50 years in print - the magazine for forward thinking printing

the magazine for forward thinking printingMay 2013

the StephenS celebrate a mileStone

50 YearS in printoptichrome shares its success secrets 16

large format

web to print

digital

paper

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MAY 2013NEWS Polestar orders 96ppwebs; Kodak plans future 4

I&I Benson adds XL106;Ricoh unveils new press;Xerox develops iGen fortransactionl print 8

COVER STORY Optichrometakes 50 in its stride 16

WEB TO PRINT Why everyprinter needs to have thistechnology 20

PAPER NAPM Forum hears thegrim evidence 30

THE RATE OF DECLINE OF PAPER USAGE WILL EASE but it will not cease.This is the grim message from the paper industry, delivered to the UK’spaper merchants with evidence from the UK, from Europe and from aworld scale, each reinforcing the other. There is no way out. Some of thisdecline will come from more efficient printers, but not all. If there is lesspaper, there is less print.

But how many printers are prepared for this? Economic history is aboutgrowth in consumption, with perhaps a few bumps along the way. It isnot supposed to be about wholesale decline, at least not since cartwrightswere eliminated by motor vehicles. We have no experience, no touchpoints to understand what is going to continue to happen. Some printersare preparing. Walstead for example is planning for a 5-10% fall in themagazine markets it serves, but expects it will shrink less than this.Optichrome in our cover story reckons it will need to acquire businessesto bring in volumes to keep its presses efficient.

However, if print on paper in this country (read also Europe and the US)is not coming back if recession ends, communication between suppliersand prospects, between government and citizens, between the educatedand students, is not falling. It is becoming richer because an online andinstant element is added to that communication.

Nor is packaging in decline. Quite the opposite, because technology andmarketing needs are converging to deliver shorter production runs, to keepbrands fresh and to use the packaging as a constantly evolving marketingvehicle. Smart commercial printers will be investigating opportunities inpackaging and from becoming involved with the wider world ofcommunications. Smarter commercial printers will be examiningopportinities beyond print for communication into functional print.

Non-smart printers will be waiting for others to remove capacity,perhaps even expecting volumes to return. That isn’t going to happen.The good news, however, is the rate of decline is going to slow down.

GARETH WARD Editor

COMMENTARY

EDITORIAL

COMMERCIAL

GARETH WARD 01580 236456 • 07866 [email protected]

DEBBIE WARD 01580 236456 • 07711 [email protected] • printbusinessmedia.co.uk

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Published by Print Business Media Ltd. 3 Zion Cottages, Ranters Lane, Goudhurst, Kent TN17 1HR. © Copyright Print Business Media Ltd 2013. All rights reserved. Apply for T&Cs.

MAY 2013NEWS Polestar orders 96ppwebs; Kodak plans future 4

I&I Benson adds XL106;Ricoh unveils new press;Xerox develops iGen fortransactionl print 8

COVER STORY Optichrometakes 50 in its stride 16

WEB TO PRINT Why everyprinter needs to have thistechnology 20

PAPER NAPM Forum hears thegrim evidence 30

THE RATE OF DECLINE OF PAPER USAGE WILL EASE but it will not cease.This is the grim message from the paper industry, delivered to the UK’spaper merchants with evidence from the UK, from Europe and from aworld scale, each reinforcing the other. There is no way out. Some of thisdecline will come from more efficient printers, but not all. If there is lesspaper, there is less print.

But how many printers are prepared for this? Economic history is aboutgrowth in consumption, with perhaps a few bumps along the way. It isnot supposed to be about wholesale decline, at least not since cartwrightswere eliminated by motor vehicles. We have no experience, no touchpoints to understand what is going to continue to happen. Some printersare preparing. Walstead for example is planning for a 5-10% fall in themagazine markets it serves, but expects it will shrink less than this.Optichrome in our cover story reckons it will need to acquire businessesto bring in volumes to keep its presses efficient.

However, if print on paper in this country (read also Europe and the US)is not coming back if recession ends, communication between suppliersand prospects, between government and citizens, between the educatedand students, is not falling. It is becoming richer because an online andinstant element is added to that communication.

Nor is packaging in decline. Quite the opposite, because technology andmarketing needs are converging to deliver shorter production runs, to keepbrands fresh and to use the packaging as a constantly evolving marketingvehicle. Smart commercial printers will be investigating opportunities inpackaging and from becoming involved with the wider world ofcommunications. Smarter commercial printers will be examiningopportinities beyond print for communication into functional print.

Non-smart printers will be waiting for others to remove capacity,perhaps even expecting volumes to return. That isn’t going to happen.The good news, however, is the rate of decline is going to slow down.

GARETH WARD Editor

COMMENTARY

EDITORIAL

COMMERCIAL

GARETH WARD 01580 236456 • 07866 [email protected]

DEBBIE WARD 01580 236456 • 07711 [email protected] • printbusinessmedia.co.uk

ARCHIVE bit.ly/RoivIT

PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION bit.ly/RgsAZ5

NEWS printbusinessmagazine.co.uk

Published by Print Business Media Ltd. 3 Zion Cottages, Ranters Lane, Goudhurst, Kent TN17 1HR. © Copyright Print Business Media Ltd 2013. All rights reserved. Apply for T&Cs.

News

4 May 2013 www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk

Polestar places £50m order with Goss for webPolestar has confirmed a £50 million order for six Goss web offset presses to be installed over the next two years. The locations have yet to be announced, but is more likely to be at existing sites rather than at a greenfield supersite that was mooted before the acquisition of BGP in Bicester.

The order includes two 96pp presses, the first of this format in the UK, two 64pp machines and two six-colour 16pp webs as cover presses. The first of the 96pp machines will be deliv-ered in March with the second arriving a month later. They will be installed in parallel, both with separate folders and with a shared folder to bring off combinations of 48pp and 32pp sections.

The 64pp presses will follow. These are specified as short grain machines and will have a twin delivery, jaw folder and balloon section with Toler-ans stitching heads to deliver 16pp products at upwards of 220,000 cph. The 16pp presses are six-colour machines to allow for special colours and effects needed for covers.

Polestar CEO Barry Hibbert

says: “Despite the economic climate, Polestar has been in positive discussions with our customers for some time and the commitment through long term contracts has enabled us to achieve this significant investment.”

Shortly after the company announced conclusion of the new contract for Radio Times and other magazines produced by Immediate Media, valued at £75 million over the course of the deal.

Polestar sales director James Povey explains that customers are prepared to make long term commitments to the printer and this has provided the confidence

for Polestar to press ahead with the investment. “Originally we anticipated that these machines would be replacement capacity, but we have had a lot of posi-tive feedback which is making us reconsider. We will judge again exactly how we act at the appro-priate time.”

The aim is to shorten turna-round times and improve colour quality and consistency.

The order is a “once in a career deal” says Goss UK sales manager John Chambers. “This has been a long time coming.” Details have been discussed for more than a year with Polestar, though the configuration of the machines was settled early in the process. “Polestar had done a lot of homework when we started talking to them,” he adds. “Both sides have worked hard to find the right solution.” Through owner Shanghai Electric, Goss has access to funding lines within its own organisation.

The acquisition of BGP will allow Polestar to shuffle capacity around the group while the new press installations take place. The announcement of where the new machines will go is now awaited.

On Print Business OnlinePriNt scOres iN QueeN’s AwArdPrint companies were recognised for innovation, export achievement and sustainable development this year.bit.ly/13pfT3v

BelGium’s cAthOlics GO diGitAlParishioners in Belgium will receive a better weekly read thanks to a switch to all digital production.bit.ly/117Pc1L

FrANce ANd itAly jOiN jetPress GANGFuji has installed sheetfed inkjet presses at small printers in two new countries in Europe.bit.ly/10LUKUq

us mAGAziNes AdOPtiNG Qr ANd ArReport says that print to web codes have broken through with US publishers.bit.ly/YnD1vG

scOts museum cAlls FOr FuNdsIt wants to film a time capsule of a mid century print works in action.bit.ly/Z2bT8F

siGN uP tO receive News ANd views By emAil every mONdAy mOrNiNG. eepurl.com/dENeU

Polestar’s main magazine printing rival Walstead Invest-ments is preparing for further consolidation in the web offset market. It expects the market to contract between 5-10% a year.

However, its turnover is declining at a slower rate than this and the expectation is that this will continue as ageing capacity is eliminated from the market.

Walstead reckons it is well invested following elimination of three smaller sites and the

capacity it acquired from St Ives. “We are now producing more work with fewer people and at a lower cost,” says chairman Mark Scanlon. “The web offset sector has to address a shrinking market caused by poor macro-economic conditions and the steady transfer of advertising and editorial content from the printed page to digital media platforms. While we cannot influence these adverse market dynamics, we can and will adapt and reshape our business to

ensure we remain resilient and profitable while the markets in which we operate continue to contract.”

The company has posted sales of £124.8 million (£128.0 million) with a pretax profit of £3.7 million (£20.9 million loss) in 2012. It also managed to reduce debt by £6.8 million to £29.4 million overall. It has also paid over all amounts owing to St Ives. Headcount which peaked at 1,501 in April 2011, was 1,132 at year end.

Goss calls the order a “once in a career deal”.

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print’s changing landscape

News


Kodak puts final plans in place to emerge from Chapter 11KodaK has entered the final lap before emerging from Chapter 11, filing its reorganisation plan at the Bankruptcy Court in New York.

It reached this point after solving its two remaining obstacles in one swoop, selling its personal imaging business to its UK pension fund. While this will mean reduced benefits for the 15,000 recipients of Kodak UK pensions, it avoids the need to go to the government for assistance.

The reorganisation, as previously described, divides Kodak into a mature commercial printing and entertainment films business and an emerging digital imaging and enterprise division.

The former will generate sales of around $1.5 billion this year towards a total of $2.5 billion. By 2017 sales will on the rise again, reaching $3.2 billion according to the plan.

This is vested in at least maintaining shares in the commercial print sector while running the entertainment films business for cash as it declines. The company has great hopes for its no process Sonora plate which it is starting to roll out in Europe.

Kodak plans to accelerate installations of the Prosper inkjet press and increase the number of OEM deals. One of these will result in a press aimed at packaging applications launching next year. There are

also plans for a first roll to roll press for printing touch screens as part of a drive to capture functional print markets.

It will use the accuracy of SquareSpot imaging, able to describe micron level spots, to produce touch screens, smart packaging, electronics and other functional items. The same imaging system used in the Flexcel plate and imager will give Kodak market leadership by 2016 it predicts.

The document is necessarily optimistic and also details continuing cost saving measures in its sales and administration expenses. It is about selling the idea that Kodak can stand on its feet to unsecured creditors,

owed $2.7 billion, who will see their debts translated into new shares while existing shareholders will be wiped out.

For the first quarter of 2013, the commercial print business reported sales of $387 million ($382 million) with the digital print division bringing in sales of $197 million ($216 million). This drop is attributed to declining consumer inkjet sales, while there was a 13% decline in plate and entertainment film sales, blamed on weak European markets.

The net earnings, including the to be disposed of personal imaging business, stood at $283 million after a loss of $366 million in 2012.

Océ UK is now completely integrated into Canon UK and IrelandCanon has Completed the task of integrating Océ’s UK operations into its own UK and Ireland business.

This brings to an end a process which began in September last year and which follows similar efforts around the world. Australia for example had

completed integration some months ago under Steve Wilson, at one time business unit director for production printing in the UK.

Hasse Iwarsson is managing director of Canon UK and Ireland and says: “Today marks the start of a new era in which we

will use the combined strengths of Canon and Océ to offer the industry’s broadest portfolio of print products, services and solutions to our customers in the UK and Ireland.”

The former Océ premises in Brentwood have been revamped as the centre for production

printing with the emphasis on continuous feed, wide format and some cut sheet machines in the ‘Horizons Customer Experience Centre’.

All the cut sheet machines will be in the Professional Print showroom at the UK headquarters at Woodhatch, Reigate.

LangLey HoLdings figures reveaL a year of transitionlangley holdings paid €55 million for Manroland’s sheetfed operations last year, a business calculated to have had assets of €182 million at the time.

The British company has cut costs and trimmed the sails of the operation, to borrow an analogy from Tony Langley’s favourite sport of sailing, to the extent that the press manufacturer returned a pretax profit of €72.4 million on sales of €346.4 million in the 11 months to the end of 2012.

Net assets, following the sale

of some machinery and property in Germany and overseas, are now valued at €81.4 million with orders in hand of €58.3 million.

The year was undoubtedly one of transition as the accounts make clear. “The group has been transformed from a heavily loss making business into a viable standalone concern which is now structured to at least break even on the 2012 level of activity,” it says.

Even after buying the business from the administrator, the new owner made further

cutbacks, of around 50 from production and 90 from office positions to leave 1,814 staff at the end of the year. Inventories have fallen by €43.5 million during the year, though still stood at €92.8 million at the end of the year.

However, orders in hand are €58.3 million, a smaller proportion of revenue than incoming orders for either Heidelberg or KBA, where orders for sheetfed presses are equivalent to around three months sales. While there were no salaries paid to the owners, Langley

Holdings invoiced €1.8 million as management charges and another Langley subsidiary, Claudius Peters Group, charged €166,000 as a management fee. Langley Holdings also received €2.5 million as interest at 5% on the €55 million loan to buy the business.

A further €3.3 million is owed by Manroland Sheetfed Manufacturing to Langley Holdings as management charges and interest. However, there is nil outstanding on a loan of €1.4 million to Manroland Sheetfed (UK) made during the year.

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InnovatIons & Investments


Khromatec takes on 14-hopper muller martini acoro perfect binderLincoLnshire finishing house Khromatec is installing a 14-hopper Muller Martini Acoro A5 perfect binder to give the Stallingborough business its first PUR binding capability. The installation follows on from investment in a MBO T800 folder at the end of last year. The folder replaced a smaller Stahl machine, but the Acoro is entirely new capacity.

Managing director Antony Boyes says: “I’ve been in a posi-tion where I’m turning work down because we couldn’t cope with the throughput. We have persuaded some customers towards lock binding because it’s stronger than perfect binding, but some have wanted PUR binding which we didn’t have.”

These customers have had to ship work across to Accrington,

to Scotland or south to North-ampton and even London to find suitable trade binders with PUR capacity. And that, says Boyes, is killing in terms of transport costs.

The company was the first in the UK with the Horizon CABS4000 perfect binder when it was installed in 2007, but this can only offer EVA gluing, not PUR. It is also not possible to feed uncollated landscape work which has meant an extra task making Khromatec too expen-sive to compete for this type of work. The Muller Martini fixes that as well as providing a huge leap in capacity for improved turnarounds on conventional gluing.

“The Acoro will feed land-scape work in line and has both options on the gluing, so we will

be a bit more competitive,” he says. While operators have been trained on the main part of the machine, the interchangeable PUR system, a nozzle unit rather than open tank, arrived after the main machine at the end of April with acclimatisation taking place this month. The side glue will remain hot melt.

The Acoro is a 5,000 cph machine taking a maximum of a 430mm long x 305mm deep book with a maximum spine thickness of 60mm. It will also change automatically to cope with different spine thicknesses.

The MBO folder replaced a B2 format Stahl and more than doubles the company’s B1 folding capacity. “It’s a fantas-tic machine,” he says. “It’s a lot faster and gives us two B1 folders.”

Boyes acknowledges that there is much to learn about the idiosyncrasies of PUR binding, not least the absolute impor-tance of good housekeeping to avoid waste. However, he is confident that there is a market for it from a customer base which extends from Newcastle, across to Manchester and cover-ing Nottinghamshire, West and South Yorkshire. “A lot of these have to send work a long way for PUR binding because trade houses that can offer the service are few and far between,” he says.

He is not currently looking beyond this investment, any more would need a larger build-ing, (“we are up to capacity here,” he notes) but inevitably the bulk of binding work will migrate to the newer machine.

UYR looks to agfa to follow up large format investUYr, a Pontefract full service print operation, has followed up investment in an Agfa Anapurna M4F large format flatbed printer with a second Agfa, the M2540FB UV printer and a Kasemake KM727A cutting table. The Agfa joins six rollfed machines producing POS for lamination and is the first direct to substrate machine the company has had.

With the extra volume and the need to bring back work that had been sent out for complex cutting, the decision to invest in inhouse cutting was straight-forward. Studio director Dan Prescott explains: “We were cutting A3 work internally with platens but all large board print-ing was being cut externally, so we investigated the available CNC cutting tables. Simultane-ously, we realised a need for an additional large format media

printer as our Agfa quickly got to a point that it was running at full capacity. It all came to a head when we won a large contract from Ideal Standard for POS designs. We calculated the external cost of cutting 500 POS designs that incorporated three individual boards per design would be in excess of £30,000.”

The table was in immediate use, saving the company an esti-

mated £5,000 immediately. And the facility is capable of coping with both longer production runs and has the flexibility to produce one-off prototypes, created using the associated V10 CAD software. This has been put to use designing work for night clubs, bowling alleys, bollard covers and at Christmas, handing star and snowflake mobiles for retail.

Rather than work in Illus-trator and taking four hours to produce a box design, designers are completing the same job in around ten minutes, a massive boost to capacity. Prototype turnaround is now reduced by three-quarters with a virtual version also being available for customer checking.

The group has developed a strong position among restaurant chains and night clubs working for the hard Rock Café, Walka-bout Bars, Frankie & Benny’s and Garfunkels among others, using web to print to enable local marketing campaigns which retain the brand identity of the chain. It also has a strong pres-ence in the education sector.

Its litho operation includes a B2 Speedmaster and recently acquired Sakurai 566. There is also an Indigo 3050 and Ineo 5500 for digital print.

UYR estimated it saved £5,000 immediately with the cutting table from Kasemake.


www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk May 2013 9

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Print2Pack-125x180mm-EN.indd 1 15/01/2013 13:58

Printcity ProMotes iMPortance of carton finishing techniquesThe PrinTCiTy Alliance is setting up a project to promote the importance of finishing techniques in carton produc-tion, for packaging that is produced either conventionally or on digital presses.

The Real Life Sample project is a follow up to the VAPack sample folder it introduced at Drupa.

It takes the idea of showing what can be done by way of foils, varnishes, embossing and debossing, and other effects to improve the impact of a carton, into demonstrating how this can be done.

The group has tied up with leafing carton producer AR Carton. The aim of this project is to give a realistic

demonstration of how high end finishing, creative shapes and forms, design and packing technology interact in the pack-aging sector and make a decisive contribution to brand building, positioning and value added.

“An extremely flexible production system, an innova-tive and visually very striking folding-carton design, and collaboration with a leading folding-carton manufacturer like AR Carton, open up new worlds,” says Lars Scheidweiler, product group manager for rigid packaging at Sappi Alfeld.

The first stage will focus on confectionery packaging to show the wide range of finishing options available while remain-ing within EU food compliance

regulations. The tutorials that will take place alongside the production demonstrations will explain the different design processes, material choices and well as the production parameters.

Subsequent stages will expand the project to cosmetics and high value beverages.

It aims to take specifiers through the complete chain from 3D visualisation and design to understanding the production implications.

The project will be launched publicly at the Packaging Inspiration Forum in Dussel-dorf later this month, an event which attracts designers, media producers, brand owners and printers.

The project will cover gravure, screen and flexo as well as litho production.

There will be access to a Gallus ICS 670 web press at the outset, with Océ’s InfiniStream digital carton press becoming available at a later stage. The companies that have pledged support span the range of the industry from design and repro to finishing and include new participants to the organisation.

Rainer Kuhn, managing director of the PrintCity Alli-ance, says: “We’re delighted to be able to realise such a compre-hensive project with this ‘who’s who’ of the packaging industry. And we’re particularly pleased to welcome all the new partners in our alliance.”



Fujifilm’s first sheetfed inkjet press is austrian screen printerEuropE’s first usEr of Fujifilm’s sheetfed inkjet press is a screen printer with experience of wide format inkjet printing, but none of litho production.

The company is Arian, a 200-employee business which operates from a 21,000m2 plant in Gleisdorf, near Graz and close to the Slovenian and Hungarian borders in south east Austria. Its main fire power has been four five-colour screen presses to a 3.3 x 2 metre format, the largest such capacity in Europe. This is backed up by three single-colour screen machines and both reel to reel solvent inkjet presses and UV flatbed machines. And now the B2 format Jet Press 720.

This will support demand for personalised high quality point of sale print, work which it has had to outsource until now. CEO Stephan Kollegger says: “With customer satisfaction such a high priority, we wanted to offer the same kind of service levels on jobs we were outsourc-ing to offset as our mainstream in house POP and POS work, but this proved impossible. Our ability to turn jobs around

quickly on the Jet Press 720 now helps us fulfil this goal.”

The Austrian company is an existing Fujifilm customer, sourcing its screen inks from the Japanese supplier over many years. As well as POP displays, designed and printed in house, it produces both outdoor and point of sale print and self adhesive products, working for internationally known brands. Its line up of digital machines already includes Agfa’s MPress Tiger flatbed and Dotrix UV inkjet presses and most recently an HP LX 850 latex printer.

The press arrived in Austria in December was was installed in the new year. Fujifilm has been keen to keep the custom-er’s identity under wraps until now. In the same vein it is not identifying the next group of European customers, though has argued that it can produce a compelling business ration-ale for the 2,700 sheet an hour press. While the Kollegger has nothing but praise for the Fuji team installing and commission-ing the press and dealing with “the inevitable issues to address along the way”.

At Arian the sweet spot for the press is anticipated to be between 200 and 500 sheets, though this may grow, says technical director Bernd Büchel “as we put more print through the machine. We are also very keen to explore the personalisa-tion and versioning that we can now do with the variable data XMF module recently installed, as over 80% of our work is exported and we have many multi-lingual jobs requiring versioning coming through”.

The immediate task for Arian is now to increase the volume of work being handled to justify a move to two shift operation over the summer. There will also be discussion between supplier, printer and the printer’s customers about what other applications might be suitable for the small format press. “We often invest in digital presses and end up using them for many more applications than first anticipated. We expect the same will happen with the Jet Press 720. We look forward to working with Fujifilm during this process,” says Kollegger.

the Fujifilm press will support demand for high quality Pos work, which until now arian had to outsource.

KPM installs Ricoh PRo c901 foR MoRe caPacityKpM, a BroMlEy print and mailing house, has installed a Ricoh Pro C901, joining four mono and a smaller colour machine.

The new press was installed as part of a strategic plan to increase capacity and flexibility as well as to cope with growth which, according to opera-tions director Graeme Burton reached 40% over 2011. “And this is set to continue this year,” he says. “We needed a machine that could handle larger volume

full-colour personalised projects. Colour consistency during runs has always been a problem with previous vendor offer-ings, but the C901 continues to impress with its excellent colour management and flexibility of substrates.”

The company intends to target financial, public sector and a range of commercial custom-ers with the additional capacity, anticipating that the extra fire-power will put KPM in good stead when pitching for contracts.

PJ Print’s switch to Fujifilm’s HD Pro-t3 processless plate is a successipswich printEr pJ Print is delighted with its decision to switch to Fujifilm’s HD Pro-T3 processless plate. Managing director Ben Perkins explains: “We were experiencing ever-decreasing consistency in our print quality, so at the end of 2012 we decided to review our production. Key objectives were to ensure proven colour match-ing capabilities and speed up our make ready times.”

This process led to Mayday Graphics and to an examination of the Fuji processless plate. And the benefits have been

immediate. “Not only have Fujifilm and Mayday Graph-ics helped us to implement a flawless colour control and calibration process, but we’ve also streamlined our produc-tion and significantly improved efficiencies. We have eliminated the processor and associated chemistry, water and waste and there are no longer issues with colour consistency and quality. And the amount of impressions we can achieve today is dramati-cally higher. As a consequence we can print different jobs more quickly and efficiently.”



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Benson Box rolls out print on speedMaster xl106 after trialsBenson Box is starting to print on its six-colour plus coater Heidelberg Speed master XL106. Trials were taking place last month ahead of training and full production. It is the first press investment following the Mark Kerridge and Nick Benson led management buyout at the end of 2011 and will boost production capacity at the Bardon plant.

The press replaces a Roland 706, leaving it with a single Roland and an otherwise all Heidelberg line up, two of which are older CD presses. The other two are Speedmaster XL105s, the first installed in 2007. These have been printing 46 million B1 sheets a year. Says managing director Kerridge: “With the various improve-ments on this latest model, the Speedmaster XL 106, we antici-pate an even higher output still. The Bardon site already gener-ates a £50m turnover but with this additional capacity it could see further growth still.”

Benson confirmed the order for the press at Drupa last year. The machine is rated at 18,000sph. While this is the first press ordered since the buy out, the Bardon plant has installed

a Diana X folder-gluer, its first finishing line from Heidelberg.

The new press will be running alcohol free from the off and is specified for low migration inks from Stehlin Hostag. It also features Prinect Axis Control and will be aimed at achieving ISO 12647-2 once bedded in. Benson was the first UK printer to attain the BPIF/UKAS ISO standard for carton work.

Installation has been achieved alongside existing presses without impacting the plant’s ability to print 20 million cartons a week according to operations manager, David Midgley. “Our current suite of presses need to be running their regular 24/6 print schedule while the new machine is being assembled and fine tuned, but it will be a great bonus for us once it has been bedded in and is in full production.”

Elsewhere in the group, Benson Gateshead has invested in a system to produce flexo coating plates in house, cutting down on time and cost to produce the specialist plate. The system, Aquaflex 900F inline flexo plate processor, A1 plus exposure unit, bag and ceramic filtration systems and a dry film

imaging system based around an Epson 9890 inkjet printer, has been supplied by Dantex Graphics.

The completed plate is mounted on the coating units of the company’s four Komori Lithrones, one of which was the UK’s first Lithrone SX40 when installed in the Gateshead factory. Previously plates had either been provided by a trade supplier or else had been hand-cut blankets. Now the outline of the plate is imaged on the Epson and this is used as film contacted to the NVO 114 Aquaflex Varnica water-wash coating plate and then processed. It takes 40 minutes end to end to deliver a plate.

Operations manager Lee Appleby says: “This system gives us a tremendous advan-tage in terms of the time it takes to create a plate for the coating unit. Using an outside supplier it would not be uncommon to have a 24-hour turnaround – that’s not too bad if you have sufficient advance warning of the need to create a new plate, but that is often not the case.

“With our customers having ever more demanding deliv-ery schedules it is a significant benefit to have control over the production of this part of the process. The plates produced are also highly durable – we have already had one plate running in excess of 1 million impres-sions – and produce excellent, consistent quality on the run.”

The site produces food packaging and has found that customers, particularly the supermarkets have been looking to use coatings to help achieve on shelf impact.

The chosen system offers environmental benefits over a solvent based flexo plate system and through on site production cuts down on the driving miles associated with using an exter-nal supplier.

Installation of the XL106 underway last month.

magazine Printing Company replaces three folders with Heidelberg KH66The Magazine Printing Company has replaced one of its three Shoei folders with a Heidelberg KH66 in the antici-pation of greater throughput.

Managing director Tony

Stokes says: “We believe we will get at least 10% more productivity, greater machine reliability and the security of Heidelberg back-up if anything goes wrong.”

The company remains a busy magazine printer handling 280 titles with an average run of 5,000 each, some weeklies, some monthlies. It tries to handle all production in house and conse-

quently has a well equipped bindery with ten-station saddle stitcher and 16-hopper perfect binder, both from Muller Martini. Prepress is from Agfa running to process free plates.



Ricoh launches digital pRint engine with high colouR gaMutRicoh is launching a new digital print engine with a higher colour gamut than its popular Pro C651/751, but with a lower monthly duty cycle.

The Pro C5110 is a 80ppm four-colour printer which is being introduced this month across Europe, appearing at North Print & Pack this week. “There is a requirement for a production class digital press with a smaller footprint and for a lower volume user,” says Ricoh Europe development manager Graham Moore. “The low volume production user still demands exceptional print quality, but production speed is less important. It’s about print on demand and a reasonable total cost of ownership.”

The press is pitched both at the smaller commercial printer making a first move into digital printing, at the inplant depart-ment where there are increasing demands for new services and at agencies looking to produce small volumes of print inhouse. Heidelberg has been looking at the press but has made no announcement about whether to include this a new model in its Linoprint C range.

There are two versions of the machine. The first is the C5110, which is capable of 80ppm on 80gsm paper and slows on heavier stocks, to 56ppm above 150gsm and 36ppm above 220gsm. The second is the C5100S, which includes a document scanner and is rated at a maximum print speed of 65ppm.

Both use a 1,200 x 4,800dpi VCSEL laser imaging system and a new PXP EQ toner. This offers a 10% increased colour gamut with much of the improvement coming in the cyan area. The toner will also fuse at a lower temperature so can handle a broader range of

substrates. Two versions of the EFI Fiery server are offered, the E42B and less powerful E22B. Both also fit into Ricoh’s Total-flow workflow.

A new flexible transfer belt has a changed softer surface which offers a better toner transfer on textured materials thanks to adjustable pressure on the belt. The volume of toner laid down will vary according to the paper profile stored in a library of profiles. These can be obtained from Ricoh or created on site by users. The thinness of the toner provides a close match to litho quality.

The printer is also capable of printing long banner materials, up to 1260mm in length. This also allows the new machine to print wrap around covers for books and photo albums.

Ricoh has included ease of use features appreciating that users are more likely to be casual users than full time operators. There are 12 operator replace-able components to reduce the need for service calls and LED lights guide a user to a fault or

paper jam. The home screen interface is customisable to show a corporate logo or according to a user preference, set though log on data. Toner can be replen-

ished while the machine is in operation.

A number of configura-tions are offered, with different paper trays and inline finishing arrangements to include Plock-matic bookletmaker or GBC stream punch.

The Pro C5110 is aimed at a market sector already served by the Pro C651, but which is also continuing to grow rapidly. Ricoh sees further growth coming as inplant opera-tions take on more and more marketing material that would previously have been placed with outside suppliers and as demands on them to justify their place in an organisation increase. Research that Ricoh quotes points to an 11% increase in colour digital press placements between 2012 and 2015, with 80% of these coming in the light production space.

“While we have the Pro C651/751 in this space, there’s still an opportunity within the segment for a digital press that meets changing market require-ments,” says Moore.

the Pro C5110 is pitched at the smaller commercial printer making a first move into digital. “While we have the Pro C651/751 in this space, there is still an opportunity for a digital press that meets changing requirements,” says Ricoh’s Graham moore.



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marcommsCentral gains more exposureRicoh is beginning to show off the MarcomsCentral variable data print and cross media application it gained when investing in US developer PTI last year and has upgraded its Totalflow production management system.

This gains an enhanced preflight system, Totalflow Prep, with revamped user interface. Print management is an enhancement to the exist-ing feature to control print across multiple devices and also has a new interface. Taken together these form the basis of the entry level Production Manager, designed for cutsheet operations. Totalflow Path offers the means to integrate the production workflow with outside applications, an MIS for example. It is an object oriented programming environment which should make it affordable and fast to build a bridge and

transfer data from one applica-tion to Totalflow and vica versa.

The MarcomsCentral appli-cation is due for commercial release later this year, but is already being demonstrated to potential customers. It is a Saas application with a subscription model and which uses Path to integrate to Totalflow.

It is designed to manage a B2B portal to enable an end customer to modify and person-alise templates, to create a direct mail campaign fed from a csv file or database.

“It will act as a conventional web to print application, but is really a marketing fulfilment tool,” says Moore. As such it is as capable of managing an online campaign as a print campaign, or using QR codes or similar devices to link to a Purl to capture additional personal data and to stimulate a demand for more communication.

AgfA hAs ReleAsed Apogee 8, a new version of its production workflow that includes enhancements aimed at the needs of volume print producers.

It runs on a 64-bit Windows Server, taking advantage of the features that the powerful architecture provides, including full advantage of virtualisation software.

Improvements to imposition-ing will make best use of a web press with account taken of web width, cutting slitting, folding and binding that may follow printing and automatically generating the ideal imposition to match these parameters.

There is also a much tighter integration with Apogee Store-Front, Agfa’s cloud based web to print application. This allows

a user to quickly create differ-ent storefronts for individual customers to manage both print and non-print products. Once an order is placed via the browser, it is taken into Apogee automatically with no need for operator intervention and a hands off workflow.

A ‘merge jobs’ function will bring together jobs which share paper type or ink set to either impose them on the same sheet or else to run them consecu-tively to minimise makeready.

The Preflight function has been enhanced to improve colour management, checking that the correct colour profiles have been attached to the job. Incorrect profiles are correctly automatically and will also change if the output device changes.

agfa apogee 8 addresses the needs of volume print producers



Xerox developed 8250 for niche market of transactional printXeroX believes it has identified a niche for a cutsheet press aimed at the transactional print market. The machine is the 8250, a machine which is based on the iGen 4, but which does not carry the iGen name.

This is because the iGen products, including the Diamond version, are intended for commercial print applica-tions and Xerox does not want to confuse this sector of the market.

The new machine has been tuned specifically for transac-tional and transpromo print, offering only a 110lpi resolu-tion, printing on only uncoated stocks, what Xerox calls “plain paper”, at a maximum format of 572mm and producing 137ppm, 8250 pages per hour, with a 220gsm ceiling. It is also using the toner initially devel-oped for the iGen4, but which has since been superseded by a finer quality toner for that press.

Xerox is also taking the unusual step of supplying toner as a cost item, not as part of the click charge. There remains a monthly charge to cover service and maintenance, but the toner is now paid for separately. Again this will have the impact of discouraging users of the 8250 from taking on high ink cover-age commercial jobs as the sweet

spot for this method of costing is going to be below 25% toner coverage.

It also ties in with how transactional printers are used to operating as the machine is targeted at this user base. According to Xerox it is intended to fit below the start point for continuous feed inkjet and above normal high quality cut sheet machines, like its own iGen family, in terms of productivity.

Perhaps experience has shown some of these printers have been reluctant to move into inkjet colour because of a perceived high initial cost and lack of immediate demand from a conservative customer base.

Xerox also has a market of mono and highlight colour users operating Docutech and Nuvera mono presses in these sectors where the 8250 will offer a

route into colour for reports and manuals as well as invoices and statements where what is called “business colour” is adequate quality.

However, Xerox points to research predicting that the number of colour pages printed digital is growing at a 24% compound annual growth rate from 2009 to 2021 by which time 1.2 trillion pages a year will be printed digitally. The oppor-tunity in transactional printing remains in substituting litho preprint on reels with white paper, saving in stock which is thrown out after becoming outdated, in warehouse costs and in turnaround time.

“The 8250 joins an expand-ing portfolio of colour presses to meet a variety of needs and volumes in the cutsheet world,” says Kevin Horey, VP Xerox developed products. “There is

also the continuous feed xero-graphic and inkjet products, which is currently a market which is exploding. Between them lies a an area of opportu-nity for us.

In the inkjet space capital acquisition costs are high so printers need volumes of 60-80 million pages a month. In cut sheet there are printers with high volumes of pages, but not enough to justify a continuous feed press. They want to stay with a cut sheet workflow, but want to produce more.”

The duty cycle of the new machine is between 800,000 and 4 million pages a month. It links to the Xerox Freeflow workflow and will accept any language file formats natively. There are also options for the number of feed trays and a wide range of options on finishing.

Limiting the paper to uncoated stocks both takes the strain off the fusing unit and provides a longer life for replaceable components, so reducing servicing costs.

The basic machine sells for $585,000, which is around the same price as the standard iGen4, whose print engine it shares. Total cost of ownership will mean a page cost of below 3.5¢, though this is dependent on toner coverage.

the 8250 has been specifically tuned for transactional and transpromo print and is designed to print on ‘plain paper’.

New igeN DiaMoND eDitioN siMplifies job set upXeroX has also released the iGen4 Diamond edition, aiming to simplify job set up and increase production time. It borrows features that have been developed for the iGen150, launched at Drupa. These include the colour maintenance application which is claimed as a significant step forward on the methods needed to ensure

colour consistency previously. The press runs an automated routine to set up the press for a job, alerting the operator when the press is ready to run. Registration also gains further automation to reduce paper positioning issues. Integrated-Plus is a protocol which delivers data to a JDF enabled booklet-maker for automated set up.

autoRegister system from Kama now available after Drupa previewKama has released the AutoRegister system it previewed at Drupa. Rather than register along the side edge as much finishing equipment is designed to do, cameras and positioning shifting front grip-pers, register on the image, as the sheet is fed into the ProCut die cutter. It is accurate to 0.1mm Kama claims.

The German manufac-turer clearly has an eye on the budding market for short run and especially digitally printed packaging. The first applica-tion was on the B3 device. Now it becomes available on the B2 ProCut 76 machine, hitting the sweet spot for digital packaging as a number of presses are jock-eying for position in this sector.

Colour management


Almost 20 yeArs after desktop publishing arrived, one of the biggest bugbears of the working processes it spawned remains colour management. With desktop publishing came an explosion of printing devices from desktop laser and inkjet machines, through different flavours of so-called proofing machines and now to on press colour controls, able to keep a press in balance and matching the colour standards set.

And these standards have developed alongside computing power and more complex print designs and brand colours.

At the head is the ISO 12647-2 standard for sheetfed printing on coated papers and targets like Fogra’s 39, 39L for coated papers and others for uncoated grades, newsprint and so on. There are also targets for digital printing and loosely drawn standards for digital presses.

the mix hAs provoked a requirement for colour manage-ment software, either from the major companies, or from specialist independent develop-ers. The latter is led by Alwan, CGS and GMG, all of which can manage the fourth black channel as well as the three channels that a standard RGB-CMY ICC profile will work with. Colour server technology handles the transforms from an input colour space to an output colour space helped by DeviceLink profiles, which describe the conversion necessary to move from a colour source to the defined colour space, namely the ISO standard or profile for that press and that paper.

Thus a printer will need either to automate the selec-tion of the DeviceLink profiles in some way, or else have to

manage what can become a vast database of profiles, often with similar sounding names.

A further problem will be when a new device is added to the network, requiring a whole series of calibrations to profile each of the papers that printer might use on the new device. The same applies when a press goes out of balance in some way, because the inks are changed perhaps. While colour manage-ment works, it is hard work managing it.

However, a new breed of applications is now reaching maturity which promises to both simplify colour manage-ment and take away the stresses. Fuji has Colourpath as a cloud application to assess submit-ted readings and monitor that a press stays within the tolerances needed for ISO quality work. If the colour has wandered, a correction curve for the plate-setter is supplied.

GMG’s Production Suite takes its colour expertise into the wide format sector with all the variety of substrates and print-ing system that that entails and Pantone Plus delivers a means of communicating colour from one printer to another, again via servers in the cloud.

Kodak’s approach is different

again and predates these tech-nologies, announced for Drupa last year. Kodak introduced Colourflow in 2008 to a some-what muted reception. It called the software ‘colour relationship management’ because the aim was to align colour output across the different output devices that a company might have.

With delays in bringing the software to market, Kodak’s well documented financial problems and probably a lack of understanding of what Colour-flow might do, the power of the software has been overlooked. Not by Sam Nicholson in the UK who has been evangelising the tool and implementing it to solve colour output problems with Kodak customers. One of the drawbacks to the software is that it needs to be part of a Prinergy workflow, and also that the low list price disguises its impact.

As An exAmple Nicholson points to the problems that users of the Prosper 5000XL have had in printing predictable colour output at both Howitts and beta site Howard Hunt. Nicholson introduced Colourflow almost as another attempt at a solution and without great expectations of success. But he says even he was stunned when previous colour problems seemed to melt away. “We tried it, profiled half a dozen papers and it brought the press under control,” he says. “Colour has been some-thing of a black art. Colourflow takes that away.”

In practice, the first step is to turn off everything on a device that is used to manage colour. “Everything has to be completely linear,” he explains. “Then you print the test chart, which because there

is no attempt to control how it appears, will almost certainly be flat, inaccurate and absolutely unacceptable.

Reading the figures into Colourflow, however, results in a conversion algorithm for that paper and device which is stored and which hits the set target. A device can be profiled almost in minutes, probably a couple of hours realistically.” Any changes to output quality are noticeable immediately and a re profiling will result in a corrected algo-rithm which does not affect any of the other settings in the system.

In short says Nicholson, the devices on the network are always talking to each other, so long as those devices remain linear. “This is because we always know how the output device will render that job,” he explains. “It delivers remarkable results. There is no need for the operators to really understand colour theory, CIELab and the like. There are very few editing tools. If the press moves out of balance, it’s a matter of stop, make new plates, measure the result and everything that the press communicates with will automatically update settings.”

other printers are begin-ning to adopt it, particularly in mixed shops where litho and digital sit against each other and a customer expects the results to be identical regardless of process and substrate. Other developers are also active and can point to successful implementations. Perhaps the different approach Colourflow takes and behind it the new approaches that others are taking towards eliminat-ing the black art of colour may finally demystify the process once and for all.

Colourflow May deMystify the blaCk art of digital Colour

Colourflow has been successful on the Prosper 5000.

Cover story


There is a pop up banner in the reception area of Optichrome’s factory in Woking which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the print busi

ness. On one wall is a large photo of staff and a helium balloon of the figure 50, also recording the fact that in 1963 Optichrome was registered as a limited company by Ken Stephens. For much of the time, however, Ted Stephens, now chairman, has been in charge and daughter Natalie, currently marketing director, is positioned to take independent family ownership into a third generation.

There are a host of events planned for this year to mark the anniversary: a client day at Windsor Races was a success, staff fun day this month and an open day is planned for July. It is clear that Optichrome is justifiably proud to have reached a landmark that few of its contemporaries have achieved and which in modern times is increasingly rare. And the company continues to thrive, morphing with the technology and the times to continue to serve a customer base which has in many instances been with the business for many years.

Artist And cArtoonist Richard Cole, for example, is Optichrome’s longest standing customer and uses the company for all his prints. There is a case bound book of beautifully moody and printed mono photographs, its title London debossed in gold on the white cover. It is being used to sell a top end property development in London to a clientele that has no need of mortgages. The company is handling more of this type of work, befitting its reputation as one of the best quality litho printers in the London area.

But there is more to the business than this. Optichrome is also a leading digital printer with Kodak colour and mono sheetfed machines and the Xeikon colour engine.

There is a growing volume of variable data work, particularly for the financial services sector as well as more straightforward short run work.

The latest investment is the UK’s first Xeikon 8500 digital press, which it installed last year, and Stephens is now mulling a new offset machine. “Ten years ago I made a prediction that we would never buy another litho press,” he says.

However, tHe rAte of advances digital print technology has slowed and the decision has to be made. It is made trickier because, just as customers are loyal to Optichrome, the company has been loyal to its suppliers over the years. Its oldest supplier is Kodak, followed by paper merchant EBB and then Manroland from whom Stephens reckons to have bought more than 100 units over the half century.

The relationship began when he was at Twickenham College studying lithography with Frank Werkmeister whose

family owned Pershke Price Service, then the Roland agent for the UK. It continued through Favorits, Rekords, the Roland 300 and now Roland 700s. But while admiring what current owner Tony Langley has done in stripping out costs and as an Englishman generating a profit from a German engineering business, there is frustration that Langley runs the business at arm’s length. “I want to be able to look him in the eye and ask about future development of the presses,” says Stephens.

so fAr tHAt meeting hasn’t happened, though the decision to continue to invest is an indication that Stephens is realistic for the future of print and for the company. “We are not falsely confident,” he says. “We are quietly confident. There will be growth in things like 3D printing or scratch and sniff interaction, but these will be peripheral small markets. I’d like us to look at short run packaging again.”

A decade or so ago, the company had a project for multipack cartoning for yoghurt. By printing litho it was able to shave a huge amount of time from artwork design to packaging for short run samples for consumer testing in the supermarkets of Swindon over the previous process.

“Packaging is never going to go away. It has guaranteed longevity. Books on the other hand are under threat. That’s sad because books are among my favourite things. There are people that love the tactile feel and the quality of a book, but I can’t really see that book printing will be there for another generation,” he explains.

opticHrome HAs itself invested in lay flat binding equipment for high quality presentation of short run volumes, so the demise of the book is not imminent, nor are other forms of print even if the company is keeping pace with technological change.

FiFtynot out

optichrome has made no secret of the fact it is celebrating 50

years of print. one of the key factors in its success is chairman’s ted stephens clear

managerial vision.

Cover story


There is a pop up banner in the reception area of Optichrome’s factory in Woking which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the print busi

ness. On one wall is a large photo of staff and a helium balloon of the figure 50, also recording the fact that in 1963 Optichrome was registered as a limited company by Ken Stephens. For much of the time, however, Ted Stephens, now chairman, has been in charge and daughter Natalie, currently marketing director, is positioned to take independent family ownership into a third generation.

There are a host of events planned for this year to mark the anniversary: a client day at Windsor Races was a success, staff fun day this month and an open day is planned for July. It is clear that Optichrome is justifiably proud to have reached a landmark that few of its contemporaries have achieved and which in modern times is increasingly rare. And the company continues to thrive, morphing with the technology and the times to continue to serve a customer base which has in many instances been with the business for many years.

Artist And cArtoonist Richard Cole, for example, is Optichrome’s longest standing customer and uses the company for all his prints. There is a case bound book of beautifully moody and printed mono photographs, its title London debossed in gold on the white cover. It is being used to sell a top end property development in London to a clientele that has no need of mortgages. The company is handling more of this type of work, befitting its reputation as one of the best quality litho printers in the London area.

But there is more to the business than this. Optichrome is also a leading digital printer with Kodak colour and mono sheetfed machines and the Xeikon colour engine.

There is a growing volume of variable data work, particularly for the financial services sector as well as more straightforward short run work.

The latest investment is the UK’s first Xeikon 8500 digital press, which it installed last year, and Stephens is now mulling a new offset machine. “Ten years ago I made a prediction that we would never buy another litho press,” he says.

However, tHe rAte of advances digital print technology has slowed and the decision has to be made. It is made trickier because, just as customers are loyal to Optichrome, the company has been loyal to its suppliers over the years. Its oldest supplier is Kodak, followed by paper merchant EBB and then Manroland from whom Stephens reckons to have bought more than 100 units over the half century.

The relationship began when he was at Twickenham College studying lithography with Frank Werkmeister whose

family owned Pershke Price Service, then the Roland agent for the UK. It continued through Favorits, Rekords, the Roland 300 and now Roland 700s. But while admiring what current owner Tony Langley has done in stripping out costs and as an Englishman generating a profit from a German engineering business, there is frustration that Langley runs the business at arm’s length. “I want to be able to look him in the eye and ask about future development of the presses,” says Stephens.

so fAr tHAt meeting hasn’t happened, though the decision to continue to invest is an indication that Stephens is realistic for the future of print and for the company. “We are not falsely confident,” he says. “We are quietly confident. There will be growth in things like 3D printing or scratch and sniff interaction, but these will be peripheral small markets. I’d like us to look at short run packaging again.”

A decade or so ago, the company had a project for multipack cartoning for yoghurt. By printing litho it was able to shave a huge amount of time from artwork design to packaging for short run samples for consumer testing in the supermarkets of Swindon over the previous process.

“Packaging is never going to go away. It has guaranteed longevity. Books on the other hand are under threat. That’s sad because books are among my favourite things. There are people that love the tactile feel and the quality of a book, but I can’t really see that book printing will be there for another generation,” he explains.

opticHrome HAs itself invested in lay flat binding equipment for high quality presentation of short run volumes, so the demise of the book is not imminent, nor are other forms of print even if the company is keeping pace with technological change.

FiFtynot out

optichrome has made no secret of the fact it is celebrating 50

years of print. one of the key factors in its success is chairman’s ted stephens clear

managerial vision.

Cover Story


“The cross media stuff will come naturally,” Stephens says. “Some customers ask us to handle email blasts and others want detailed data management of databases and to ensure the security of these databases.”

The company offers this and responds when the standards move and buyers need extra reassurance. It is working towards ISO 27001 for example. Around the building, security is tight with access restricted areas and firewalls in place. And Stephens says this sort of work is worth pursuing. “There’s no doubt that complex programming for digital printing adds more value. We like complex-ity because it means that you are adding value. Once something becomes easy for everyone to do, they will do it and that drives down the price because there is no other mechanism to sell on.”

There is a twice a year job that amounts to 40,000 personalised fully variable 28pp reports and printed on the Xeikon. This is not the sort of job that a company investing in its first digital press can walk into. Behind the order are the designers and program-

mers to work with the customer to shape the data and the content through the Pageflex and Kodak Darwin systems to drive the print engines. Nor is this is the sort of job where Optichrome has to offer the cheap-est price.

ThaT lack of sTraTegy is one reason why many companies fail, he says, and in 50 years Stephens has seen a lot of companies fail. After Twickenham College in the early 1960s where his final disserta-tion was on the subject of process control in the printing industry, he enrolled on a management course at Slough, equivalent to today’s MBA programmes. There the inde-pendently minded student developed his nascent taste for entrepreneurship.

He returned to the family small offset business determined to forge out on his own, but instead was persuaded to stay and help develop Optichrome. At that time colour repro was at least as important as print for the business. Gradually Optichrome replaced small offset presses as the busi-

ness expanded with Solnas and then Roland Favorits through the 1970s and 1980s. It then embarked on a number of industry firsts, the first four-colour plus coater Favorit for example, but more important was innova-tion in prepress where Optichrome became the first in the world with a batch of Hell equipment for colour retouching, full page make up and one-piece film imaging.

It was also in the vanguard of companies using computers and these were deployed to implement the ideas about process control in print that Stephens had developed a decade earlier. This was the Optichrome Multi User System, or Optimus as it became known. It was the first print MIS to be created around production management rather than adapted from an accountancy package.

IT was also among The fIrsT to develop a shop floor data collection device to improve the collection of work in progress information. This came after Stephens was asked to help a computer industry start up that had a promising technology and a

Natalie Stephens is the third generation to join the family business started by ted Stephens’ father in 1963. She is currently in charge of marketing under her father’s chairmanship.

Cover story


complete absence of management skills. He imposed order on the software develop-ers, acting he recalls like a strict headmaster in order to corral the apt to be distracted Oxford graduates.

That experience is now coming full circle as the print company is looking at ways it can act as an incubator to young business entre-preneurs who cannot get backing elsewhere.

“It will be about working with creative people who can be difficult to manage. We can provide homes for these sorts of start ups that don’t have the resources to invest themselves. We might invest in them to see if different ideas from different ideas from different industries can help us in the future,” he explains.

Internally OptIchrOme contin-ues to take on apprentices, albeit not for the five-years craft oriented training that used to be necessary for a finisher, composi-tor or printer to learn his craft. At one time around 10% of the staff might be under-going some kind of training with college day release helping to acquire and hone the necessary skills. Now training is provided inhouse with external assessors or by equip-ment suppliers. Outside providers help keep the programmers up to speed on the more involved applications the business has to run.

The people in the business, from the receptionist and kitchen staff through the factory remain the crucial asset. It ensures that things are done properly. People are greeted at reception, are provided refresh-ments when they arrive and will be supplied with lunch if the time is right. “Not many printers still employ a receptionist let alone someone in the kitchen these days, and we still make a profit,” Stephens points out. “When as a customer you buy into Opti-chrome you are buying into the people and the confidence that we will get the job done and that if we don’t get it right, we will do it again for you.

“We have a culture of can-do which flows through the company.”

It prOvIdes the basIs for the long term customer relationships the company has built up. Natalie Stephens concurs having seen for herself at the Windsor Races event that “the relationships that have been forged between customers and our staff is fantastic”.

Optichrome is concentrating hard to achieve Emas certification. This is now on its final lap and it will put the company among a select band of printers with the environ-mental management gold standard, and

something else that customers are beginning to look for.

Ted Stephens attributes the longevity of Optichrome to a core set of values that places management skills at the centre of the business. And while he is a born entrepre-neur it is a drive he exercises carefully. The company has been built carefully, Stephens taking care to measure and monitor every aspect of the business, provided by the Optimus MIS. (Optimus itself was sold through a management buyout though continues to reside in the Maybury Road building).

There can be no surprises. “It’s been about good old fashioned management skills, never believing that you have arrived but that you still have to get there, nor believ-ing the flattering comments you receive,” he says. “For example, the balance sheets of almost every company that has fallen into trouble since the 1990 recession will show that in the couple of years that the share-holders took money out of the company.”

he Is a keen cOllectOr of balance sheets, from those of rival companies and those of potential acquisitions. It is like being a football fan he says, and not knowing how rival teams are performing, who is scoring and so on. This data allows Opti-chrome to benchmark its own performance.

Down the years Optichrome has been a frequent buyer of companies, Stephens reckoning that he has completed 13 or 14 such deals, some larger than others. These days acquisitions bring new business into the company to compensate for declining print runs and erosion elsewhere and to add technology, ideas and sales staff into the company.

the fIrst deal was nOt quIte like this. It was at the time that Robert Maxwell was in his pomp and had inspired others to emulate the slash and burn takeover tactics the Bouncing Czech adopted. Bourne Press was advertised for sale in the Daily Telegraph after its millionaire owner Tom Simpson realised that its largest customer, British Rail, for whom it printed the age-old pink board tickets, was moving to magnetic strip technology, stripping 35% of the revenue base. Rather than reinvest, the business was put up for sale and the Stephens bought the company sight unseen from its flamboyant owner. “I wanted to do a business turna-round without having to be a bastard,” he says. Other deals followed. However, rather than retain different sites when recession hit in the 1990s Optichrome consolidated on its purpose built Woking site, relying on the

Cover Story


power of its Roland 700s. It has been a case of being flexible and adapting to circum-stances. “I started becoming very worried again in 2005 when youngsters were being offered 110% mortgages. Something was going wrong, and because by 2007 I couldn’t find a technology that would make a differ-ence, I decided we would have to run for cash. Now there is a substantial cash reserve in the business.”

There are no yachTs or palaces on the Mediterranean. Instead the profits have been kept in the company rather than being taken from it. It is he admits something of a Victorian attitude towards the business and the people in it.

The attitude was at least partly informed by a mistrust of the City formed in boyhood when a friend’s father was instigator of a major scandal of those years. “I’ve always felt that the trouble with City people is that they are making money by using other people’s money,” he says.

Of the companies Optichrome has acquired, he says: “Without exception, all those companies had a short term view. When in the 1980s things were going well, anybody could make money,” he says. It was a time when litho printing flourished and in there were a clutch of companies in around the London and Surrey borders that

produced high quality sheetfed work, CTD, Alderson Brothers and Midas Press along-side Optichrome. All the others have gone.

And recession has had an impact on company values also. The most recent acquisition was being watched for five or more years, but valuations were too high. “The owners are getting ten times less now than had they sold before the recession,” he says. “You have to buy companies at a price that allows you to run them. It always takes two or three years to sort things out with a takeover.”

With the industry continuing to shrink, Optichrome will need to continue to buy businesses in order to bring in the sales to drive volumes of work through the business. It has no intention of being on the wrong end of industry consolidation.

“IT would be nIce To geT supply and demand balanced for a good few years,” says Stephens. That, as he knows, is unlikely to happen. Instead consolidation will continue and the challenge is to take advantage of that while staying true to the company’s business culture.

That part should not be difficult. The attitudes, the systems and the approach that has stood Optichrome in good stead for its first 50 years will provide the basis for the next chapter. n

People form the cornerstone of optichrome and Stephens sees staff as an asset, not a cost. “How many printers still employ a receptionist, let alone someone in the kitchen?” Customers are greeted at reception, provided with refreshments and lunch, if the time is right.

Web to print


Jim Todd, sales director of Heidel-berg UK, knows that web to print is big. Addressing the question of shrinking volumes of paper sold by

the UK’s paper merchants at the NAPM’s annual forum last month, he estimated that 3-4% of the volume lost in the last five years is because giant web to print operations in Europe have stolen this volume from UK printers.

The culprits start with Vistaprint, which has a plant at Venlo in Holland and four German printers, Unitedprint, Online Printers, Flyer Alarm and Saxoprint. The latter has 23 presses split between KBA and Heidelberg machines including eight-unit perfecting Speedmaster XL162 presses. It is big business, attracting work from small businesses, charities, local organisations and even printers that are using the web to print giants to print at prices that they cannot match.

Many GerMan printers have all but ceased to chase flyers, business cards and folded leaflets, and Todd is convinced that the same is happening in the UK, hence the calculation that as much as 4% of paper shipped into the UK is coming with print already on it.

And there is no UK company able to compare with these operations, no UK company which has created websites to attract buyers from overseas countries with local languages, support and URLs and no UK company able to match their prices.

Nevertheless web to print is permeating the industry, even if there are many, many companies that have not yet taken their first step into doing business online. There

is a lingering belief that customer service always requires personal contact, but this is false. For many standard items, the better customer service is a means of making the order placement process easier, online and transparent. Nobody wants to pick up the phone to order another 5,000 copies of the form or leaflet received last week. Paul Deane, joint managing director of MIS provider Shuttleworth, puts it succinctly: “Web to print is about connection and communication with your customers, it’s about how you can add value to the rela-tionship, how you can make it easier for a customer to do business with you rather than with your competitors.”

tharstern sales ManaGer Lee Ward concurs: “If a printer simply posi-tions his services based on quality, price and ‘we are really nice to deal with’ he is missing out on changing the relationship with exist-ing and prospective customers. If he offers not only good quality print and a high level of customer service but tools that take away the pain of procuring and managing print suddenly the printer is so much more than a commodity provider resulting in the customer becoming reliant on the printer and price not being so much of a focus.”

The concept has been around since the earliest days of the internet when long since vanished names like Impresse, Print Channel, Print Mountain threatened to turn the industry’s processes on their head. But these disappeared as rapidly as they arrived, some surviving in name and transforming into supply chain management businesses. Meanwhile web to print software emerged like the first mammals from the age of the

Web of knoWledge

Ask about web to print and everyone

will give you a different story. it can work for all

printers – the trick is finding the right

path to take.

Heidelberg’s Jim todd estimates that 3-4% of the volume of Uk paper lost in the last five years has gone to european web to print operations.

Web to print


Jim Todd, sales director of Heidel-berg UK, knows that web to print is big. Addressing the question of shrinking volumes of paper sold by

the UK’s paper merchants at the NAPM’s annual forum last month, he estimated that 3-4% of the volume lost in the last five years is because giant web to print operations in Europe have stolen this volume from UK printers.

The culprits start with Vistaprint, which has a plant at Venlo in Holland and four German printers, Unitedprint, Online Printers, Flyer Alarm and Saxoprint. The latter has 23 presses split between KBA and Heidelberg machines including eight-unit perfecting Speedmaster XL162 presses. It is big business, attracting work from small businesses, charities, local organisations and even printers that are using the web to print giants to print at prices that they cannot match.

Many GerMan printers have all but ceased to chase flyers, business cards and folded leaflets, and Todd is convinced that the same is happening in the UK, hence the calculation that as much as 4% of paper shipped into the UK is coming with print already on it.

And there is no UK company able to compare with these operations, no UK company which has created websites to attract buyers from overseas countries with local languages, support and URLs and no UK company able to match their prices.

Nevertheless web to print is permeating the industry, even if there are many, many companies that have not yet taken their first step into doing business online. There

is a lingering belief that customer service always requires personal contact, but this is false. For many standard items, the better customer service is a means of making the order placement process easier, online and transparent. Nobody wants to pick up the phone to order another 5,000 copies of the form or leaflet received last week. Paul Deane, joint managing director of MIS provider Shuttleworth, puts it succinctly: “Web to print is about connection and communication with your customers, it’s about how you can add value to the rela-tionship, how you can make it easier for a customer to do business with you rather than with your competitors.”

tharstern sales ManaGer Lee Ward concurs: “If a printer simply posi-tions his services based on quality, price and ‘we are really nice to deal with’ he is missing out on changing the relationship with exist-ing and prospective customers. If he offers not only good quality print and a high level of customer service but tools that take away the pain of procuring and managing print suddenly the printer is so much more than a commodity provider resulting in the customer becoming reliant on the printer and price not being so much of a focus.”

The concept has been around since the earliest days of the internet when long since vanished names like Impresse, Print Channel, Print Mountain threatened to turn the industry’s processes on their head. But these disappeared as rapidly as they arrived, some surviving in name and transforming into supply chain management businesses. Meanwhile web to print software emerged like the first mammals from the age of the

Web of knoWledge

Ask about web to print and everyone

will give you a different story. it can work for all

printers – the trick is finding the right

path to take.

Heidelberg’s Jim todd estimates that 3-4% of the volume of Uk paper lost in the last five years has gone to european web to print operations.

web to print


dinosaurs, small and simple but better able to adapt and survive than the monsters they replaced.

A host of companies, among them ROI, VPress, RedTie from the UK, have at least a decade of experience in creating software that allows purchasers to place orders for print, initially for business cards and office stationery growing into far more complex products. Web to print today is not merely about business print of this nature, but has evolved into web to design to print, web to marketing to print and web to stock manage-ment and fulfilment to print. In the process it is changing how businesses operate.

Despite its name Printing.com was never a web to print business. But as online purchasing has become commonplace, the amount of walk in business to its branded franchise outlets has fallen. Now Printing.com has developed its own software and is making this available both to capture print work for the smaller printer and to harvest more complex work for its own presses in Manchester.

RatheR than tRy to Replicate what entry level web to print applications offer, the TemplateCloud provides access to thousands of predesigned templates for business cards, flyers and so on. These have been uploaded by hundreds of designers who earn a micropayment each time their design is used.

Chief technical officer Peter Gunning says: “TemplateCloud isn’t like other design ‘contests’ where clients upload a brief and hundreds of designers enter designs and only one person ‘wins’. TemplateCloud is different. Our mantra is ‘Design once, sell

many’. Each time their design is sold we pay a royalty even if we have to translate it into a different language.”

It is a return to an older concept which was part of Printing.com’s offering in 1999, but at that time the idea never caught on. Now as web to print moves from simple procure-ment into richer styles of interaction via the browser the time is right Gunning believes.

The most common extensions to the basic

web to print modules are either to link into an MIS or to operate a fulfilment service through the application. Coreprint has opened up its VPress Saas software so that customers can engineer the core functional-ity into a wider business system using Web Services. The result, according to managing director Tim Cox, is that it becomes easier to create fully automated workflow systems that take an order, manage the artwork and proofing process and deliver the job to a print queue while informing the MIS that a job has been raised with all its details. This means providing flexibility to work in the way that the customer wants, rather than force them to work as the software is set up to work.

“You need to have software that’s malle-able enough to enable a customer to do that. That can mean putting barcodes on a piece of print so that set up data can be accessed for finishing equipment. But first people need to have that serious business conversa-tion with clients about what it is they want to do. Web to print is an enabling technology,” says Cox.

Redtie was foR many yeaRs the highest profile name in web to print, at least in the UK. And there is still double digit year on year growth, says managing director Jamie Thomson, both with new customers and in the amount of work being processed through the website. In the last few weeks it has released a version that allows a richer level of online design for more sophisticated templates.

Most are still at the early stages of adop-tion he explains. A big growth has been the entry point version limited to a single web

Shuttleworth business Systems’ paul Deane sums up web to print. “it’s about connection and communication with your customers.”

Vistaprint, the behemoth of web to print with its clear layout and simple instructions, has been a hit in north America and its european operation is worth $85-95 million.

Web to print


store which provides a taster for companies before committing to a full implementation. “Most of these customers have never had web to print,” he says. On the other hand some (and he says that the top ten custom-ers are the ten oldest users) are putting together sophisticated workflows. This has been helped by the publication of an XML export function to enable MIS providers to integrate to the web to print software, a five-day job becoming something that can in place in a day.

This remains an issue for companies wanting to build more sophisticated appli-cations. It reached the point that Optimus decided to offer its own web to print applica-tion within its Dash MIS software. It has also created links to existing web stores says sales director Steve Richardson. “It’s still amazing to us that many printers have a website and do not offer online ordering through it. It is about lean manufacturing, about elimi-nating waste and saving time. There is one customer we spoke to four times in six years about the benefits of web ordering, so it can take a long time for the penny to drop.”

As well as the MIS providers, produc-tion workflow suppliers are becoming very

interested in extending the workflow to the customer over internet connections. EFI has been a leader in this with the Digital Storefront applications to drive business to Fiery users and now into MIS, what it calls productivity software. Agfa has a strength-ened web proposition within the latest version of Apogee and Fuji is offering the functionality within its XMF environment.

“While we are relatively new to web to print, the technology behind what we do has been established in the photo industry for many years,” says John Davies. He sees four distinct areas where web to print is playing a role, in calling off preprinted stock; provid-ing editable templates; ordering adhoc products and fourthly managing variable data campaigns. And he points out that a younger generation of buyers prefers to interact via the internet. “But you can’t push everything down the web to print path, there is no value in that,” he says. “However, we are at the point where every print company should have some level of web to print.”

For The more advanced compa-nies web to marketing to print is opening up. Screen demonstrated an application for managing variable data online during

the Hunkeler Innovation Days and Ricoh has previews of the latest iteration of MarcomsCentral at North Print & Pack. Both manage the combination of artwork and data base needed to drive a variable data campaign that is more complex than adding addresses to a space on a template.

The besT esTablished business in this space is ROI 360 with implementations of working across the internet which range from simple storefront applications to full marketing hubs able to manage online as well as print campaigns. There is a consultancy aspect to the service the March company offers where customers may lack the IT skills necessary to build test and implement a customer specific solution. “We’ll help with the consultancy, train the sales people and help drive the project. We get quite a few requests for this. It goes well beyond point and click,” says Simon Ellington. In this case web to print is left far behind. It becomes the way that the company does business, the implementation of integrated workflows between customer and supplier where nobody has to think about the enabling technology, but instead focuses on the end results. n

case studyPlatinum

PlaTinum PrinT in harrogaTe puts web to print at the front of its website, but this is not a tool to buy the cheapest business cards or flyers in town. As far as the Yorkshire company is concerned, web to print has an important place in how the company operates, but is not replacing crucial client contact.

Operations director Mark Plummer explains: “We started out using it to produce business cards, but it has quickly devel-oped into a full facilities management tool, handling all manner of customers assets. It has evolved quite rapidly and we sell it as the ideal way to work with us on a day to day basis. It takes the administration out of calling off stock items, not just print.”

But the system is not intended to replace face to face contact. “A lot of our customers value personal contact because people still like to deal with people,” says Plummer. “We believe that business is more than just delivering goods on time, it’s about the whole service we can offer.”

The web to print Storefront software is supplied by ROI 360 which has also trained

three of Platinum’s operators on how to use the system to build customer websites and now to begin to offer variable data print-ing and mailing through the application. The stock management aspect is handled by the company’s Shuttleworth MIS linking to ROI’s technology to provide instant infor-mation to the customer about to place an order through the web browser. “That is working really sweetly,” he adds. The MIS is also connected to the Fuji XMF prepress production workflow which provides the digital proof for customers to approve before committing to the print order.

There is sTill a relucTance among customers to work in a fully auto-mated way, human nature being to distrust the machine. This fear of a loss of control will fade over time as users become accus-tomed to like this Plummer explains.

However, while Platinum is comfortable with the technology and it has gone down well with customers, Plummer says it is not for everybody. “It’s for the £50,000-£100,000 a year accounts which stay with us,” he says.

It suits companies that operate from different locations, a chain of high street stores or a franchise chain for example. One is a chain of 150 jewellery stores where

managers on the spot are able to log in to order standard items of print, perhaps customised to their location, with full audit-ing of what marketing or functional material has been purchased. The Pageflex Storefront system also holds branded promotional gifts and the banners that Platinum has expanded to offer.

The Technology has been at the heart of the company’s growth in the last year or so with now more than 400 active users able to log on to the system and order print. Dealing with this number of customers without web to print would be impractical, while the system also takes away internal administrative costs from the customer.

The next push is to drive direct mail and variable date print through the system, producing more sophisticated pieces. “The prepress department is being kept busy on building the variable data and direct mail stuff,” he explains. “They are familiar with handling layout and it can be used for vari-able data as well as editing templates.”

Web to print also ties into the company’s environmental stance. Sustainability is key to Platinum Print. It has recently published the Platinum Environmental Commitment. “We are trying to do things that are over

web to print


PRIMO®, cutting through your workload

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and above what others are doing,” Plummer explains. The company operates an electric powered delivery van and prints on recycled papers where it can. “Most recently we have developed our own full recycled business card boxes, which are branded as Platium promotional items,” says Plummer. “When we were looking for the environmentally friendly alternative to the plastic business card box, we couldn’t find anything.” The business cards inside the box have of course been ordered through the web to print system.

Case studyVistaprint

The 500lb gorilla of web to print is Vistaprint, a company which scarcely existed in 2000 but which now expects 2013 revenue to hit at least $1,150 million. It is growing at 13% a year and shows no sign of slowing.

North America has been its most success-ful market where sales are climbing 15% a year still. In Europe, where its Q3 revenue was $108.3 million, there are both greater economic and greater competitive chal-lenges. Sales in Europe as a consequence

rose only 5%, 8% when taking account of growth in the Albumprinter photobook business.

Vistaprint is, however, determined to grow in Europe and has earmarked much of the $85-95 million it plans to invest on expansion of its Venlo plant, the central production facility in Europe. It is also to build a small factory in India.

Average order value across the company is $38.43 and it reckons to have supplied 15.7 million customers in the last 12 months, 14% higher than a year previously. There were 7.2 million orders handled in Q3.

The success is built on supplying business cards and similar simple items of print at minimal cost, sometimes even free of charge. While distribution costs are not extreme, the sheer volume of business Vistaprint gener-ates will allow it to gain economies of scale. Once it has contact details for a customer, a marketing operation kicks in, something which has previously stepped close to the line, and which has now eased back. But the concept of upselling remains.

The company is spending $66.4 million a quarter on marketing, now including televi-sion ad slots as well as online channels. The company says it is trying to adjust its culture and the mindset of 4,100 employees world-wide to become more customer centric.

Questions about the quality of the mate-rial used, the US dimensions of the business cards and use of the reverse of the card for displaying an advertising message have not deterred the battalions of small business owners, mothers and so on that use the site to buy business cards, invitations and calendars.

Case studyCatford Print

Web To prinT is essenTial for today’s small print business, Russ Jones, owner of Catford Print Centre believes. “As a small company you have to find a way to create an edge for your business and web to print in a specialist way gives you that edge,” he says.

While he recognises that his company can never take on Vistaprint in offering business cards at low prices. He likens it to McDon-ald’s: “Their success doesn’t mean you can’t open a hamburger joint.” The key is to find the niches that the large players are not interested in, he explains. The first site that Catford created was coded by a software developer that happens to be a customer of

Web to print


Performanceenhancing MIS

Providing Management Information Systems is not just about supplying softwareit is about understanding our customers’ businesses and the problems

they face and helping to solve those problems.

Our software is the market leader and with our integrated CRM packageand JDF/JMF capability we can deliver powerful technical solutions

that are unrivalled in our market place.

It is however our approach to helping our customers improvetheir business that sets us apart from other suppliers.

Shuttleworth Business Systems LimitedTel. +44 (0)1536 316316 Fax. +44 (0)1536 316301

[email protected] www.shuttleworth-uk.co.uk ...helping you build a better business

Talk to Shuttleworth and we will show you howwe can improve your business, it’s our passion….

the business. This allows small tradesmen to order NCR sets, which are still an essential for many small companies. “The plumber, the delivery person, the roadside breakdown assistance, all require a carbonless set to give you a record of the transaction on the spot,” Jones says.

That first website offered a number of template designs, allowing someone to select the number of columns, to introduce a logo or select from clip art and to insert company names and address. “It needn’t cost a fortune to become involved with web to print,” he adds.

Next came a site for producing an order of service for a funeral. The first version allows a user to select a style, download a Word document, edit the text and add an image and then upload the amended file. This is clearly limited and Jones created a tender to find a developer for a new version via the internet. He selected not the cheapest, but one that looked professional and was located in India to build the new site.

After a year this is close to coming on line very soon. “I realised that the major-ity of people who want a printed order of service would not have access to InDesign,

but would like to have something fitting and that being able to go online, change text and photos and result in a really respectful item would be a useful product. After all there is only one chance to do this,” he explains.

And having invested in a Roland wide format printer, Jones is now keen to offer banners through a website and also bespoke T-shirts. Though he is not so sure that a return to India is the way ahead, “it has been a steep learning curve” he says.

Instead he will be looking at the web to print applications that are commercially available. What is important is that they remain flexible enough for him to do the design and customisation himself without having to employ an IT person or outside contractor. “I need it to be like Dream-weaver where I can build a website without needing to know anything about coding,” he says. “At Ipex last time I was looking at web to print and reckoned then that they were selling an architecture that anybody could easily develop. Has that changed?”

The company is expanding in other ways too. It has taken delivery of an Océ Ultra 250 because seven years after buying an Océ 2110 with Horizon BQ270 bookbinder from

IFS, Duplo laminator and Polar guillotine capacity for digital black and white work was hitting capacity. “It’s not only two-and-a-half times faster, it is also far more reliable,” he says.

But if not convinced of the merits of commercially available systems, he is sure that web to print is an essential tool. “It’s something that small printers can use and which will help us survive, it may not be a business on its own, but for us everything helps. It’s working 24-7 and there’s no need to employ someone to handle calls. Only this week I came in on Monday and there were three orders for funeral orders of service and one NCR order, all paid for so all I have to do is print.” n

For more in depth information on web to print please go to www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk and visit our Archive page. Click on the September 2012 issue bar to download the pDF. the deep dive report on the good and bad of web to print starts on page 16.

Web to print


Performanceenhancing MIS

Providing Management Information Systems is not just about supplying softwareit is about understanding our customers’ businesses and the problems

they face and helping to solve those problems.

Our software is the market leader and with our integrated CRM packageand JDF/JMF capability we can deliver powerful technical solutions

that are unrivalled in our market place.

It is however our approach to helping our customers improvetheir business that sets us apart from other suppliers.

Shuttleworth Business Systems LimitedTel. +44 (0)1536 316316 Fax. +44 (0)1536 316301

[email protected] www.shuttleworth-uk.co.uk ...helping you build a better business

Talk to Shuttleworth and we will show you howwe can improve your business, it’s our passion….

the business. This allows small tradesmen to order NCR sets, which are still an essential for many small companies. “The plumber, the delivery person, the roadside breakdown assistance, all require a carbonless set to give you a record of the transaction on the spot,” Jones says.

That first website offered a number of template designs, allowing someone to select the number of columns, to introduce a logo or select from clip art and to insert company names and address. “It needn’t cost a fortune to become involved with web to print,” he adds.

Next came a site for producing an order of service for a funeral. The first version allows a user to select a style, download a Word document, edit the text and add an image and then upload the amended file. This is clearly limited and Jones created a tender to find a developer for a new version via the internet. He selected not the cheapest, but one that looked professional and was located in India to build the new site.

After a year this is close to coming on line very soon. “I realised that the major-ity of people who want a printed order of service would not have access to InDesign,

but would like to have something fitting and that being able to go online, change text and photos and result in a really respectful item would be a useful product. After all there is only one chance to do this,” he explains.

And having invested in a Roland wide format printer, Jones is now keen to offer banners through a website and also bespoke T-shirts. Though he is not so sure that a return to India is the way ahead, “it has been a steep learning curve” he says.

Instead he will be looking at the web to print applications that are commercially available. What is important is that they remain flexible enough for him to do the design and customisation himself without having to employ an IT person or outside contractor. “I need it to be like Dream-weaver where I can build a website without needing to know anything about coding,” he says. “At Ipex last time I was looking at web to print and reckoned then that they were selling an architecture that anybody could easily develop. Has that changed?”

The company is expanding in other ways too. It has taken delivery of an Océ Ultra 250 because seven years after buying an Océ 2110 with Horizon BQ270 bookbinder from

IFS, Duplo laminator and Polar guillotine capacity for digital black and white work was hitting capacity. “It’s not only two-and-a-half times faster, it is also far more reliable,” he says.

But if not convinced of the merits of commercially available systems, he is sure that web to print is an essential tool. “It’s something that small printers can use and which will help us survive, it may not be a business on its own, but for us everything helps. It’s working 24-7 and there’s no need to employ someone to handle calls. Only this week I came in on Monday and there were three orders for funeral orders of service and one NCR order, all paid for so all I have to do is print.” n

For more in depth information on web to print please go to www.printbusinessmedia.co.uk and visit our Archive page. Click on the September 2012 issue bar to download the pDF. the deep dive report on the good and bad of web to print starts on page 16.

Finishing


Morgana fits the bill for Plockmatic

When the swedish company bought Morgana it acquired established distribution channels for its bookletmakers and mailing equipment.

The Morgana 2000 is the first product following the takeover by Plockmatic and takes Morgana into a new sector.

In January Sweden’S Plockmatic acquired Morgana in a move which is proving to be an even better fit than it appeared to be at the time. Morgana has built a strong reputation for the quality and innovation of its finish-ing equipment aimed at the fast turnaround and digital print sector, based on the insight that digital print needed to be creased before folding to avoid an ugly cracking problem.

Morgana still has multiple patents around creasing and its Autocreaser family remains a good selling classic product. But the company has grown from that, into folding, into creaser-folders and into bookletmak-ing. The Pro line of machines combine the SmartScreen touch screen interfaces with automatic adjustment and have taken Morgana into a heavier production oriented market as more and more printers have invested in digital presses.

now that move haS accelerated with the addition of Plockmatic’s range, includ-ing its leading bookletmaker which is being rebadged as the Morgana System 2000, able to handle both litho and digitally printed sheets at one end and to deliver trimmed and finished 120pp Squarefold stitched books at the other.

This is going to take centre stage at North Print & Pack, linked to the ACF 510 air assisted collating tower. The control system on this can deliver single sheets of litho printed work or part collated sections from a digital press. The feed unit is capable of coping with both types of work and can be programmed to create variable content booklets up to 30 sheets or 120pp thick. It can be specified with ISP or Hohner stitch-ing heads. A perfect bound-style finish is delivered through the Squarefold unit. The CST2000 is a side trimming and creasing module which means that there is no need to pretrim sheets on a guillotine before loading the machine.

For Morgana managing director Quen Baum, using the Harrogate event to launch the expanded range of products was too good an opportunity to pass up. He explains: “While we were already at the event to support digital engine suppliers, with Morgana equipment due to feature at the show on the Konica Minolta and Ricoh stands, we have concluded that North Print & Pack would be an ideal venue at which to launch our new range of bookletmakers. This show is the only major print-based event in the UK this year and is therefore an ideal vehicle at which to debut this innova-tive range of products.”

whIle PlockmatIc haS ProvIded a whole new range of bookletmakers and has mailing equipment to come, Morgana has provided the Swedish company with an established distribution network. Plockmatic’s strength has been with inline bookletmaking systems which its supplies to digital press providers, including Ricoh and Xerox. The Plockmatic brand will continue to be used for inline equipment. However, its UK presence with standalone equip-ment has been minimal since the closure of BABS which had been its distributor in this country. “In future all the offline products will be marketed as Morgana,” says UK sales manager Ray Hillhouse. “This covers

the range from the basic BM60 booklet-maker which is a solid little design for entry level users such as schools and inplants. It can be linked to the collators for a more complex set up.”

As well as the ACF 510, Plockmatic has the VF1008 as an eight-hopper suctionfed collator. “There’s a nice range of products that we can look at,” Hillhouse says. The fit with Morgana’s

existing product range is good, slotting above the DocuMaster family of booklet-makers. Morgana has installed more than 300 of these in the UK and can now respond to requests for a more powerful system. “We have no need to remove anything from our range, each product slots into a different niche. But thanks to Plockmatic now we can go toe to toe with a rival like Duplo which we couldn’t match before,” he explains.

the SyStem 2000 is a 3,000-books per hour machine capable of producing more than 100,000 books a month with a choice of stitching heads and configurations. The System 200e is a 30,000-books per month machine, also running at 3,000 booklets per hour.

Beyond these Plockmatic has a range of inserting and mailing machines which, Hill-house says, will appeal to printers looking to take this service in house. These operate with either flat sheet or prefolded letters and can handle booklets to 12mm thick. The key advantage, Hillhouse explains is that a complex job can be set in minutes. “We have already received lots of meaningful inquiries about the PL4000 from printers and we see it as providing an opportunity for CRDs as well,” he says.

It is not all one way traffic. The Smart-Screen control unit that Morgana developed for the Pro version of its machines is heading from Milton Keynes to Sweden and will feature on future Plockmatic devices. “It’s all about new options for us and for them,” adds Hillhouse. n

North PriNt & Pack


It is still a ten minute walk from Harrogate station to the town’s international exhibition centre and only a few hundred yards from the centre’s

underground car park. That much hasn’t changed in the two years since Northprint was last staged in the Yorkshire town. But much else has.

The event is now North Print & Pack, reflecting a growing interest in labels and packaging, and there is a completely different emphasis to the event. It is less about looking at the latest in new machinery than it is about discovering profitable ways of using that machinery. There are seminars running throughout the three days of the show and emphasis on exhibitors working together to show workflows and what sort of new products can be delivered. In a way North Print & Pack 2013 is going to provide a taste of what might come at Ipex 2014.

This is noT a show To wander and gawp at large presses, because there are none. This is a show about business. And to that extent there has to be a business case for spending a day on the edge of the Dales.

To some extent this is because of the continuing recession and shrinkage of the commercial printing industry, meaning fewer opportunities for fewer suppliers and a reluctance to commit large sums to an exhibition with uncertain returns. In short, the organiser has not been able to sell the space it would have wanted.

Also, because of the tightening conditions in commercial print, many companies need to look at adjacent markets and packaging seems obvious. It is going through the same set of changes that commercial printers have grappled with over the last decade – shorter print runs, faster turnarounds and so on. Also as other marketing channels become

less effective owing to the proliferation of competition between television, websites, Facebook and so on, the packaging has to become more of a marketing tool than ever before.

There will be new equipment: no show would be complete without at least one product introduction, and North Print & Pack is no exception. Ricoh will debut its Pro C5100 light production machine, the first showing in the UK for this colour press which received its world launch only a week ago. There will also be a preview of MarcomsCentral, the software that enables users to quickly build variable data ad campaigns and a first outing of the beefed up C901 Graphic Arts + machine, which will be put to use producing lightweight packaging.

The digiTal packaging Theme will be key to presentations from Screen, Scodix and Highcon which will share findings from RCS, the first European user of the Screen Truepress JetSX inkjet press and two Scodix digital embossing machines.

Morgana will premiere the Digital FlexoCut a unit for shortrun die cutting and creasing. The DFC should be of interest to many visitors to the show including those working in short run die cut and packag

ing applications,” says Ray Hillhouse, UK sales manager for Morgana Systems. “It’s a compact, easy to use machine that can be set up with just one or two sheets.” It will be put through its paces handling sheets from digital presses at the show.

But packaging is more than digital. GMG is coming to Harrogate for the first time drawn by the packaging theme where its OpenColor application for managing spot colours and delivering accurate colour proofing according to the interaction between inks and substrates used in packaging. Edale and Nilpeter represent conventional label printing with the former also discussing development of its FL5, 760mm web width press that is designed for production of folded cartons. Bobst will stress the extra value its service and training provide to users of its platens and folder gluers.

The digiTal side will be represented by Domino which launched its N600i inkjet label press last year. While there are none in use in the UK, the Cambridge company has been installing presses in other parts of Europe. The same basic technology is also part of the K600i imaging bar for adding variable data to conventionally printed labels. And this has UK users.

Xeikon has been one of the first suppliers offering digital production of labels and lightweight cartons, typified by how Mercian Labels is promoting carton design and production on its Xeikon presses. The electrophotographic technology is proven in the sector with Xeikon able to supply toners that are suitable for packaging in close proximity to food which not all digital print materials are.

The opportunities in packaging are one of the three tracks of the seminar programme which is running alongside the exhibition.

head for harrogate

a visit to North Print & Pack could yield

results in knowledge and inspiration,

especially in digital and finishing.

North PriNt & Pack


It is still a ten minute walk from Harrogate station to the town’s international exhibition centre and only a few hundred yards from the centre’s

underground car park. That much hasn’t changed in the two years since Northprint was last staged in the Yorkshire town. But much else has.

The event is now North Print & Pack, reflecting a growing interest in labels and packaging, and there is a completely different emphasis to the event. It is less about looking at the latest in new machinery than it is about discovering profitable ways of using that machinery. There are seminars running throughout the three days of the show and emphasis on exhibitors working together to show workflows and what sort of new products can be delivered. In a way North Print & Pack 2013 is going to provide a taste of what might come at Ipex 2014.

This is noT a show To wander and gawp at large presses, because there are none. This is a show about business. And to that extent there has to be a business case for spending a day on the edge of the Dales.

To some extent this is because of the continuing recession and shrinkage of the commercial printing industry, meaning fewer opportunities for fewer suppliers and a reluctance to commit large sums to an exhibition with uncertain returns. In short, the organiser has not been able to sell the space it would have wanted.

Also, because of the tightening conditions in commercial print, many companies need to look at adjacent markets and packaging seems obvious. It is going through the same set of changes that commercial printers have grappled with over the last decade – shorter print runs, faster turnarounds and so on. Also as other marketing channels become

less effective owing to the proliferation of competition between television, websites, Facebook and so on, the packaging has to become more of a marketing tool than ever before.

There will be new equipment: no show would be complete without at least one product introduction, and North Print & Pack is no exception. Ricoh will debut its Pro C5100 light production machine, the first showing in the UK for this colour press which received its world launch only a week ago. There will also be a preview of MarcomsCentral, the software that enables users to quickly build variable data ad campaigns and a first outing of the beefed up C901 Graphic Arts + machine, which will be put to use producing lightweight packaging.

The digiTal packaging Theme will be key to presentations from Screen, Scodix and Highcon which will share findings from RCS, the first European user of the Screen Truepress JetSX inkjet press and two Scodix digital embossing machines.

Morgana will premiere the Digital FlexoCut a unit for shortrun die cutting and creasing. The DFC should be of interest to many visitors to the show including those working in short run die cut and packag

ing applications,” says Ray Hillhouse, UK sales manager for Morgana Systems. “It’s a compact, easy to use machine that can be set up with just one or two sheets.” It will be put through its paces handling sheets from digital presses at the show.

But packaging is more than digital. GMG is coming to Harrogate for the first time drawn by the packaging theme where its OpenColor application for managing spot colours and delivering accurate colour proofing according to the interaction between inks and substrates used in packaging. Edale and Nilpeter represent conventional label printing with the former also discussing development of its FL5, 760mm web width press that is designed for production of folded cartons. Bobst will stress the extra value its service and training provide to users of its platens and folder gluers.

The digiTal side will be represented by Domino which launched its N600i inkjet label press last year. While there are none in use in the UK, the Cambridge company has been installing presses in other parts of Europe. The same basic technology is also part of the K600i imaging bar for adding variable data to conventionally printed labels. And this has UK users.

Xeikon has been one of the first suppliers offering digital production of labels and lightweight cartons, typified by how Mercian Labels is promoting carton design and production on its Xeikon presses. The electrophotographic technology is proven in the sector with Xeikon able to supply toners that are suitable for packaging in close proximity to food which not all digital print materials are.

The opportunities in packaging are one of the three tracks of the seminar programme which is running alongside the exhibition.

head for harrogate

a visit to North Print & Pack could yield

results in knowledge and inspiration,

especially in digital and finishing.

North priNt & pack


The quality of presentations is considered key to events as exhibitions evolve from merely showcases of different technology into opportunities to show applications working together and describing new busi-ness opportunities. Alongside the packaging theatre is the printers’ profit zone, return-ing after its success two years ago and the New Printing Landscape. This has a wide selection of themes, described on the show’s website (www.printandpack.co.uk), which range from obtaining government grants to which value added services a printer can add. A highlight will be Gerry Mulvaney describing the progress that Landa’s nanog-raphy technology has made since Drupa.

Konica Minolta is sharing the limelight as the company showing print-ing technology in operation at the event. But again there is a strong emphasis on the way that digital printing can open business opportunities rather than just trying to substitute digital printing for litho and offer-ing short print runs with prices to match.

It has published a series of guides as part of its Digital 1234 initiative to help print-ers move towards photobook production, to direct mail and other higher margin activities. The programme takes a simple four-step approach on how to identify, assess, justify and implement new business opportunities.

The 8000 press, which has been Oem’d by Komori and which is also being distributed by Apex Digital is likely to be the leading product on show, along with light produc-tion colour and mono digital presses. But the business support packages are the key to Konica Minolta’s message.

The few hours spent at the should should include a look at the new products from Morgana, which is showing the new 2000

bookletmaker that it hopes will put it on par with the likes of Duplo and perhaps Horizon, and follows its acquisition by Plockmatic at the start of this year.

Duplo is skipping the show while Horizon aims to stay ahead with the first showing of a bookletmaker able to produce A4 landscape products. This is the SPF/FC-200A book-letmaker linked to the HOF400 sheet feeder which can feed 42,000 landscape format sheets an hour. It includes barcode readers, CCD camera and full integration with the PXnet control system that is JDF enabled. Bookletmakers have come a long way from roughly folded and stapled products into something that can challenge a conventional saddlestitcher with the right type of work.

Automation features on the Horizon CRF-362 creaser folder and AFC566A B2 combination folder in order to cope with shorter production runs and faster turna-rounds which as IFS joint managing director Tony Hards says: “Easy to use through high automation, small footprint and affordable, they are designed to make an immediate impact on the bottom line of any operation.”

In terms of expanding services, IFS has both the Petratto and SCS Automaberg, both capable of delivering unique styles of product. Petratto customers can be reticent about admitting that they have the device because of the commercial advantage it provides.

The Mohr guillotines will feature on both the Watkiss and Renz stands and for those with older machines or needing to handle a growing volume of work, perhaps because of short run book printing and a need to trim down the finished volumes. Renz has the Mohr 56 NET on show is supporting this with wire binding systems including the DTP 340A semi automatic punch and the Mobi 360 semi automated wire binding

machine. Wire binding is not just for calen-dars, but has applications in many other areas. As well as taking on the Mohr guil-lotine, Renz has also recently acquired UK distribution for the Bindomatic 5000 thermal binder.

Watkiss will have the larger Mohr 66 NET along with its own PowerSquare P2T trimmer to trim top and bottom edges of a booklet produced on its PowerSquare 200 bookletmaker. It will also have a Tauler SmartMatic laminator.

Lamination is worth investigating for inhouse production as the costs of set up and transport to a trade supplier are pushing the limit for short run production. The costs of inhouse production can be attractive as well as providing an extra service which can be sold. Autobond and D&K will also have laminators to consider during the day.

it would be reMiss to ignore the potential of MIS during a visit. Tharstern, EFI, Accura and Imprint offer different approaches to the question of measuring costs, automating workflows and identify-ing where added value possibilities exist for a printer. Automation is becoming more and more necessary as print runs become shorter, margins are squeezed and turna-round times shorter. It is essential to reduce the number of touch points for any print job, to drive out costs as far as possible and to remain competitive in what continues to be a fierce competitive environment.

Will a day at the spa provide all the answers? It’s not likely to, but equally a day in Harrogate will not be wasted. There are ideas to be had, questions to ask and infor-mation to be gathered. If the alternative is a day watching the phones or helping sort a problem that really doesn’t need your help, it should not be much of a dilemma. n

the printers’ profit Zone returns following its popularity two years ago at harrogate.

Dermot callaghan will again demonstrate the Mobi 360 on the renz stand.

Watkiss automation Sales is offering a tow-side trimmer to finish Squareback booklets.

Large format


What if print could talk? Or move, or capture data? It can and increasingly it is, thanks to the explosion in

smart phone technologies and the creativ-ity of ad agencies. The combination proved its potency when Clear Channel this year ordered 10,000 NFC devices for its bus shel-ters and other sites across the country.

All at once bus stops can entertain and engage passengers waiting for the 59 to the town centre. The received wisdom was that electronic displays would bring bus shelters alive, but the sheer cost makes this prohibi-tive as well as being limited in terms of impact and engagement.

The NFC chip attached to the street furniture, or even a printed QR code, offers more. When activated it will collect time and place information and information about the phone being used. Print defeats the new technology.

Just how powerful print can be was a major theme for the Fespa summit in London held in the run up to the larger format show at Excel in June. A line up of speakers explained how print can become engaging, interactive, even exciting. If the treadmill of quoting for a margin-sapping 16pp brochure or the hassle of sorting out poorly created PDF files seems to suck the life out of print, then these presentations restored some of the magic.

the Qr code was prominent. In a few years the 2D barcode has broken free from the Japanese factory that developed it to track the movement of goods and compo-nents into something so familiar that nobody is surprised to see one. It is reckoned that three in ten of the world’s population would recognise a QR code. In the UK, where

smart phone adoption is running at 60%, well above the 50% deemed necessary for QR codes to gain critical mass, the way is open to use the printed poster to provide video, how to information, recipe ideas, localisation information, redeemable offers and so on. The problem is that many fall at the first hurdle by directing the QR code to the home page of a website designed to be viewed from a desktop, not relevant infor-mation formatted to be enjoyed on a phone.

at the fespa summit, Rob Rosbor-ough, director worldwide sales and operations from Scanbuy, outlined the power and versatility of the QR code. When Coca-Cola added QR codes to 9 million cans of sugary carbonated drink, it received 2 million scans. “Coca-Cola was changing information delivered according to location and changed the content every few days so that people would continue to engage with the campaign. Department store Bloom-ingdales put a QR code outside its store offering discounts to those that scanned the code on their phones,” says Rosborough.

It is this sort of interactivity that adver-tisers like. They gain instant reaction to an offer and can understand the location and something about the user. Which is where

the smartening up of street furniture comes in. Clear Channel aims to put the NFC and QR devices on bus shelters, on poster sites and at the entrance to stores. One applica-tion might be to advertise a fast food chain on the poster and use the interaction to tell the customer where the nearest store is and how to get there.

the investment follows on from trials last year in Reading. David McEvoy, marketing director of JCDecaux, explained to the London audience that ITV, Mercedes, Unilever and Morrisons had participated, offering video excerpts from a TV show, test drives, links to a Facebook page and money off vouchers. “The content was changed every week,” he said. “And usage grew by word of mouth. Suddenly posters were exciting.” The uptake by Morrisons grew during the test period as people understood and learned about the system. The partici-pating companies gained knowledge about use during the day and which poster sites had the biggest response. Offers might be changed during the day to reflect the audi-ence at that time of day, commuters, school children and young mothers, pensioners and so on.

But almost the Best aspect was the cost. “It’s £5 a time for each interac-tive site, rather than £30,000 for a digital screen,” McEvoy added. Clear Channel is offering video clips from films, stage shows and to guide hungry shoppers to their closest KFC using either NFC or QR codes.

To some the interactivity made possi-ble by the QR code is only the start when if comes to bringing print alive. Lurking in the shadows is augmented reality, where the printed image jumps into life with video, a film or the ability to interact with

taLking through print

the fespa summit held in the run up to the June show

demonstrated the engaging

interactivity of print.

large format


an object. At the Hunkeler innovation Days recently HP used its own Aurasma technol-ogy to bring to life its IHPS 230 press. The 3D image could be rotated, viewed from all angles and even added to a video of a sales person holding it. While created for the event to demonstrate AR, digital print evangelist Pat McGrew suggested that it might help in a sales call. “Rather than go to visit a site which might be disruptive and could be expensive, the sales executive can show the prospect what the machine looks like and how it operates without leaving the office.” HP will need to produce better content for this to happen, but it is an indica-tion that there is a possible use in a B2B sales environment.

The greaTesT opporTuniTies lie on making consumer marketing and point of sale material interactive. McEvoy speaks of beer mats coming alive in a promotion for Hobgoblin beer at Halloween for example, where scanning the code embedded image triggers a video of a pleasant or wicked char-acter. Other examples include cars that can be driven or access games apps. “Augmented reality is a much talked about technology that hasn’t had its day yet and which most consumers have not seen,” he explained. Two reasons lie behind this, one practical the other more mythical. The practical is that there are a number of technologies the field, Aurasma and Blippar perhaps being the best known. It is not possible to view the Blippar content with the Aurasma app and vice versa. For some, the need to download a specialist app, specific to a customer or campaign may be part of the data gather-ing appeal, but it is a barrier to widespread consumer adoption.

The second barrier is perhaps more mythical than real. The creation of the app can cost from £10,000 including the content which can be revised during the campaign for as little as £1,000-£2,000 a time. This is less than many would think and will fall further as adoption increases and use is better understood.

The key To The use of ar however is customer engagement. And the data collected can of course drive direct mail and other printed material.

One of the most striking examples of this kind of technology in use has been the most recent Ikea catalogue. The 212 million copies make the job one of the largest and most emblematic in the world, with work-flow procedures and colour control that have been at the forefront of technology development.

But approaching its golden jubilee edition, the company felt that the cata-logue was becoming jaded and that its mix of ideas, insight and inspiration provided through staged room settings had been copied by other catalogues and home inter-est magazines. Market research, explained Mark Fallows, executive vice president creative technology of McCann New York, found that “the catalogue had lost its ‘Swedishness’.”

This work also revealed that furniture buyers were not confident in their choices, but that a wholesale switch to digital was not the answer. Ikea has had digital versions on the iPad for example since 2003 and which have evolved year by year. “But the conclusion was that the catalogue had to work harder,” he said. “We needed to bring new media into the catalogue, to make print live. And the 2013 catalogue was just the start of that.”

The interactivity was confined to just 42pp of the catalogue. The agency, customer and the digital firm selected to handle the development decided that object recognition rather than QR code was the more appropri-ate course. When scanned with the Ikea app the products loaded with extra images could be manipulated onto a Facebook page and placed in the user’s home to judge its suit-ability and to gain comments from friends. Some images were made from 3D frames so that what lay behind the sofa could still

be seen as users tried to assess the impact in their own homes. This proved the most popular of the creative tools tried. There have been 6 million downloads of the app, 30% of whom are new users, average dwell time has been eight minutes, more than twice the average from its other apps and importantly Ikea has gained insights into what its customers liked, and perhaps didn’t like, so much.

The firsT caTalogues was only the beginning. The team was constrained by the content it had available and the nine-month lead time for the project. They had also to be aware of restrictions in bandwidth. Now McCann, Ikea’s creative teams, Metaio as technology provider and an experience design agency are working to make the 2014 catalogue even more immersive and to provide even greater customer engagement.

And that engagement relies on print. It is not the same old print that has become stale with familiarity, but a new way of using the old media. For some the old media is itself new. The clothing company Jack Wills, which targets 18-24 year olds, for example has found web-savvy customers welcome its printed direct mail catalogues.

for a generaTion used To email, to Facebook and to SMS, the posted item creates the impression that someone has thought of them, said TBWA’s chief strategy officer Zaid Al-Zady, whose presen-tation ‘Anything digital can do, print can do better’ ended the day. “To them the printed catalogue feels like a real relationship, unlike email,” he said. “We need to make print live up to the new world of technology. We need to embrace technology and what it can do. Print has to innovate or die.” n

the Ikea catalogue has to bring in

new media to bring print alive. the

new media in question was object

recognition. NfC chips in posters can

link real and virtual worlds.

PaPer


One speaker joked (or did he?) that all sharp implements had been removed from the room, another that the reason the event was being

held beneath ground level was so that there could be no windows for delegates to throw themselves from.

When paper merchants meet to discuss the state of their business, such precautions are needed. As it happens the members of the National Association of Paper Merchants attending their tenth annual forum seemed almost resigned to their fate. They have lived with plummeting volumes for the last four years and if the only slice of hope was that the decline over the next five years would not be as steep, then this is the sort of hope to cling to.

But while the statistics about the state of the trade for paper merchants do not lie, other speakers provided both explana-tions for the fall and pointed to a way ahead.

The theme had been the next five years, depicted by a road sign warning of a tortuous road ahead. Perhaps it should have shown a turning in that road because the future may lie in heading off in new directions.

But first the figures. Chairman Tim Bowler provided the UK figures gathered from the NAPM membership, which covers pretty much all the UK’s merchant business. These were grim. There had been relative market stability from 2000 to 2008, when in July that year the world it seems ran into the wall. In the five years to 2008, volumes fell on average by 1.6%, which a business can cope with by making adjustments to compensate. But the five years since have seen successive declines of 9.2%, 5.2%, 9.3% and last year 5.4%. In 2000 the UK’s merchants supplied 2,113 million tonnes of paper; last year they supplied 1,462 million

tonnes. NAPM members are suppliers of 67% of the total tonnage supplied in the UK. The remainder comes direct from mills as reels or sheets, bypassing the merchants.

This means that the average per capita consumption in the UK has dropped from a peak of 201kg to 165kg. The US is expe-riencing an even steeper decline from an average of 300kg per head. “The consumer is able to by pass the need to use paper in almost every aspect of their daily lives,” says Bowler. As well as fingering tablets (245 million will be sold next year) he pointed to the ‘drip-drip’ campaign against the use of paper on environmental grounds. “Consumers have little idea about the notion of cropped timber,” he explains, “and while a lot is being done the perception is still unfair.”

His glimmer of light was that the lights might be turned off if the energy gap is not bridged very quickly. Demand for electric-ity to power phones, computers and so on is putting such a strain on the country’s resources that there is a real danger of sustained power cuts. “The price and avail-ability of power might become a crucial issue in the future, such that people might become reluctant to charge their devices. This might produce a retro effect in favour of paper,” he says.

the 28% drop in paper volumes in the UK is not as bad as some countries have experienced. Eduard De Voogd, secretary general of Eugropa, the association linking Europe’s paper merchanting organisations, provided the figures to compare the UK with 23 other countries around Europe. None has emerged unscathed, though the central European economies are showing some stability in consumption, though far below levels in the major west European

countries. His statistics also showed the market growing from 1990 to 2001 where volume expansion was around 2% above GDP, around 4-5% a year. This fed a round of consolidation to reduce the share sold through independents to 27% when family owned enterprises had held 56% of the market a decade earlier. A decade further on and 91% of the market is consolidated into seven companies each showing varying levels of success.

all markets have Been in decline, again to varying degrees. Thus Germany has been the largest market with 3.4 million tonnes passing through merchants in 2000, falling 18% to 2.8 million tonnes in 2012. The UK has dropped 30% from 2.0 million tonnes to 1.4 million tonnes last year. France has experienced a 48% drop from 1.6 million tonnes to 800,000 tones and Spain has fallen further, from 700,000 tonnes to 320,000 tonnes, a drop of 53%. In some countries printers are buying direct from mill groups and Italy’s changing member-ship makes it impossible to achieve a like for like comparison.

But the trends are accurate. Paper produc-tion figures echo with woodfree coated paper production starting to decline in 2008 with volumes falling from 3.5 million tonnes to 3.0 million since then; uncoated grades fell likewise and cut sheet wrapped papers sold through merchants feel even more steeply as large retail groups are taking the place of merchants.

His conclusion: “The traditional busi-ness of merchants is shrinking, but despite this there have been very few bankruptcies because there has been lots of consolida-tion.” And he warned that merchants should beware of offering lower prices on indent stock as this was a sure way to destroy value.

efficient printing means less paperSpeakers at the NaPM forum explained why the industry must come

to terms with permanently reduced supply requirements.

PaPer


One speaker joked (or did he?) that all sharp implements had been removed from the room, another that the reason the event was being

held beneath ground level was so that there could be no windows for delegates to throw themselves from.

When paper merchants meet to discuss the state of their business, such precautions are needed. As it happens the members of the National Association of Paper Merchants attending their tenth annual forum seemed almost resigned to their fate. They have lived with plummeting volumes for the last four years and if the only slice of hope was that the decline over the next five years would not be as steep, then this is the sort of hope to cling to.

But while the statistics about the state of the trade for paper merchants do not lie, other speakers provided both explana-tions for the fall and pointed to a way ahead.

The theme had been the next five years, depicted by a road sign warning of a tortuous road ahead. Perhaps it should have shown a turning in that road because the future may lie in heading off in new directions.

But first the figures. Chairman Tim Bowler provided the UK figures gathered from the NAPM membership, which covers pretty much all the UK’s merchant business. These were grim. There had been relative market stability from 2000 to 2008, when in July that year the world it seems ran into the wall. In the five years to 2008, volumes fell on average by 1.6%, which a business can cope with by making adjustments to compensate. But the five years since have seen successive declines of 9.2%, 5.2%, 9.3% and last year 5.4%. In 2000 the UK’s merchants supplied 2,113 million tonnes of paper; last year they supplied 1,462 million

tonnes. NAPM members are suppliers of 67% of the total tonnage supplied in the UK. The remainder comes direct from mills as reels or sheets, bypassing the merchants.

This means that the average per capita consumption in the UK has dropped from a peak of 201kg to 165kg. The US is expe-riencing an even steeper decline from an average of 300kg per head. “The consumer is able to by pass the need to use paper in almost every aspect of their daily lives,” says Bowler. As well as fingering tablets (245 million will be sold next year) he pointed to the ‘drip-drip’ campaign against the use of paper on environmental grounds. “Consumers have little idea about the notion of cropped timber,” he explains, “and while a lot is being done the perception is still unfair.”

His glimmer of light was that the lights might be turned off if the energy gap is not bridged very quickly. Demand for electric-ity to power phones, computers and so on is putting such a strain on the country’s resources that there is a real danger of sustained power cuts. “The price and avail-ability of power might become a crucial issue in the future, such that people might become reluctant to charge their devices. This might produce a retro effect in favour of paper,” he says.

the 28% drop in paper volumes in the UK is not as bad as some countries have experienced. Eduard De Voogd, secretary general of Eugropa, the association linking Europe’s paper merchanting organisations, provided the figures to compare the UK with 23 other countries around Europe. None has emerged unscathed, though the central European economies are showing some stability in consumption, though far below levels in the major west European

countries. His statistics also showed the market growing from 1990 to 2001 where volume expansion was around 2% above GDP, around 4-5% a year. This fed a round of consolidation to reduce the share sold through independents to 27% when family owned enterprises had held 56% of the market a decade earlier. A decade further on and 91% of the market is consolidated into seven companies each showing varying levels of success.

all markets have Been in decline, again to varying degrees. Thus Germany has been the largest market with 3.4 million tonnes passing through merchants in 2000, falling 18% to 2.8 million tonnes in 2012. The UK has dropped 30% from 2.0 million tonnes to 1.4 million tonnes last year. France has experienced a 48% drop from 1.6 million tonnes to 800,000 tones and Spain has fallen further, from 700,000 tonnes to 320,000 tonnes, a drop of 53%. In some countries printers are buying direct from mill groups and Italy’s changing member-ship makes it impossible to achieve a like for like comparison.

But the trends are accurate. Paper produc-tion figures echo with woodfree coated paper production starting to decline in 2008 with volumes falling from 3.5 million tonnes to 3.0 million since then; uncoated grades fell likewise and cut sheet wrapped papers sold through merchants feel even more steeply as large retail groups are taking the place of merchants.

His conclusion: “The traditional busi-ness of merchants is shrinking, but despite this there have been very few bankruptcies because there has been lots of consolida-tion.” And he warned that merchants should beware of offering lower prices on indent stock as this was a sure way to destroy value.

efficient printing means less paperSpeakers at the NaPM forum explained why the industry must come

to terms with permanently reduced supply requirements.

PaPer


“As well as looking to improve efficiencies and improve margins, which is difficult in a shrinking market,” he says. “Merchants should look to exploit their strengths in other areas, to exploit the warehouse and distribution networks they have.

“Merchants are traders, we know our customers and suppliers, we understand distribution and have skills to handle packaging materials and machinery, plastics, digital presses and supplies, inks and LED lighting systems. We should look to the food, the construction and the agri-cultural industries. We have to look at other products and other markets as well. It’s not easy but we have to do it,” says Bowler.

Paperlinx is right on trend according to CEO Dave Allen, speaking later in the day. He ran through the history of the business from its split from Amcor in Australia, its acquisition led growth, expensive decision to quit paper manufacturing, the impact of the climb in value of the Australian dollar and then the global recession. The market has dropped around 30% he explained, “and we can’t sustain that. This is a market in structural decline and it will continue to decline. Tablet technology will have a huge impact and will further reduce our print market. There are going to be fewer mills, fewer merchants and fewer printers.”

Paperlinx will shed a further 200 staff in this country this year, but the signs are optimistic. The UK, much the largest of the merchanting operations and with a claimed 40% of the UK market, will be in operat-ing profit within the “next month or so” he explains. The immediate model is the Cana-dian business which has sales of $450 million “and is hugely profitable”. This follows large scale consolidation and cost reduction and the addition of non paper business.

“We have reduced costs in our core busi-ness. It means rationalisation of logistics, better trucks and extended operating hours. It means rationalising the product range, but increasing the depth of choice. And it’s not just about paper, it’s litho consumables, wide format machines and ink, plastics and packaging. We are selling plastic sheets to aircraft and boat manufacturers.”

Nor is the picture outside Europe much healthier. Emanuele Bona, VP Europe for the pulp and paper products council, gathers statistics and looks at trends across the globe. “World paper demand is 15% below its peak,” he declares. This amounts to a reduction of 120 million tonnes a year from 1990. The biggest style of paper, newsprint, has shrunk from one third of overall tonnage in 1990 to one quarter of tonnage last year, falling 22% in the last five years. The decline has been steepest in North America, where the direst predictions have the last news-paper page being printed in 2017 as news transfers to the web and to tablets.

The developed Pacific Rim economies are showing the same trends as in Europe, while India is the only market where newsprint consumption is predicted to rise in the next five years. In the printing & writings grades there has been decline in the developed econ-omies, but a 6% rise is forecast for China, though this will not replace the 7 million tonnes of production lost since the 1990s.

Bona’s view, like the NAPM’s is that there has been both a decline in ad spend, a decline in magazine circulations, particularly in high readership general titles with a consequent impact on the gravure sector, and “the game changer is mobile devices”. He explains: “210 million have been sold in three years and by 2016, there will be 1 billion tablets in the market. Consequently we see no light for printing grades in the short term, though

the rate of decline will slow. The big risk is that the cyclical decline in the market will become a structural decline,” he says.

But while the paper supply industry is crying into its iPads, Heidelberg UK sales director Jim Todd offered a different expla-nation for the 26% fall in demand for paper in the last four years. There is the economy which he reckons to be equivalent to a 7% drop off; there is a huge influx of print work from the big five web to print companies led by Vistaprint and followed closely by four German giants; there is the Inpress technol-ogy that Heidelberg has supplied with 100 presses in the UK since 2008; there is the impact from shorter print runs and greater use of production efficient lean manage-ment processes. This also helped reduce reworking.

adding these together could account for the entire decline in paper consumption, though Todd admits that this is unlikely. It would, however, account for a sizeable slice of the reduction. “A new press, with shorter print runs and more efficient makereadies with new finishing equipment needing less start up waste as well could result in as much as a 13% paper saving for a printer. One printer that has installed a five-colour plus coater XL is saving the equivalent of 67 tonnes of paper in a year, more than 5% of the sheets it prints.”

The message that more efficient print-ers means reducing demand for paper (and Todd did not mention any impact from digital printing) was not one to cheer the paper merchanting fraternity. But their own speakers had already provided a stark enough message: the road ahead is going to be no less difficult than the road has been since 2008. n

2,11

3,00

1

2,09

0,58

2

2,04

6,24

3

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20122,

030,

750

1,97

9,59

2

1,79

7,76

5

1,70

3,76

3

1,54

5,62

6

1,46

1,97

0

UK consumption of paper in tonnes

Paper supply dropped more steeply between 2008 and 2011 but seems to be levelling out again between 2001 and 2012.

Strapline


l Bolloré iS running final testing

on new papers aimed at digital book

printing, one intended for laser printing,

the other for inkjet printing. Both

continue Bolloré’s specialisation of

thin papers and are available as 40gsm,

45gsm and 50gsm for

PrimaOne, the paper

designed for mono

laser printing and

with applications in

reports and directories,

and as 45gsm and

50gsm for PrimaJet,

a pigmented paper for

printing books inclusive

of illustrations. As with

other papers from the

French manufacturer

the papers have high

opacity and are produced

in accordance with strict

environmental standards.

Initial development

tests with several printers have finished

successfully and now final testing under

production conditions is about to get

underway in this country.

l MetSä Board has improved three

of its folding boxboards, following an

upgrade to its mills in the last two

years. Avanta Prima has improved bulk,

allowing a lighter weight to be specified

with no loss of strength; Simcote

also gains from improved bulk while

maintaining thicknesses and stiffness

and Carta Elga, designed for the beauty

care market offers enhanced visual

whiteness.

l roBert Kaye has been elected

chairman of Paperlinx having joined the

board as a non-exec in September last

year. Michael Barker who is stepping

down, will remain on the board in a

non-executive capacity.

l arjowigginS graphic has produced

a short video to explain the benefits of

using recycled papers as an introduction

to Paperworld. It aims to demonstrate

the beauty of paper using origami figures

and a young girl’s journey from the cities

threatening streets to the brightness and

wildlife in Paperworld.

denmaur shows flair as it takes on FinesseDenmaur InDepenDent Papers has become the sole UK stockist for UPM’s Finesse wood-free coated paper to sheetfed printers. It cements a long relationship between the paper supplier and the Finnish mill group, under which Denmaur has supplied the paper, but only as direct orders, not from warehouse stock.

“We will now be exclusive stockists for Finesse Gloss and Silk in sheets and CutStar reels,” says marketing director Peter Sommerville. “This will be the number one coated paper for Denmaur. Finesse is market leader in Europe and will be the whitest coated paper available in the UK.”

The move is part of an expansion strat-egy for Denmaur as Finesse is an addition to its range, not a replacement grade. This is being backed by expanding the sales force to increase the company’s share of what is acknowledged to be a declining market.

The UPM paper is produced at two of the UPM Kymmene mills in Finland, Kymi and Nordland, the latter being a mill that Denmaur has had long term dealings with “even before they made coated papers” says Sommerville.

The company plans to stock a wide range of weights and sizes, ranging from 220gsm and 270gsm boards, and includ-ing intermediate SRA sizes 660x920mm and 480x650mm, offering savings over more common B formats. It will hold 7-10 days’ stock in warehouse with a three-week making schedule for bespoke sizes.

“UPM is Europe’s leading paper producer,” he continues, “We have always worked well with them.”

While the deal to handle Finesse grabs the headlines, Denmaur is also to stock UPM’s Fine SC, a smooth uncoated paper that Denmaur believes will have appeal to designers who want a sophisticated look to reports and presentation materials. “We have also run some tests using digital printing and have had success with the HP Indigo,” adds Sommerville. “UPM Fine and Amadeus Recycled have been superb for us, but until now we haven’t had a top end product to offer. If we can offer a solution for both digital and folio, this will be very exciting.” Both papers are FSC certified and have EU Ecolabel certification.

The deal comes as Denmaur celebrates 30 years of trading, starting from a cramped office above Rochester station and growing into the 70-strong, £115 million turnover business it has become.

Minister opens Manchester millBusIness anD energy minister Michael Fallon performed the duties at the official inauguration of the Saica recycled containerboard mill at Partington, near Manchester.

The £300 million project produced its first paper more than a year ago and has since been undergoing testing and acceptance trials. It is now in full operation and able to produce 450,000 tonnes a year of containerboard for corrugated cases at between 75-125gsm from 100% recovered fibre. The Spanish company hopes to retain recovered material that would

otherwise be shipped to the Far East.The UK currently collects 8 million tonnes

of fibre, the packaging grade material heads for Smurfit Kappa or DS Smith, newsprint to Aylesford or Palm Paper and fine paper qualities to France or Germany. Around half the material collected is exported.

The PM11 at the site has a web width of 7.5 metres and will run at 1,500m per minute. The site has a CHP plant to create energy, so that electricity needed from the grid is only half the average per tonne of paper produced.

paper newS


denmaur’s marketing director peter Sommerville announces the news at the gherkin in london.

top quality always catches the eye

For more information, samples or a swatch contact Denmaur Independent Paperson 01795 426775 or visit

www.denmaur.com

UPM Finesse

• 90 to 350gsm• Intermediate Sizes• Intermediate Weights• Silk & Gloss• Sheets & CutStar Reels• Next day delivery• Free samples & mock-ups• Endless possibilities

NEW &

EXCLUSIV

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Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

UPM FInesse_A4_to press.pdf 1 29/04/2013 11:00

people in print


A true revolutionary, efi Arazi leaves a legacy of innovationEfi ArAzi has died aged 76, depriving the industry of one of the most innovative minds to have worked in the graphic arts. Most people cannot create one world leading company, yet Arazi founded two, Scitex and then Electronics for Imaging.

Efi Arazi thought he could transform the textile industry through the use of computers to design and create new fabrics, but the company he founded as Scientific Textiles, with a logo based on an idealised stitch, ended up transforming the printing and prepress industry instead.

As a student Arazi developed the cameras that Nasa took to the moon. The area of satellite imagery was opening up along and computers were being used to interpret these images, manipulating colour to achieve the best quality result.

From enhancing satellite images, it is a short step to manipulating colour on screen for fabric design and then printed pages.

This work resulted in a sneak preview of the first computer for colour retouching at the GEC print trade show in 1978. It was a startling moment and put the Israeli company ahead of the established elite of companies in print prepress, Crosfield Electronics, Hell and Dainippon Screen.

Each would respond with their own computerised colour page assembly and retouching equipment, but Scitex continued to stay ahead.

Large format film output for single piece plate sized films followed, even the first computer to plate technology. But even as Scitex expanded, Arazi realised that the future lay with lower cost technology and in spreading the ability to work with colour beyond specialist repro houses. But he failed to convince the Scitex board that the future lay in standard platform computers, leaving to take his ideas for colour management to a new company.

The first application was EfiColor, introduced as a simple to use colour management application where users would work their way through a number of options on screen, coming closer to the ideal representation of the image. It was not to be a success, while the Fiery, a Rip to drive the Canon Laser Printer, using the same core colour management software to control output quality, was to prove the mother lode.

The combination of Fiery and the CLC family offered the first digital colour print device, linked to desktop computers and early versions of Adobe Photoshop. It was used by some as a digital proofing device and others as a colour printing bureau. Fiery engines went on to drive printers from almost every supplier and continue to do so. Eventually Scitex came up with its own answer, Spontane, proving Arazi’s instincts had been correct.

l Jon BAiley has become managing director of ProCo, taking over from founder

Mark Schofield who becomes chairman of the Sheffield company. Bailey joined the company 11 years ago and has been

its sales director as it has increased its digital presence and strengthening its brand identity. Bailey comments: “As a company, we possess a firm understanding of our customers’ requirements in what are challenging times for marketeers. Couple this with an adaptable, innovative approach to harnessing technology to integrate and add value alongside print in an increasingly digital world, and I’m extremely optimistic that our growth will continue through 2013 and beyond.”

l Ken Moores has joined APS Group as business development director, with responsibility for driving new revenue streams across the vertical markets in which APS operates. He joins from HH Global where he had been business development director building its pan-European customer base. He

says: “I intend to build on our pan-European client base as well as creating increasingly diverse and challenging business opportunities which I know our team are capable of delivering on.’’

l tyrone spence has departed BCQ where he had been joint managing director

since merging his Colour Quest business with Buckingham Colour seven years ago in the aftermath of the Buncefield oil depot explosion

which rendered Colour Quest homeless. Spence will now combine charity work with consultancy, having formed E-com2. “I now want to set up an advisory and training service to the entire supply chain, including print management companies and other buyers, printers and equipment providers,” he says. “There is a genuine need for this communication chain to bring understanding between different sectors of our trade.” He leaves on good terms with BCQ chairman Richard Knowles who says: “Many marriages made in heaven run their course and we both gained great benefit from the merger.

Now Tyrone wants to do other things and we wish him success in his new venture.”

l Will HeArn has become sales executive for GMG’s southern region while the colour management specialist has appointed Dominic Mannion as technical engineer based in the company’s Leeds office. Hearn brings 20 years’ experience in the prepress sector, latterly as sales director for EC2i, a catalogue production house, and brings strong contacts from retail and promotional media. Mannion joins the company from Presstek and will strengthen GMG’s ability to support flexo and packaging companies which GMG considers a key area for growth.

l MiKe ArroWsMitH has become non-executive director of Tullis Russell, the

papermaking and speciality coating company. He brings experience on the board of a number of high profile companies including Linpac and Tibbett &

Britten as chief executive. His task will be to support the drive for growth in both domestic and international markets.

RobertsGraphics_PrintBusiness.indd 1 01/05/13 11:46

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