new user-requested features like iCloud Drive support; critical stroke alignment options; and 5K-display support.The road aheadSerif recently published the first issue of Affinity Review – a quarterly ePUB magazine for their users – containing some very interesting product news in addition designer profiles, interviews and tutorials. According to Serif, the Affinity Designer roadmap includes several professional printing features such as: PDF/X support; PDF image compression; trim, bleed, overprint and mark control; spot, Pantone and registration colours; and advanced transparency features. Designers can look forward to: multiple pages; text on a path; mesh warp and distort tools; and improved text controls… all promised as free updates! Likely many of these new functions will be incorporated into its own Personas. Also in Serif’s 2015 playbook: Affinity Photo and Affinity Desktop (you can see where they are going with this).Is Affinity Designer the answer to all your high-end vector design, editing and production needs? Not yet. Is it worth fifty bucks? You bet! Besides, designers on a budget are already flocking to Designer so it’s only a matter of time before Affinity files start making their way into your prepress department.