Printing News - June/July 2019

JUNE/JULY 2019

22 T he Future of Sheetfed Offset: What Offse Manufacturer Executives Have to Say 34 H igh Speed Inkjet Devices Take on Commercial Print Quality 43 L esson from the Cracker Jack Box - Let’s Use AR Responsibly

Firespring:

CEO Jay Wilkinson and COO Kevin Thomas of Firespring Print, Inc.

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ISA Sign Expo 2019: VP, GROUP PUBLISHER Kelley Holmes kelley@whattheythink.com 772-579-7360 PRODUCTION EDITOR & MANAGER

Amy Hahn amy@whattheythink.com

EDITOR Jessica Taylor jessica@whattheythink.com MANAGING EDITOR Richard Romano richard@whattheythink.com SENIOR EDITOR Cary Sherburne cary@whattheythink.com BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Paul Zimmerman paul@whattheythink.com 973-727-1376 PRESIDENT Eric Vessels eric@whattheythink.com 740-417-3333 COO Adam Dewitz adam@whattheythink.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Tom Crouser Mary Schilling Dave Fellman Heidi Tolliver-Walker John Giles Deb Thompson Elizabeth Gooding Mark Vruno Jennifer Matt David Zwang CREATIVE SERVICES Bobbi Burow, CreativityTank LLC bobbi.burow@gmail.com SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE For change of address or subscription information email: help@whattheythink.com Published by WTT Media, Inc. 2038 Ford Parkway #218, Saint Paul, MN 55116 ARTICLE REPRINTS Please contact your account executive PrintingNews.com PrintingNews.com—the web portal representing content from Printing News, Wide-Format & Signage—is devoted to delivering you timely news and multimedia content on a daily basis.

WhatTheyThink (ISSN 2642-3189) (USPS 500850) Volume 42, Number 8 is published ten times per year in January/February, March, April, May, June/July, August, September, October, November, and December by WTT Media, Inc., at 2038 Ford Parkway #218, Saint Paul, MN 55116.

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WTT Media Inc. does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any person or company for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions in the material herein, regardless of causation. The views and opinions in the articles herein are not those of the publishers, unless indicated. The publishers do not warrant, either expressly or by implication, the factual accuracy of the articles herein, or of any views or opinions offered by the authors of said articles.

Into the Woods

I

n April, the WhatTheyThink/Printing News/Wide-Format & Signage team converged on the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas for the 75th Annual International Sign Association Sign Expo, and the term was apt: we converged on an event that was reflective of what some refer to as an industry converging.

By the end of the first day of the show, 20,000 attendees had walked the show floor to check out the ever-increasing diversity of equipment and materials that can produce signage and display graphics of all kinds. From traditional channel letters and cut lettering, to wideformat printing in all its myriad forms, to LEDs, to holograms—there seemed to be no end to the ways one can produce signage, and that has generated an everheightening sense enthusiasm among many attendees.

“You can feel in the air a palpable sense of excitement,” said Lori Anderson, president and CEO of ISA. Over the ISA’s three-quarters-of-acentury history, the technology used to create signage has always been in flux.

Funny: it wasn’t too long ago—less than a decade, really—that print was the hot new technology for creating signage.

The first Sign Expo that I covered was in 2013, and the show hit my own radar because wide-format printing—my primary beat for WhatTheyThink at the time—had started to penetrate into the signmaking market in earnest, and thus had become a relevant show for what I was covering. It has only become more relevant in the years since. At the same time, the Sign Expo has also become even more reflective of the industry—indeed, all the industries that now comprise print—in that signage is just one tree in what has become a vast print forest.

If you have been paying attention to our coverage of the last few Sign Expos,

4

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you have seen another tree grow in that forest: textiles, be it soft signage, décor or apparel. In that print forest, printing is printing, and whether it’s signage, specialty items, garments or even commercial printing like direct mail and transactional, opportunities abound in that increasingly thick print forest. As a result, a major announcement at this year’s Sign Expo made perfect sense: next year, the 2020 Sign Expo in Orlando will colocate with the Impressions Expo, formerly the Imprinted Sportswear Show, which focuses on printed apparel.

“The lines continue to blur,” said Joshua Carruth, show director of Impressions Expo. “There is tremendous value in bringing the two communities together. We couldn’t find a reason why it didn’t work.”

ISA is no stranger to industry convergence driving colocation; this year’s Sign Expo colocated with Xplor19 to give signage printers an entry into the commercial and transactional printing and commercial printers a peek at sign and display graphics.

Before the Sign Expo, I had a conversation with Cary Sherburne, who was skeptical that wide-format shops are looking at commercial printing, but just after the Sign Expo I was at another event and was talking to a wide-format shop owner who had done just that.

Convergence goes both ways.

These colocations are about exposing print service providers from different parts of the industry to potential sources of new business opportunities. No one is eager to miss the forest for the trees.

Find article here PrintingNews.com/ 21069997 ■

Richard Romano Managing Editor richard@whattheythink.com

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CONTENTS

JUNE/JULY 2019

PRINTING NEWS COVER STORY

8 2019 Top 100 Small Commercial Printers.

Cary Sherburne 20 How Clean is Your Print Business Data? Jennifer Matt

8

22 The Future of Sheetfed Offset: What Offse Manufacturer Executives Have to Say. Cary Sherburne 34 High Speed Inkjet Devices Take on Commercial Print Quality. Elizabeth Gooding & Mary Schilling 40 Embellishments: What’s Old Is New Again and Still Adds Value! — Part 2. David Zwang

40

46

43 Lesson from the Cracker Jack Box: Let’s Use AR Responsibly.

Heidi Tolliver-Walker WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE 46 Planes, Trains, Automobiles ...and Vans and Trucks.

Mark Vruno 50 Well-Schooled in Printing: Chicago Loop Studio Wins SpeedPro Project of the Year.

Richard Romano

50

52 Idealliance Develops XCMYK Color Space for Inkjet and Digital. Tim Baechle 54 Vycom and AZEK Open Recycling Plant for Sustainable Substrates.

Richard Romano TEXTILE

54 6

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58 W hy EFI Acquired BDR Boya Kimya and What’s Up with EFI BOLT Cary Sherburne

66 66 Association Insights: Building Community, Driving Excellence, Navigating the Future. Ford Bowers

Departments 4 44

Editorial New Products

56 Watch List: Video 60 Wide-Format & Signage Products 64

Classifieds/Supplier Directory

In the Know- Events EskoWorld

June 24-26

Alphagraphics 2019 Technology Expo

July 17-20

Franchise Services International Convention and Vendor Show July 18-19 Minuteman World Expo July 31-Aug. 3

Search for us… twitter:

@PrintingNews; @WideFormatSign @whattheythink facebook:

Printing News; wideformatsignage @whattheythink linkedin:

Printing News linkedin.com/groups/1780044 whattheythink youtube:

PrintingNews.com

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2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS

Article by Cary Sherburne

E

ach year, Printing News invites commercial print owners to participate in the Top 100 Small Commercial Printers survey. The survey takes a look at the state of the industry as presented by commercial print owners across North America. This year, in keeping with the spirit of “Small Commercial Printers,” we included the Top 100 North American commercial printers with revenues of $25,000,000 or less.

Total reported revenues by the top 100 respondents were $502,588,165, with individual company revenues in the Top 100 ranging from $1.9 million to $24.3 million, with median company revenues of $4 million.

Be sure to check out the in-depth profiles of our Top Six at the end of Cary Sherburne Cary Sherburne is a well-known author, journalist and marketing consultant whose practice is focused on marketing communications strategies for the printing and publishing industries.

8

this article.

In our survey responses, we saw a 60/40 split between privately held companies and franchise operations, with two in-plant print operations responding. Three of our respondents have been in business since the early 1900s: Seiders Printing Company (now doing business as part of a group under theprinters.com), founded in 1902; Foote Printing, founded in 1907; and Consolidated Printing & Stationery Company, founded in 1914. The median founding date for all companies was 1987.

Most respondents had one or two locations; two of our Top Six had five (AlphaGraphics Seattle) and six (Allegra Asheville) locations, respectively. AlphaGraphics Idaho Falls also reported having six locations. The most locations reported by any respondent was 13 (Copy Central (Fairbanks Enterprise)).

The median number of full-time employees for all respondents was 22. Promotional products, branded apparel and web design services were the most common non-

print marketing services offered by respondents. A quarter of respondents indicated they offer no non-print marketing services, which was higher than we expected.

The following summarizes the percent of revenue for print-related services in 2018 from our Top 100.

■■ Among those who reported offering prepress services, it represented a median 6% of revenues. One company reported that 40% of revenues came from prepress. The company, a franchise operation, also reported 24% of revenues coming from garment decoration, textile printing and dye sublimation on products or substrates other than textiles, an unusual product mix for this survey sample. Eighty-nine percent of respondents reported offering this service at some level.

■■ One-Color Offset: 61% of respondents offer this service, with the median percent of revenue for those reporting at 3.5%. Ten companies count this

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2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS as 10% or more of revenues, with one reporting 50% of revenue coming from one-color offset.

■■ Multi-color offset is slightly more popular, with 61% of respondents offering this service. Only 13 firms attribute more than 10% of revenues to this service. For those that offer this service, the median contribution to overall revenues is 5%.

■■ Four-color offset accounts for a median of 14.5% of revenues for those reporting that they offer this service, which is 66% of respondents. Fortyseven percent of respondents report process color offset as accounting for 10% or more of revenues.

■■ Black and white digital represented a median of 8%

of revenues for the 88% of respondents that offer this service. Twenty-five perecent of respondents generate 10% of revenue or more from this service.

■■ Color digital printing and copying presents a more robust picture, as expected, with this service accounting for a median of 24% of revenues for the 86% who offer it. Eighty-two percent of respondents report this accounts for 10% or more of revenues. There were only two firms in the Top 100 who did not report offering this service.

■■ As one would expect, production inkjet was not offered by many respondents – in fact, only 12 firms claimed to offer this service. It is unclear how the term “production

■■

■■

Applications by Percent of Revenue for Top 100

Garment Decoration/Other Textile Products 1.9%

Dye Sublimation on Products or Substrates Other Than Textiles 0.3%

Bindery/Finishing 8.8%

Wide-Format Inkjet Printing (36’ wide or larger) 8.3%

08-19_Top100.indd 9

■■

Four-Color Process 12.0%

Signage 4.1%

One-Color Offset 3.6% Multi-Color Offset 4.0%

Brokered/Other 15.1%

Interactive/ Web-based Services 0.8%

Mailing Services (Do not include postage) 5.0%

Prepress 5.9%

Color Digital Printing/Copying 22.6%

Production Inkjet Printing 0.4%

B/W Digital Printing/ Copying 6.9%

■■

inkjet” was interpreted by respondents, since technically, production inkjet devices are very high-volume printers. We’ll be sure to do a better job of clarifying definitions in our next survey.

Wide format printing, 36” wide or larger, accounted for a median of only 8% of revenues with 77% of respondents offering this service. However, 32 companies reported this service accounted for 10% or more of revenues, including two that reported 64% and 55%, respectively.

We also asked about signage, and the responses there are a little less clear. We are assuming that respondents differentiated between display graphics, which would have been produced on wide format printers, and other types of signage. That being said, 54% of respondents reported offering this service, which represented a mean of 6% of revenues for those reporting. Only 17 companies reported signs as representing more than 10% of revenues.

We found it somewhat surprising that bindery and finishing services only represented a mean percentage of revenues of 9%, although 90% of respondents reported offering these services at some level, with 48% reporting it represented 10% or more of revenues.

With 79% of respondents reporting that they offer mailing services, these services only represented a mean of 5% of revenues (excluding postage). Seventeen firms reported that mailing services account for more than 10% of revenues, with one reporting it

June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS represented 55% of revenues.

■ O nly a small percentage of our respondent (22%) reported offering interactive/web-based services. And only one firm reported that these services represented more than 10% of revenues, the number-one company in our Top 100 at 32%, and we think that sends a significant message. Next year, we will ask specifically about revenues attributable to e-commerce to determine how many of the Top 100 small commercial printers are using web-to-print in a significant way.

■ Garment decoration and other textile products are being offered by 24% of respondents, with only five companies reporting this service accounting for more than 10% of revenues. Dye sublimation on products or substrates other than textiles had even fewer participants, only six companies. However, it should be noted, as you will see next, that companies are outsourcing a significant amount of work, and that likely includes these products for many of them.

■ Brokered and other services represented a mean of 16% of revenues for 85 of the reporting companies. Sixty-six percent of respondents reported that these services represented 10% or more of revenues, with 20 firms reporting they represented 25%

Rank

10

Company Name

1

Firespring Print, Inc.

2

Strategic Factory

3

or more of revenues.

With continuing pressure on the commercial printing industry, small commercial printers should look for ways to develop incremental revenue streams. There are still almost 70% of respondents offering offset printing, while almost 90% of respondents offer digital printing, and printing will likely remain the core of the business for some time. But many of our most successful respondents have undertaken diversification in their businesses.

Key areas of opportunity for expansion will depend on where each printer is located and the needs of its customers. One immediate area of opportunity that we see is wide format printing. Some companies are all-in on this application, but for most, it only represents a very small percentage of revenues. Customers are buying wide format printing from someone – it might as well be you, right?

Another area of opportunity is dye sublimation printing on products or substrates other than textiles. This can include things like mugs, laptop covers, coasters – just about anything you can think of. While we believe that many of our respondents are outsourcing this to some degree, the investment to bring it in-house is quite reasonable, and these products can offer good margins.

Finally, there is the whole area of garment decoration and textile printing above and beyond soft signage. These are markets that can be entered with reasonable

Management

City & State

investments, and/or produced with equipment that might already be in place, especially when using heat transfer dye sublimation paper. As with the dye sublimation applications noted above, it may only require acquisition of a heat press to supplement the printer.

We were surprised that only 22% of respondents reported offering web-based/interactive services.

This is another area of opportunity, especially with customer portals and web-to-print services. There are many software solutions in the market today that make this an affordable investment. However, to truly be successful, the back-end production, fulfillment and shipping operation must be efficient and automated.

Another area of opportunity for additional in-house services is finishing and bindery. While it can be easier to send that work out, as the industry has done for a long time, the level of automation now available in binding and finishing equipment often means that skilled labor, which can be increasingly hard to find and retain in this area of the business, is not necessarily required.

While the company is not included in the Top 6, we also wanted to give special recognition to CEO Jeff Ostenso and his team from Ironmark of Annapolis, Md. The company saw 22% year-overyear growth and generated 2018 revenues of $28,665,000 – slightly over our topline qualifier for “small commercial printer.”

Year

Number of

Total Employees

Founded

locations

(FT+PT)

2018 Sales

Growth/Loss

Jay Wilkinson, CEO

Lincoln, NE

1993

2

152

$24,348,340

11.7%

Keith Miller, President

Owings Mills, MD

1999

2

132

$20,404,288

11%

Kelvyn Press

Richard Malacina, Sr., President

Broadview, IL

1968

1

100

$20,000,000

4

Alphaprint Inc DBA AlphaGraphics Seattle

Chuck Stempler, CEO, President

Seattle, WA

1989

6

94

$18,060,788

1%

5

Allen Printing Company

Shannon Heffington, CFO

Nashville, TN

1931

1

125

$15,000,000

25%

6

Allegra Asheville

Dave Campbell, President

Asheville, NC

1998

6

47

$12,942,615

23%

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

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2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS Rank

Company Name

7

Influence Graphics

Year

Number of

Total Employees

Management

City & State

Founded

locations

(FT+PT)

Ron Sizemore, Partner

Long Island City, N.Y.

2005

1

45

2018 Sales

Growth/Loss

$11,915,000

8

Alphagraphics Idaho Falls

Lynn Nelson, President

Idaho Falls, ID

2006

6

85

$11,714,000

9

Allegra Marketing • Print • Mail Plymouth

Michael Marcantonio, CEO

Plymouth, MI

1978

2

70

$11,700,000

-9%

10

Sir Speedy Printing Whittier

George Coriaty, President

Whittier, CA

1979

1

32

$11,321,000

14.35%

11

Your Printer V.2.0. Ltd. Allegra Princeton

David Kovacs, President

Cranbury, NJ

1996

2

51

$11,150,000

57%

Ronald Sizemore, Partner

Long Island City, NY

2005

1

46

$11,113,931

Chatsworth, CA

1989

1

30

$11,000,000

flat to 2017

James Kalousdian, President

Hauppauge, NY

1943

1

49

$8,700,000

7%

Craig Fairbanks, CEO

Emeryville, CA

1986

13

61

$8,440,000

1%

Scott and Tom Fulner, Owners

Indianapolis, IN

1972

3

62

$7,895,000

-1.38%

Jan Tatham, Pres; John Tatham, VP; Shelley

Anchorage, AK

1979

1

40

$6,940,357

11% -14%

12

Jurist Influence Group

13

S2K Graphics

14

Haig Graphic Communications

15

Copy Central Fairbanks Enterprise

16

Dynamark Graphics Group, Inc.

17

PIP Printing of Alaska

17%

Bramstedt, Treasurer 18

New London Communications

19

DMS Color

20

AlphaGraphics in the Cultural District

21

Insight Communication, LLC AlphaGraphics of

Eric Rountree, CEO

Alpharetta, GA

1987

1

39

$6,819,000

Ryan Cooper, President

Pelham, AL

2006

1

55

$6,750,000

7%

Bill and Clare Meehan, Chairman and

Pittsburgh, PA

2000

1

29

$6,700,000

11%

Grant Richey, President

Bountiful, UT

2007

1

32

$6,650,579

5%

Treasurer (Bill); President (Clare) Bountiful 22

Raintree Graphics

Mike Seethaler, President

Jacksonville, FL

1989

1

42

$6,500,000

-10%

23

A & B Printing & Mailing

Kathy Gillespie, President

Henderson, NV

1978

1

36

$6,500,000

-6%

Rick Richter, President; Gene Egan, V.P.

Crestwood, IL

1989

2

22

$6,344,000

18%

Tafur Corliss, Owner

Braintree, MA

1989

1

24

$6,221,479

3%

Bruce and Linda Pansky, Pres & VP

Downey, CA

1969

1

22

$6,103,658

40%

Peter Gardner, President

Westborough, MA

1981

2

30

$6,056,340

10.5%

Mary Kohler, Deann Spitler

Lancaster, PA

1973

1

46

$6,000,000

0%

24

Integra

25

Braintree Printing

26

Jeb-Phi Inc. PIP Printing #46

27

Curry Printing

28

H & H Graphics Inc. The H&H Group

Mike Williams 29

AAI

30

AlphaGraphics #4

31

W.M. Enterprises, Inc. Graphtech

Bob Cap, CEO

Gilbert, MN

1971

1

9

$5,900,000

10%

Mike Sparaco & Darin Osborne, CEO/CFO

Tempe, AZ

1988

1

36

$5,887,029

-7.10%

Jon Williams, CEO

Harrisburg, PA

1982

1

40

$5,502,670

-1.9%

Sarah DiCello, President 32

Express Press

Brian Clauser

South Bend, IN

1977

2

47

$5,219,842

-2.2%

33

K-B Offset Printing, Inc.

R. J. Caravan, President

State College, PA

1902

1

36

$5,218,357

-10.5%

34

Sir Speedy Printing and Signs Irvine

Kathy Morgan, President

Irvine, CA

1989

1

19

$4,961,886

1%

35

Sir Speedy 5025

36

More Business Solutions

Eileen C. Rosenzweig, President

Sarasota, FL

1980

1

26

$4,953,818

7%

Denise K. Roath, CEO

Peachtree Corners, GA

1985

2

47

$4,950,000

-3%

37

AlphaGraphics San Francisco and Marin

Manuel Torres, Managing Partner

San Francisco, CA

1990

3

28

$4,910,082

19.6%

38

Impressions Printing

Jeff Summerford, CEO

Oklahoma City, OK

1996

1

42

$4,696,110

9%

Bob Hindman, President

Clinton Township, MI

1984

1

19

$4,690,000

4.5%

Janet Greebel

Roselle, NJ

1967

2

22

$4,680,037

9%

Stacy & Gary Gestring, Pres. & VP

Jonesboro, AZ

1969

2

42

$4,632,888

1%

Larry Furlong, Franchise Owner

Phoenix, AZ

1981

1

28

$4,604,898

13.5%

Darwin Buehler, President

Little Rock, AR

1991

1

22

$4,545,230

28.7%

Kelly Carlin, CEO

Marietta, GA

1988

1

29

$4,407,641

8%

Pratul Kumar, President

Carrollton, TX

1994

1

38

$4,397,814

-5.8%

Macy Flash, CEO

Shreveport, LA

1976

1

25

$4,290,000

5%

39

American Graphics Printing Co.

40

AJ Images, Inc.

41

Art Advertising, Inc.

42

AlphaGraphics #011 Phoenix

43

Allegra Print & Imaging of Arkansas, Inc.

44

Fuse Graphics

45

AlphaGraphics of Carrollton

46

Paragon Press

47

Alphagraphics Missoula US704

48

AlphaGraphics Bozeman

49

Econo Print Inc.

12

The Peissig Family, Owner

Missoula, MT

1965

1

29

$4,200,000

19%

Mike & Jeff Burgard, President

Bozeman, MT

1967

2

25

$4,138,800

7.4%

Jim Berry, President

Billings, MT

1969

2

19

$4,129,136

5.3%

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

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2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS Rank

Company Name

50

AlphaGraphics of Raleigh & New Bern

51

Allegra Marketing • Print • Mail

52

Trinity Press

Year

Number of

Total Employees

Management

City & State

Founded

locations

(FT+PT)

Owen Andrews, Managing Member

Raleigh, NC

2011

2

27

$4,118,717

Jonette & Kyle Spencer,

Helena, MT

1982

1

25

$4,100,000

Norcross, GA

1997

1

20

$4,032,931

7.8%

2018 Sales

Growth/Loss 7.99%

President & Vice President Joe Dye

53

Allegra Print • Sign • Design

John Flynn, President

Dulles, VA

1988

1

23

$4,021,099

0%

54

Salem Printing & Blueprint, Inc.

Brenton C. Field, President

Salem, OR

1946

5

24

$3,895,000

5%

55

MoranGraphics, Inc. Alphagraphics West Loop

Richard Moran, President

Chicago, IL

1994

3

25

$3,859,916

5%

56

Professional Print & Mail, Inc.

Douglas Carlile, President

Fresno, CA

1985

1

34

$3,843,240

57

Allegra Marketing • Print • Mail

John Fergusson, President

Richmond, VA

1991

1

25

$3,740,000

58

Lessek Enterprises, LLC

Scott A. Kessel, President

Denton, TX

2009

2

31

$3,500,000

5%

59

Winn Communications

Brian & Brittany Johnson

West Valley City, UT

2015

1

21

$3,486,600

13%

60

PIP Printing P&S Cochran Printers

Peoria, IL

1978

2

28

$3,482,414

3.6%

Jane Harvey, President

Austin, TX

1994

3

22

$3,415,000

8.9%

16%

President, Owner Scott Cochran, Shane Parker Chris Cochran 61

A Dog Solutions, Inc.

62

Allegra Marketing • Print • Mail

Peter Marcus, President

Tucson, AZ

1990

1

15

$3,344,376

10%

63

Allegra Marketing • Print • Mail

Therese & Patrick Mahoney, Kelly Parkinson

Saline, MI

1973

1

29

$3,134,110

-1%

Jerron Hale, Franchisee

Layton, UT

2002

1

19

$3,121,856

6.50%

Justin Tracy, General Manager

Riverside, CA

1968

2

16

$3,117,989

12.80%

Acadia Group, LLC

& Joe DiMauro, Partners

64

AlphaGraphics

65

PIP Printing Riverside and Corona

66

PIP Triad

Jimmy Brumley, Owner

Burlington, NC

1983

2

25

$3,117,351

6.9%

67

Allegra Marketing • Print • Web

Michael Grant, President

Vancouver, BC

1994

1

20

$3,071,000

3.7%

68

Copycats Second Avenue Corp.

Ruth Starer, CEO

New York, NY

1984

1

17

$3,047,503

7.96%

69

Bickers Printing Inc.

John and Karen Bickers, Owners

Madison, WI

1998

2

20

$3,017,916

12%

70

The Sign Dude Inc.

Jim DeBoer, COO

Medford, OR

1193

1

37

$3,006,000

26%

71

PIP Printing New England

Robert Pelzek & Michael Tarby, President

East Longmeadow, MA

1976

1

23

$2,981,464

2%

& Vice President 72

Wet Ink, Inc.

Edward Rothschild, President

Arvada, CO

1996

3

23

$2,938,000

1%

73

Albritton Solutions LLC, Sir Speedy

Steve & Emily Albritton

Tampa, FL

2017

1

17

$2,921,877

28%

74

Printing Specialist Corporation

Gary Habicht, President

Glen Burnie, MD

1970

1

17

$2,784,948

1%

75

Creative Composition Inc.

Mike Hendry, President

Chico, CA

1968

1

28

$2,778,000

20%

76

Tops Printing Inc. Alphagraphics BCS

77

Sir Speedy Printing

78

Allegra Marketing • Print • Mail

Steve Britton, President

Bryan, TX

1986

1

26

$2,777,998

11%

Michael Klugerman, Owner

Washington, D.C.

2005

1

14

$2,760,000

-5%

Walter McGinn, Simon Wood, Catharine

Ottawa, ON

1987

1

15

$2,754,238

-8%

Britt Houd, CEO

Houston, TX

2003

1

12

$2,740,000

5.5%

$2,641,287

3.3%

Franchuk

79

AlphaGraphics of West Houston

80

Alphagraphics of Sioux Falls

Paul VanVeldhuizen

Sioux Falls, SD

1996

1

81

Minuteman Press Powell

Walter Sofko, CEO

Portland, OR

2001

1

20

$2,629,000

5%

82

Flatirons Marketing

Joseph Mullan, President

Aurora, CO

2015

2

18

$2,602,000

44%

83

Print Dallas, Inc. AlphaGraphics #54

Sherry Perry, President/Owner

Dallas, TX

1985

1

13

$2,598,645

12.12%

84

Pinney Printing Company

9%

85

Allegra Marketing • Print • Mail

86

Charles Arp, President

Sterling, IL

1910

1

17

$2,550,791

Clyde Moses, General Manager

Show Low, AZ

2007

1

13

$2,521,824

1%

GIK Inc. Sir Speedy Printing

Lloyd Newton, President

Raleigh, NC

1990

1

14

$2,480,182

17%

87

Sir Speedy 8801

Patrick Welch, President

Cranston, RI

1986

1

16

$2,479,890

-1%

88

Allegra of Cedar Rapids

Eric & Ben Van Kerckhove, Pres. & VP

Cedar Rapids, IA

1981

1

20

$2,409,000

-4%

89

SelTec, Inc. AlphaGraphics Sandy

Andy Selcho, President

Sandy, UT

1996

1

20

$2,385,479

-6.5%

90

Allegra Naples

Paul Kessen, President/CEO

Naples, FL

2009

1

19

$2,310,000

2.7%

91

PIP Printing of Palo Alto, Inc.

Jennifer Allen & Mike Maystead

Palo Alto, CA

1973

1

10

$2,253,126

9.7%

June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

13

2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS Rank

Year

Number of

Total Employees

Management

City & State

Founded

locations

(FT+PT)

J Ray Truluck, Jr., Owner

Greenville, SC

1980

1

20

$2,253,000

John Atkinson, Owner

St. Paul, MN

2007

1

16

$2,217,739

10%

Company Name

92

TruColor

93

Allegra Marketing • Print • Mail

94

X-Press Printing

95

F. Simson Press Ltd. KKP Design, Print & More

2018 Sales

Growth/Loss

Tony Meyer, Owner

Sisters, OR

1991

1

16

$2,216,705

3%

Howard Simson & Lisa Simson, President &

Vaughan, ON

1980

1

12

$2,160,542

8%

Vice-President 96

ColorMarx Corp.

97

Foote Printing

98

Trust-Franklin Press

99

Protech Printing & Graphics, Inc.

100

IMS Printing & Signs

Ray & Kay McNaught, Owners

Sacramento, CA

3

11

$2,113,797

Michael Duhr, Owner

Cleveland, OH

1907

1

12

$2,000,000

10%

Tom Taylor, Chief Operations Officer

Pittsburgh, PA

1908

1

17

$1,900,000

-6%

Philip Ferega, President

Kennesaw, GA

1984

1

11

$1,860,000

2.5%

J.J. Heim, President

Littleton, CO

2003

1

9

$1,750,000

14%

The Top 6 We wanted to give special recognition to the Top 6 Small Commercial Printers from this year’s survey for their outstanding achievements. Each have different approaches to the business, but what they share in common is an entrepreneurial spirit, a dedication to understanding and meeting customer needs, a commitment to providing a supportive environment for employees and an unmatched enthusiasm for their businesses and the industry.

#1 Firespring Print, Inc. Congratulations to Firespring CEO Jay Wilkinson, COO Kevin Thomas and their team for coming in numberone in our 2019 Top 100 with 2018 sales of $24,348,340. The company has two locations – Omaha and Lincoln, Neb. – and 200 employees.

Firespring has a full-service ad agency within the company that offers branding, interactive web design, digital marketing (marketing automation), copywriting, media,

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WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

strategic services and SEO/SEM. In fact, Firespring reports that 32% of its revenues come from Interactive/WebBased Services. Having this in-house agency helps Firespring offer strategic services to customers.

“Selling a strategic plan, and then layering in and executing the tactics, is the fastest growing portion of our company at the moment,” Wilkinson said.

While Wilkinson admits that the first 10 years were mostly about staying in business, the company then started to transition into a more purposedriven business. The company began

2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS

This is the #1 Commercial Printer team at Firespring sliding down their slide for a meeting and volunteering in their local community.

organizing itself around a sense of purpose for its employees, vendors, clients and community rather than focusing only on shareholder value.

“Our mission became to leverage people, products and profits to do more good,” he said.

In 2014, Firespring was the first Certified B Corporation in the State of Nebraska (A B Corp meets the highest

standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose).

“We constantly think about how we can affect the families of our employees and the community,” Wilkinson said. “Then we love sharing our experiences with other companies. I believe that in 10 years, companies that don’t do that will be

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June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS out of business; 20- and 30-year-olds won’t want to be part of a company that doesn’t focus as much on their ‘why’ as they do on their ‘what,’ and customers won’t want to buy their products and services.”

Wilkinson brought the entire company together for an open Q&A, asking what the company had to do to have employees go out into the community and proudly say, “I work for Firespring.”

“You have to let yourself be incredibly vulnerable,” he said. “You have to be open about what you can and cannot do. Like, we can’t do a 20% raise for everyone, but here are the things we can do. That openness and rapport and level of trust between the employees and the leadership team put us on the path, and we have been on that path ever since. We are not there yet; we still think we have a long way to go.”

What Firespring has achieved in a short time, however, is remarkable; not only its financial success with big growth seven out of the last nine years both organically and through acquisition (acquiring 21 companies over the last 12 years), but in making real progress toward its mission. The company delivers on its promise by giving back with 1% of profits, 2% of products and 3% of people (employee time engaged in community projects).

#2: Strategic Factory Strategic Factory is based in Owings Mills, Md.. The company has two locations, 132 employees and delivered total 2018 sales of $20,404,288, an 11% year-over-year increase. Keith Miller, President, founded the company in 1999.

Strategic Factory has positioned itself as a single point provider with a broad range of services. Twenty-eight percent of revenues were generated from offset printing, with 30 percent 16

coming from digital printing, including wide format.

“Our philosophy is to just say ‘yes’ to the customer and figure it out,” Miller said. “We very much listen to what they are looking for and try to find ways to make their lives easier.

We do the vast majority of the work in-house, only outsourcing the items that don’t make sense, or when we don’t have capacity.”

In addition to digital and offset printing, the company also has an in-house creative agency and sign shop that produces a wide variety of signage (8% of revenues), including production and installation of channel lettering, monument signs and directional and informational signage.

An important element of being able to effectively manage such a wide variety of offerings is having in place effective workflows and an MIS/ERP system that can offer real-time insight into the business.

“We had a relatively basic pricing tool before, but now with EPMS we can be much more proactive,” Miller said. “It gives us insight into the business we never had before; and it is helping us work smarter, not harder.”

Miller invested in digital printing technology from the get-go.

“I got in at an opportune time when the entire industry was going digital and everyone was looking for a way to do it faster and better. All my digital equipment was leased, which allowed me to change it out quickly and stay current, helping us to evolve.”

Keith Miller

This strategy – staying current with technology, adding services he knows his customers want in order to be a true single point provider for them and doing everything he can to deliver on their current and emerging needs, and ensuring the right workflow/MIS infrastructure – has paid off for Strategic Factory, delivering double-digit year-over-year growth and placing him at number two in our Top 100.

#3: Kelvyn Press The company was founded in 1968 by Richard Malacina, Sr., the company’s president – one man, a Multilith press and a vision working out of Chicago’s historic Printers Row neighborhood. The focus has always been on delivering reliability and fast turn times to customers.

In 1983, the company created a subsidiary, Financial Graphic Services (FGS) to enable more focus on its financial clients, opening additional centers in Aurora, Ill. and Boston.

Malacina reports that two years ago, FGS represented 80% of the business,

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

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2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS delivered $18,060,788 in sales, up one percent from last year.

AlphaGraphics Seattle operates out of a centralized production center in Seattle and three sales offices in the suburbs. AlphaGraphics Seattle Tony, Gary and Michael Malacina, Managing Principals

while today it is at about 50% largely due to the SEC ruling that much of what the company has been printing will go paperless.

“We’re not fortune tellers about the future of the financial business,” he said, “but we do still produce a significant amount of printing for the financial community, including black and white books for the big banking firms, four- and five-color prospectus documents, pitch books, etc. The SEC rulings, however, are pushing us into new markets.”

While Kelvyn Press produces a great deal of traditional printing, the company also produces specialty work, including digital spot 3D UV embellishment, digital foiling, digital die cutting, large format printing and signage. Seventy-five percent of revenue, however, still comes from offset printing, with 15% generated by bindery and finishing, including embellishment techniques, primarily produced using MGI technology.

In addition to pursuing growth in finishing, mailing and fulfillment services, Malacina notes the company is considering textile-related printing as an expansion area for the future.

He also sees digital printing playing an increasing role, as run lengths and turn times decrease.

In 2018, Kelvyn Press reported $20 million in revenues and had 100 employees.

#4: AlphaGraphics Seattle Chuck Stempler’s AlphaGraphics Seattle has been the largest operation in the AlphaGraphics network for quite some time. In 2018, Stempler For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/10005400

08-19_Top100.indd 17

June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS Chuck Stempler

was founded in 1989 and subsequently purchased by Stempler in May of 2001. The company has 94 employees.

To continue to grow and maintain a leadership position in the AlphaGraphics network, Stempler has invested in new technologies and services on an ongoing basis.

“The challenge is to not buy too far ahead of your clients or your market, but you can’t grow without being in front of it,” he said.

As an example, Stempler has invested in signs and display graphics with three 5-foot presses and five 10-foot presses, multiple CAD systems and sewing equipment. He also has a robust fleet of digital presses from HP and Xerox, as well as a 5-color half-size press from Komori.

He has implemented e-commerce solutions on multiple platforms and can meet strict customer requirements for data security and service level agreements.

“About 37% of our sales flow through e-commerce,” he

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said. “In order to make that happen, you need to make a very significant investment in development of handsfree workflow and have substantial print and finishing capacity with more automated and less manual functions.”

Stempler reports that from a printing perspective, 40% of revenue comes from signage, 35% from digital color and 25% from offset. Stempler introduced signage to the business in 2008, so bringing that to 40% of revenue in a decade is quite an achievement. One of his sign presses, an EFI VUTEk FabriVU, has enabled him to move into dye sublimation as well.

Stempler looks for opportunities to disrupt with his technology investments.

“When we first moved into signage,” he said, “our clients in cut sheet were doing screen print. We saw an opportunity to disrupt that by adding full color at the same cost as spot color, just as we did in the early days of digital color printing, taking share from parts of the offset market.”

With this approach, Stempler has seen a growing number of clients using a wider variety of services.

“When we land a large sign client, it almost always leads to additional cut sheet opportunities as well.”

Stempler has also invested heavily in data processes and security, including SEO/SEM expertise he uses both on behalf of customers and in his own marketing efforts.

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Allen Printing, located in Nashville, Tenn., has been in business since 1931, originally founded by Mr. Allen to print materials for local churches and printers. Shannon Heffington currently owns the business with her husband, Paul. Her great grandfather worked for Mr. Allen in the 1950s, and he ultimately bought the business. In the 1970s, Shannon’s father became the owner, and then the Heffington’s acquired this womanowned business in 2007.

Fast forward to 2018, and Allen Printing generated $15 million in annual revenues with 115 employees, with $25 million or less in annual revenues. The company grew 25% year over year from 2017 to 2018. Today, the company

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2019 TOP 100 PRINTERS three kids in college, and we have the energy and need to do what it takes to grow the business.”

Paul & Shannon Heffingt

primarily serves the trade (with a few end customers) with 24- to 48-hour turnaround of general commercial printing work.

“One of the big things that has helped us grow,” Paul said, “is that we don’t say ‘no’ unless the work physically cannot be done in the requested timeframe.

“Everyone in our company has bought into our ‘hard work, be nice’ mantra, whether we are dealing with each other, our customers or our vendors. If there is an issue, we fix it. We don’t argue. We just get it fixed. We hope our customers will take on their own responsibility, and 98% of them do. This approach opens the door wider, and they step through and do what should be done. Sometimes we eat jobs that we shouldn’t, but then we get other work that we might not have gotten had we not gone ahead and taken care of the customer.”

In terms of future growth, Paul notes that the company plans to keep growing the piece of the pie they are already getting for work they do.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “the reason we are able to grow is that owners of competitive businesses are aging out. They are tired and they don’t want to be in the business anymore. It’s just not that easy to make money these days, not like the good old days they were used to.

Shannon and I are both 47. We’ve got

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#6: Allegra Asheville Dave Campbell has been in business for 21 years. In October of 2015, he converted his independent business to an Allegra Marketing Print Mail franchise within the Alliance Franchise Brands network.

“I wanted to grow the business,” he said, “diversify and consistently be able to handle client needs from within. Joining the franchise network, with all of the centralized services they offer, has enabled me to do that.”

Campbell’s growth plan, established in 2013, was to grow both organically and through acquisitions.

“I received a piece of mail from Allegra Network in 2014,” he said, “offering assistance to business owners who were looking for an exit strategy. In speaking with them, I learned there were two different brands under the franchise’s umbrella in my area whose owners were looking to retire. I was invited for a Discovery Day, which I really enjoyed. I was impressed with what was presented, checking off in my mind all the things I was trying to do, and they had it already figured out.

I’ve been ecstatic since joining. All of the support they promised has lived true to form.”

For Campbell, his 2014 revenues

were less than half of where they are today, at $12,942,615 with a total of 47 employees, a stunning 23% increase over 2017. He is now operating six centers, including a new location in Tennessee that is opening as a dual branded Allegra/ Image360 print and signage center, with a plan to add two more in 2019.

He is in the process of migrating his other five centers to dual branding as well. He operates mainly as a hub-and-spoke operation with the primary production site in Asheville, and runs a series of couriers for coverage throughout the North Carolina footprint.

“Over time we’ve expanded into variable printing, and now we have added promotional products, window graphics, signage, fleet graphics and more.”

Mailing today still represents 29% of the business, with printing, including wide format and signage, representing 62% of revenues.

Advantages for Campbell of being part of the Alliance Franchise Brands family include better pricing from vendors, leveraging components of the network’s Workstream™ e-commerce business management and workflow system, and access to the headquarters Marketing Resource Center, which includes graphic designers, copywriters and digital marketing specialists. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21068906 ■ Dave Campbell

June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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SOFTWARE & WORKFLOW

Clean Is Your Print Business Data?

How

All print business owners want more data about their businesses so they can make better decisions. It isn’t about reporting packages or business intelligence tools—it’s really about how your business generates data on a daily basis.

Article by Jennifer Matt

V

irtually every printer I meet with regarding their print software strategy mentions within the first five minutes their strong desire to easily get accurate data about their business. Some printers think this is only a software challenge: buy a reporting package, or better yet, invest in a business intelligence package. Some even think they need a database engineer on staff. Maybe even a full-time analyst who can simply respond to requests for business data on demand?

All these ideas are valid. All these ideas are for getting data and presenting it. The crux of the issue in most print businesses is that the underlying data is a mess. Clean, accurate data is not something you can buy from a vendor. It’s not even something you can pay a consultant to create for you. I wish there was an easy path to getting clean business data. Your business is creating data all day, every day, in all areas; data creation in a print business is done by everyone. However, just Jennifer Matt Jennifer Matt writes, speaks, and consults with printers worldwide who realize their ability to leverage software is critical to their success in the Information Age.

20

creating and acquiring data doesn’t automatically mean that it’s helpful.

Here are some examples that might make you cringe: 1. The sales representative who fails to search to see if a prospect already exists and creates a duplicate.

2. The purchasing agent who names the same vendor three different ways.

3. The accounting resource who puts ***DO NOT USE*** in certain data objects because they don’t know how to deactivate them or what the repercussions are of removing confusing objects from the data source.

4. The CSR who accidently changes costing on a printing press because he has more rights than he should within the Print MIS. 5. The executive who insists that reports be in a certain format, so everything from the Print MIS is exported into Excel and then errors are introduced into the data in the editing process.

6. The pressman who sometimes starts the clock on a job at makeready, and at other times when the press is up and running (depending on his mood).

Data is hard to keep clean and accurate. It isn’t a project with a start and a finish. It isn’t a project you can

give to your smartest employee to take care of. All your employees are in the business of generating data.

Employees are first and foremost trying to get their jobs done, get orders out for customers and keep presses running. They often don’t have the context of how their decisions impact the data that ends

up in reports, on P&Ls and in audits.

Data gets messy because people make data compromising decisions daily; then, before you know it, there is a lot of junk in your data. The goal is not perfection here; you don’t want to get too agro about data but the goal is to put some checks and balances on the “state of your data” before it gets too bad.

One of the reasons a Print MIS implementation is so painful is that it forces you to look at your messy data.

Each data object could be a project all on its own. It can be overwhelming and often what happens is you defer data cleansing because you just have

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

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SOFTWARE & WORKFLOW to get the Print MIS implemented.

Then data cleansing gets pushed down into a black hole where nobody owns it and nobody is focused on it.

We don’t really connect the frustration of “lack of accurate reporting” to our messy data.

When you have accurate data that is accessible, you have a clear differentiation. Printers with messy data might still get useful information, but it takes a lot of work to get at it. I have seen the most amazing Excel magicians who reverse the old adage “garbage in, garbage out.” This comes at a cost because if you have to work that hard to get to the data so you can make data-driven decisions, then you are slower, less responsive and more expensive than your competitor who has put systems in place to keep data integrity up.

We have been helping some labels and packaging customers implement online ordering for their customers.

The fascinating outcome is that this project has forced these customers to not only clean up their data in their Print MIS but also adjust the way they are using their Print MIS. One of my biggest pet peeves about data is the decision to repurpose one field in a software application for another use. People do it all the time. Do you know what the original purpose was for that field? What if you need to solve that purpose one day? Do you know the vendor’s plan for that field/logic driven off that field is in the future? This is very dangerous behavior because it sets you up to have unexpected outcomes.

The other thing that completely derails data integrity is putting valuable information into Notes fields.

Again, remember that your employees are just trying to get things done.

They are not malicious, they are not stupid, they just don’t have context

20-21_CleanPrintBusiness.indd 21

and understanding how everything in the Notes field is not accessible to reports.

Data integrity and clean data definitely fall into the “couldn’t be more boring” to talk about, strategize about or implement category, but it

might be one of the most important elements to competing in this datadriven world. Please don’t tell me you use your intuition; accurate, trusted data should be driving your business decisions. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21070025 ■

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OFFSET

Future of Sheetfed Offset: What Offset The

Manufacturer Executives Have to Say

Article by Cary Sherburne

T

he “2019 Business Outlook” report for the printing industry (https://store. whattheythink.com) demonstrates just how dramatically the industry has changed over the last decade.

Average revenues for the commercial printing industry increased by 3.8% from 2017 to 2018 (2.2% when adjusted for inflation), according to the report. This marked the first time in a long time that the value of print shipments exceeded those of the previous year—at least for some months. The 2018 printing shipments have declined, however, by 19.6% over the last decade, reported at $98.6 billion for 2008, down to $79.3 billion in 2018. WhatTheyThink projects further decline by 2026, to $56 billion.

That being said, respondents to the survey were positive about their near-term prospects. About two-thirds of respondents reported increased revenues, with 42% reporting increases of more than 6%. And almost two-thirds expect revenues to increase by 6% or more in 2019.

That’s good news for the industry, and perhaps a signifier that the industry has turned the corner.

Also good news, two-thirds of survey 22

respondents reported at least some increase in profits, with 16% reporting profits that increased more than 10% in 2018 when compared to 2017.

So what is sparking this rise in optimism? The top two best new business opportunities reported by survey respondents were customers outsourcing more work to us (43%)

and helping customers integrate print and non-print (37%). Respondents also identified many other opportunities, including offering nonprint services, adding wide format, digital printing and package printing capabilities; automating production and migrating customer service and sales to the cloud.

“…we are seeing a new breed of print business leadership that thinks creatively about where print is and where it is going.”

Figure 1. In terms of your 2018 revenues, how do they compare to 2017?

All Respondents, Winter 2018-2019 Average Change: +3.8% Average Change Adjusted for Inflation: +2.2%

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

OFFSET “That so many strategic items top the list—especially recognizing the need to help customers integrate print and non-print—is an encouraging sign that we are seeing a new breed of print business leadership that thinks creatively about where print is and where it is going,” according to the report.

And that means that companies that survive will likely have a very different mix of offerings by 2026 than they do today.

In spite of the overall optimism, only 1% of respondents cited adding additional offset printing equipment as one of their best new business opportunities. And that brings us to the topic at hand, sheetfed offset printing.

In preparing this article, we spoke to key executives at five companies

who manufacture sheetfed offset presses: ■ Heidelberg ■ Koenig & Bauer ■ Komori ■ Manroland Sheetfed ■ RMGT (Ryobi MHI Graphic Technology, through its U.S. distributor, Graphco) As you would expect, all of these executives were bullish about their future, and each is taking a slightly different approach to the market.

Manroland and RMGT are focused on improving offset efficiencies, while Heidelberg, Koenig & Bauer and Komori, although focused on improving offset efficiencies, are rapidly expanding their digital printing offerings as well.

Komori has made the most

progress along these lines, with an aggressive 2020 goal of one-third of revenues each from offset, digital and services (KomoriKare). According to Jacki Hudmon, senior vice president of new business development at Komori America, the company is well along the way to achieving this goal.

Both Heidelberg and Koenig & Bauer have extended the markets they are targeting. For example, Heidelberg’s Omnifire targets printing on objects, while Koenig & Bauer have digital initiatives for printing on glass, cans and more.

While digital printing technologies still represent a smaller percentage of revenues for Heidelberg and Koenig & Bauer than for Komori, both companies are investing heavily in this area, through internal

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OFFSET development, partnerships and even joint ventures.

In terms of offset press sales, they all see growth opportunities, although a typical new offset press will replace two to three older ones in most cases, resulting in an overall decline in installed base.

Let’s take a look at each, based on our interviews and presented in alphabetical order.

Heidelberg With its 160+ year history, Heidelberg is the world’s largest offset press manufacturer. During and after the 2008 financial crisis, Heidelberg decided to develop a new strategy for approaching the market going forward.

In a recent interview with WhatTheyThink’s David Zwang, Heidelberg CTO Stephan Plenz said that at the core of its strategy was creating offerings that “support our customers and create more output, while focusing on the income of Heidelberg and the output of the industry.”

Part of that strategy required that the company embrace digitization across its product lines. This would include using digital technology to enhance existing offset products, as highlighted by its “Push to Stop” feature introduced at drupa 2016. However, it also included the development and introduction of new lines of digital print technologies to support customers’ current and future production requirements. This included a partnership with Ricoh for its VersaFire line of toner-based digital presses; the Primefire 106 featuring drop-on-demand inkjet technology powered by Fujifilm using the Fujifilm SAMBA heads; and Omnifire, a direct-to-object printing solution. Heidelberg also acquired Gallus, and the two companies jointly developed the Gallus Labelfire 340, a digital label printer using inkjet 24

Clarence Penge, VP of Sheetfed in North America

technology and with inline finishing for streamlined label production.

These digital offerings are added to Heidelberg’s substantial portfolio of sheetfed offset presses, some 15 different models ranging from 20 inches to its Very Large Format 64inch press.

The company also offers a complete workflow under the Prinect brand, including a web shop, a suite of production management solutions, a color toolset, business tools and Prinect Production for packaging.

The company’s combined hardware, software and services portfolio is arguably one of the most complete offerings from a sheetfed offset press manufacturer. It is this type of end-to-end offering that has led many commercial printers to consider themselves as “Heidelberg shops.”

In its most recent annual report for the fiscal year 2017/2018, the company reported the value of incoming orders (€2,588 million compared to €2,593 million the previous year), net sales (€2,420 million versus €2,524 million) and an EBITDA of 7.1% for both fiscal years.

We spoke with Clarence Penge, vice president of Sheetfed in North America for the company, who has been with Heidelberg for 25 years, to get more insight into the company’s sheetfed offset strategy and North American performance.

According to Penge, for Heidelberg, whose fiscal year ended March 31, sheetfed offset has been a very strong business, especially the last three years. In the North American market for last fiscal year, the company’s

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

sheetfed offset business experienced double-digit growth in revenue and added more printing units.

“We are by far the largest worldwide at $2.5 billion, and more than $1 billion comes from sheetfed presses.”

Today when Heidelberg installs a new press, it is most likely going to replace two or three installed presses due to the higher productivity and increased automation of these new presses.

“As a result,” Penge said, “I see our customers doing well with the new technology, achieving the faster speed to market and lower total manufacturing cost while meeting their customers’ demands. In addition, the newer presses have better uptime, and coupled with our ‘Push to Stop’ approach where a customer can load all jobs in a queue and take full advantage of the automation, including ‘Autonomous Production,’ and gain a 15% to 20% improvement in throughput compared to a non ‘Push To Stop’ press.”

Penge is quick to point out that the Heidelberg offering is not just about the output device, but about the entire workflow.

“The Prinect suite is the power behind the ability to streamline and automate. The vast majority of today’s offset press components are digital, enabling better management of the press and a streamlined workflow.”

Heidelberg has also launched a unique subscription program as part of its services offerings.

“We are leading the way on how a customer can get into an offset press.

Under the program, the customer gets a new Heidelberg offset press, consulting services, the Prinect suite, consumables, critical training and more with a lower upfront investment. And the investment

OFFSET becomes an operating, not a capital, expense.”

Heidelberg has just recently launched this program and has several customers worldwide taking advantage of it, including one in the U.S. at the time of this writing.

Upfront costs could be as low as 5% of the cost of the press depending on its configuration.

“Fifteen years ago, I never would have imagined we would have had such a robust portfolio. We were really happy when the company partnered with Ricoh, Fujifilm, MK and others. With Fujifilm, for example, we get access to the best inkjet heads into which they have invested 10 years of research and development instead of waiting to develop it ourselves. We are using all of our resources, including partnering and our own R&D dollars, to improve speed to market for our customers. In the end, that’s what it’s all about.”

Koenig & Bauer The company, whose tagline is “we’re on it,” reports that despite challenges in 2018 that included bottlenecks in parts availability, long lead times, as well as expected disruptions caused by implementing SAP, Koenig & Bauer reported the highest EBIT in its 201-year history, with a gross profit margin of 29%.

Revenues increased slightly from €1,217.6 million in 2017 to €1,226 million in 2018. The company entered 2019 with a high order backlog of

€610.9 million. Bolza-Schünemann is quick to point out that the company has cash in the bank and no debt.

The company projects organic growth of up to 4% for 2019 with an EBIT margin of around 6%.

Digital and web comprised 12.3% of corporate revenues in 2018, amid an expanding digital portfolio.

Slightly lower digital revenue as compared to 2017 was attributed to fewer installations of the HP PageWide T1100 press for corrugated pre-print, which is manufactured

by Koenig & Bauer and includes components provided by HP. Service offerings contribute about 25% of revenues, while new equipment sales represent about 75% of revenues. The lion’s share of new equipment sales (70%) comes from packaging applications, which include sheetfed offset, flexo, glass and metal décor; 20% comes from security printing and 10% is in media, including newspapers and magazines.

Koenig & Bauer is the only company in this group that offers flexographic printing solutions, which comprise about 6% of new machine business.

The company builds about 1,600

Claus BolzaSchünemann, Koenig & Bauer President and CEO

sheetfed offset units per year, starting early with castings and cylinders, putting the final machine together based on customer specifications.

In terms of its services business, Koenig & Bauer offers 10 different packages ranging from regular check-up maintenance to performing full service for the customers. The company offers smartphone apps

In terms of its services business, Koenig & Bauer offers 10 different packages ranging from regular check-up maintenance to performing full service for the customers. that allow customers to look at the press while the machine is running to assess speed, net speed, net output, last plate change, and operators can even activate press functions via their smartphone. Customers can also compare performance amongst multiple presses in the plant, as

June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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OFFSET well as anonymously against other customers running similar work that allows them to benchmark their performance and take any necessary mitigating steps to improve.

For industrial continuous inkjet printers, Koenig & Bauer partnered with a university to introduce artificial intelligence called Kyana, to allow customers to communicate via voice assistant with the printer and monitor, showing with augmented reality everything that happens inside the printer.

“We have thousands of these Coding inkjet printers usually installed in food packaging lines, placing dates and barcodes on different packaging surfaces,” BolzaSchünemann said. “If anything happens to those printers, the whole production line is down.”

Therefore, Kyana acts as a virtual Koenig & Bauer assistant and helps autonomously to minimize downtime, take countermeasures and ensure the fastest support available.

Koenig & Bauer continues its eightyear partnership with RR Donnelley around its RotaJET line of presses for digital décor and packaging printing. Recent RotaJET sales include Interprint and TetraPak. The company also announced its first-ever joint venture, a 50/50 arrangement with Durst for the joint development and marketing of single-pass digital printing systems for the folding carton and corrugated fiberboard industry. Initially, the joint venture portfolio will comprise the Koenig & Bauer CorruJET 170 and the Durst SPC 130 – including all associated services and the ink business, with a top priority to develop the VariJET 106. The VariJET was first announced at drupa 2016 in conjunction with another partner; this partnership has been amicably disbanded and product development proceeds with Durst instead.

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Other digital printing applications, including printing on plastics and glass, have been introduced by Koenig & Bauer Kammann as well.

“This is a beautiful business we are all in,” Bolza-Schünemann said.

“Many people believe that with digitization, you don’t need print anymore. But both nature and mankind live only by physical, not digital, things. Packaging for food and drink, clothing, wallpaper – everything is printed. I am absolutely convinced that the printing industry has a very long and very good future.

That being said, no business runs forever as is. We are 201 years old and looking ahead to 300. We are always looking for new applications and niches linked to our core competency of putting inks on any substrate.”

Komori Of all of the sheetfed offset companies we spoke to, Komori has the most aggressive digital strategy.

“Over the last three years, Komori has redefined what the company will look like by 2020, transforming our business so one-third is offset, one-third comes from services (KomoriKare) and one-third is inkjet,” said Jacki Hudmon, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Komori America. “We will be close to achieving that in 2020.”

To ensure a smooth transformation, Hudmon is overseeing all sales and marketing.

“This way we don’t have someone doing digital and someone else doing offset. We are approaching the market more holistically, selling output and devoted to building solutions for our customers, now and in the future.”

There are still some challenges with sales, Hudmon said. The company has overlaid inkjet specialists – solution architects – to

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

Jacki Hudmon, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Komori America

help conventional sales people deal with the newer technologies.

“At the end of an analysis of a customer’s business, if the answer is not a press, we don’t want them to be motivated to recommend a press if it’s not the right solution for the customer.

“The biggest sales issue we have, is that we have great brand recognition in offset. Even though we have been quietly working on inkjet for two decades, it is challenging to transfer that brand recognition to inkjet.

When it comes down to it, inkjet is a printing press; it’s what we’ve done for 100 years.”

On the digital side, Komori offers the Impremia IS29 UV inkjet press, continuous feed inkjet from Screen, and the Impremia NS40, Komori’s version of the Landa Nanographics press.

She points out that there is a lot of consolidation in the current market for offset, and the company has focused on value add in that arena. Hudmon cites the Lithrone GLX840P, a brandnew press platform which delivers cured sheets ready for finishing at the end of the press at 18,000 sheets per hour, noting that 80% to 90% of the presses Komori is selling have some UV or LED curing on them.

“You take someone that has three

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OFFSET conventional presses, and they have instant savings by moving to a streamlined workflow.”

The benefits of this type of consolidation in the pressroom are resulting in new press sales, she said, noting that many customers are putting double coating on their presses, especially for applications like direct mail, making the pieces more tactile for their customers.

“These two areas are the primary drivers behind our offset press sales.”

Hudmon said that Komori will be launching the NS40 at drupa 2020.

It’s a 7-color digital press that runs at 6,500 sheets per hour and can print on any substrate up to 32 point.

“It uses an EFI front end, SAMBA heads and is targeted at packaging and point-of-purchase applications.

It is a distinctly different product with unique differences from the Landa version.”

Hudmon cautions buyers, though.

“You shouldn’t be looking at whether to buy offset or digital, but rather, looking for a solution that meets your needs. Komori is a solutions provider. We want to go in, analyze a customer’s business and help them make the right decisions.

They are stuck right now, having issues finding skilled labor, having three crews running 24/7 on older presses, asking, ‘should I wait or consolidate my pressroom?’ Now

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more than ever, a wrong decision is lethal, and that’s where we can help; looking at the entire production process, identifying bottlenecks, understanding where they want their business to be in three years.

With drupa next year, it will be more confusing than ever. In the end, it

“You take someone that has three conventional presses, and they have instant savings by moving to a streamlined workflow.” might not even be a Komori sale. It could be that finishing or MIS is the bottleneck today. If they don’t do anything, they will be in jeopardy, and our goal is to help them find the issues and keep moving forward.”

Thus, Komori continues to work with customers to educate them and help them make better decisions.

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

“It’s pretty impactful when you show a commercial printer the variety of work you can do with inkjet – direct mail with variable data, handicap placards, menus – they quickly realize they have been walking by these opportunities and can drill deeper into existing accounts, becoming a single source, by leveraging both offset and digital.”

On the service side, Komori is rolling out KP Connect this year, a cloud-based subscription solution to help drive greater efficiency in the pressroom.

“This includes interfacing with or integrating with JDF workflows and an MIS, mostly EFI,” she said. “It’s also part of our infrastructure adjustments to the transformation. Now we can be more proactive about servicing, uploading data to the cloud every 30 minutes, doing monthly calls.”

Komori, whose most recent fiscal year reporting as of this writing is for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, reported a 9% increase in net sales, and almost double its operating income. In North America, net sales for FY2018 were down, $80 million in FY2018 compared to $93 million in FY2017, with net sales for FY2019 projected to be flat at $80 million. Worldwide, sheetfed offset presses represented just over half of net sales. The company projects a 9% increase in sheetfed offset sales worldwide for FY2019.

OFFSET With its aggressive digital and services strategies, yet still bringing new and improved offset platforms to market, Komori is well positioned to continue its growth into the future.

Manroland Sheetfed Manroland’s history goes back to the mid-1800s, and the company was a key player in the offset printing industry, ultimately offering both web and sheetfed presses. In 2012, following a filing for insolvency in 2011, the company split into two entities: manroland web systems was sold to the German L. Possehl & Co. mbH, while the sheetfed division, which is the subject of this profile, was purchased by British Langley Holdings plc in February of 2012 and became known as Manroland

Sheetfed GmbH. In March of 2012, Manroland Sheetfed and Landa Corporation announced a strategic partnership whereby Landa would provide Manroland Sheetfed with its nanographic printing technology, although to date, no products have emerged from this partnership.

Today, Manroland Sheetfed operates as a subsidiary of Langley Holdings, whose 2018 financial report reflects corporate revenues of €848,387,000, down from €903,529,000 in 2017.

Operating profit was also down slightly. The parent organization employs 4,255. The company has cash

Sean Springett, Manroland Sheetfed CEO for the U.S. and Canada

in the bank and no debt.

For the Manroland division, Langley reported revenues of €259.9 million, down from €286.3 million in 2017. Manroland Sheetfed employs 1,520. Langley attributed the revenue decline in part to tensions between

For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/10362877 June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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OFFSET the U.S. and China, causing orders from China, Manroland’s largest market, to plummet. Despite that setback, Langley commented in its annual report: … the division contributed only nominally to the overall group result in 2018. However, it was a positive contribution, and after non-recurring costs of around €2m to reorganise the European market organisations. Despite this, and much more substantial reorganisation costs in the early years of our ownership, the business has stood on its own feet financially since it was acquired, and our initial investment has been more than recouped. The company has also been investing heavily in new product development and the company’s ROLAND 700 Evolution press, developed entirely during our stewardship, is now widely recognised as “best in class.”

“We firmly believe that the issue on digital implementation, incorporating digital into an offset platform, is an issue of ROI,” said CEO Sean Springett. “Digital isn’t running at a fast enough pace where we see there is an industrialized application yet. Technology-wise it exists on the bleeding edge as a cool factor. But until these inkjet solutions increase in speed to complement an offset press, we find it difficult to justify. A printer could spend $3, $4 or $5 million for a press that is limited to running at 4,000 or 5,000 sheets per hour based on a big industrialized piece of machinery that is meant to run at 18,000 sheets per hour. We think there is more maturation that needs to occur on the digital side for a hybrid offering, and that for now, it is better to have a separate digital press in combination with an offset press.”

Springett points out that when production inkjet first hit the market 14 years ago, there was a great 30

deal of discussion about how the technology would replace offset as a more economical platform.

“The reality,” he said, “is that 84% of print is still industrialized as we know it from the past, with modernization in traditional offset application, while digital comprises only about 16% of the volume.”

Manroland efforts, then, are directed toward pushing the envelope on the offset side to further

“We are far more of a niche player in the market, and we have a tendency to develop and find markets and accounts where the type of technology we bring fits well.” increase efficiency and make it more profitable. Springett reports that this strategy is working, citing the sale of two offset presses in the last year against digital alternatives – in other words, the acquisition process started with the intent to purchase a digital press, yet the customers ultimately chose offset because their primary goal was to produce short runs, not variable data work.

Manroland introduced its new Evolution press into North America in 2017. The press, according to

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

Springett, featured more than 254 changes and brought a large shift in Manroland capability, including color control that provides a better ROI in comparison to the previous product line; and the uptake in North America has been good.

Manroland does compete against Heidelberg, Komori and Koenig & Bauer but is a significantly smaller company.

“As a result,” Springett said, “we are far more of a niche player in the market, and we have a tendency to develop and find markets and accounts where the type of technology we bring fits well. Where we spend most of our R&D time is figuring out how to achieve the highest net productivity.”

To that end, 90% of output from Manroland presses is packaging in North America – largely folding carton and pharma – while 10% is general commercial printing.

In pharma, Manroland customers produce pharmaceutical inserts printed on light onionskin, primarily black over black, as well as blister packs and folding cartons.

In commercial print, Manroland typically installs a 4/4 press with perfector.

“We are also seeing more demand for inline capability, what we call a one-pass press,” Springett said, “especially in packaging where we often see inline units that print, coat, dry, perfect, print, coat, dry and deliver. We also see packaging applications where there are two to three coaters with print units between the coaters. Just about every press we sell is custom, with an average order lead time of six months from order to delivery. And that customization is one reason we have not come to market with any kind of subscription plan.”

Manroland does, though, have very close partnerships with its customers.

OFFSET “Where my team and I spend a large portion of our time with customers,” Springett said, “is in helping them improve the productivity and performance of their presses. Today’s presses all come with production analytics tools. In North America, through a program called ProServe 360, we monitor the presses and generate a 19-page report for each customer every 30 days to minimize the risk of things getting too far out of control. It gives us a good snapshot of what is occurring and allows us to correct issues quickly so we don’t end up losing 25% in a year waiting for a quarterly report. In fact, we put in just as much effort with our customers post-sale as we do pre-sale.”

As with other offset press manufacturers, Manroland Sheetfed sees two to three older presses being replaced by each new one, as well as cost-effective run lengths for offset declining to 250 to 500 sheet runs. This makes the decision process for buyers foggy, he notes, and with drupa 2020 coming up, it is likely to get even foggier, depending on what new technologies are shown there.

RMGT (Graphco) Ryobi MHI Graphic Technology, or RMGT, was formed in 2014; Ryobi Limited has a 60% ownership stake, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Machinery Systems owns 40%. Both of these companies were founded in 1943. In 1961, Ryobi began manufacturing offset printing presses, while Mitsubishi brought its first offset printing press to market in 1962. With a long-term outlook on the offset printing industry that indicated there would not be enough business for everyone by 2025 or 2030, the two companies decided to come together while both were strong.

In 2018, Ryobi LTD elected to move from the traditional May 1 fiscal year to March 31, making FY2018 a ninemonth year for reporting purposes.

According to Chris Manley, president of Graphco, had the three additional months been added, revenues would have been up 2% to 3% over the previous year for printing equipment.

In FY2019, revenues for printing equipment came in at $250 million with a net income of $5.4 million.

At drupa 2008, Ryobi introduced an LED-UV printing system, the first such system for sheetfed offset

Chris Manley, President of Graphco

printing and a technology that is now widely in use. As the story goes, a Ryobi engineer accompanied his wife to a nail salon, where he saw gel nail polish being cured using cool UV LED light. That sparked an inspiration about LED usage for curing of ink, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The technology was quickly adopted in Japan, and by 2010 there were more than 100 placements.

“Waiting for things to dry has been the bane of the offset manufacturing process for a long time,” Manley said.

The RMGT Series 9 UV LED presses were also launched at drupa 2008 and have been a mainstay of the company’s business in North America, Manley said.

“Our messaging to the market” he said, “was that this press allows you to produce an 8-up sheet but do it 30% to 35% less expensively than competitive 40-inch presses. It took us a couple years to get the message through to the market. At first, we were mostly in a defensive posture, having a smaller sheet size, but that has now shifted to customers telling us that’s what they want. It is notable that of the 30 Series 9 presses we have installed in our

June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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OFFSET territory, only three have a pressman and helper; all of the others are operated by a single pressman.”

RMGT has installed nearly 800 of these presses worldwide.

“In 2003, 10,000 sheets was considered short run in offset; by 2005, that number was 7,000, way down from 30,000 in the 90s. Now, with instant curing and overall efficiency, it has allowed many of our customers to run these presses like a big digital press, other than the fact it doesn’t do variable, which is only about 10% of the market anyway. Customers now are profitably running jobs as small as 250 to 350 sheets.”

There has been a significant amount of artificial intelligence being incorporated into the presses in the form of algorithms that promote machine learning.

It is worth remembering that Ryobi does have a digital heritage, having developed the DI press that Presstek sold. Ryobi was also the paper handling part of the original Indigo press, along with being an OEM provider to a number of other technology companies.

“In these partnerships, information flows both ways,” Manley said.

“That has resulted in a significant amount of artificial intelligence being 32

Sweet Spot?

Textiles

Industrial

Commercial

Packaging

incorporated into the presses in the form of algorithms that promote machine learning. It’s a big part of why someone can sell a 4-up 350-sheet job and only use 50 to 75 sheets to get up to color.”

RMGT in North America is also experimenting with augmented reality, using it in its own marketing efforts to show the muiltimedia relevance of print while supporting the AR experience. Visitors to the RMGT booths at Print 18 and SGIA were able to experience this first-hand.

RMGT, then, is focused on taking advantage of what it sees as a healthy market for the offset presses it is manufacturing, and the company has no publicly stated plans to introduce a digital or hybrid press to the mix in North America.

“Our philosophy is how do we coalesce in a digital world instead of adopting a digital platform and trying to outsell HP and Xerox,” Manley said. “I feel good about the fact that we are putting most of our eggs in the offset basket.”

Conclusions The three largest manufacturers of offset printing equipment have aggressive digital initiatives underway,

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

balancing what they see as a flat to declining market for conventional offset presses with digital alternatives and a diversified portfolio. The two smaller companies have focused their attention on improving productivity, efficiency and customer profitability with conventional offset and have not disclosed any digital initiatives publicly.

Over the past few years, manufacturers have made significant progress in improving offset press performance. While digital presses have moved up the scale in terms of the cross-over point with offset, offset presses have come down, with manufacturers claiming offset presses are effective for static printing of as few as 250 to 300 sheets per job, with highly automated fast changeovers between jobs and minimal makeready waste. Thus, for printers looking to invest in a new printing press, it is critical to examine the current job mix and determine where the company wants to be in the next few years. This will help determine whether a new press investment should be offset or digital and what the balance between the two should be in the company’s production portfolio.

Of course, all of the companies we interviewed were bullish about the value their respective offerings

OFFSET bring to the market and their relative positions in the marketplace. As the commercial print market (NAICS 323) continues to consolidate, printing companies are seeking new revenue streams and new applications. The diversification we see in the three largest companies is well positioned to help them get there.

In the WhatTheyThink “Printing Outlook 2019,” author Richard Romano points out that there is, in some sense, a convergence among various printing categories, most of which are not included in NAICS 323.

For printing companies, there are plenty of opportunities for growth in what Romano has designated the “Sweet Spot” of convergence, areas of overlap that we often call specialty printing, as well as digital décor such as wall coverings, promotional items produced using heat transfer dye sublimation, textiles and more.

Packaging, of course, is a growth area that is being pursued by offset press manufacturers and their customers alike. Heidelberg offers direct printing on 3D objects; Koenig & Bauer have solutions for printing on glass and cans. None of the five players we interviewed, however, are pursuing textile applications, at least not at this point – or not that they are talking about. However, on the digital press manufacturer side, this is a hot area.

Another discipline that is gradually making its way into printing companies is 3D printing, so far primarily in a small number of companies in signs & display graphics and promotional products.

But we expect that to gain traction over the next few years as well.

When we look at the industry from a more macro perspective, then, there are plenty of opportunities for growth. Clearly, sheetfed offset and digital will coexist for some time into the future. Paraphrasing Mark Twain,

the reports of the death of offset are greatly exaggerated.

For manufacturers of offset presses, diversification is one approach and finding niches is another … for printing companies, it is important

to take a strong and strategic look at the current state of the business, have a plan in place to take it to the next stage, and then find the right vendor partners to get you there. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21069258 ■

For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/10004777 June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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DIGITAL & INKJET

High Speed Inkjet Devices Take on Commercial Print Quality Article by Mary Schilling and Elizabeth Gooding

T

he Inkjet Insight team spends a lot of time at print industry events, interviewing inkjet OEMS, customers who are

34

evaluating inkjet for their business or have already implemented it.

In past years, the conversation was dominated by transactional, direct mail and book printers. This year has been different. In the

Elizabeth Gooding

Mary Schilling

Elizabeth Gooding helps companies to streamline their business process, improve customer retention, and maximize new opportunities for document design, print and Internet technology.

Contact her at Elizabeth@inkjetinsight.com .

Mary Schilling is co-owner of www.InkjetInsight.com and the owner of www.

SchillingInkjetConsulting. com. She consults with paper mills, fluid and inkjet machinery suppliers and end users. She writes technical inkjet industry and training articles.

first five months of 2019, at events throughout Europe and North America, the conversation has been about using inkjet for high quality commercial print applications that were previously considered out of reach.

Many buyers this year are looking to complement or replace their offset production capabilities. This tells us high speed inkjet is gaining acceptance in a market with high print quality and color expectations.

We are not talking about commercial direct mail, but high end, high value printing such as marketing collateral, magazines and catalogs. Often

WhatTheyThink - Printing News June/July 2019

34-39_HighSpeedInkjet.indd 34

5/23/19 1:33 PM

DIGITAL & INKJET buyers are less concerned with press speeds than with how inkjet can provide the high print quality needed while integrating into their shops’ existing media requirements and finishing.

From our conversations, the key performance indicators (KPI’s) in considering high speed inkjet were: ■ reproducible color gamut ■ 4+ color options or expanded gamut ■ image depth ■ minimal graininess in highlight areas ■ use of standard offset media ■ preference to sheet or roll Inkjet has evolved to meet the KPI’s in this list to varying degrees.

Some OEMs have focused on ink formulation, head technology, drying or a combination of all of them. Some manufacturers have developed entirely new inkjet approaches, which apply drops to the media indirectly. Each solution provides different options in terms of ink chemistries, drying, varied production speeds, offset media compatibility, pre or priming media, post coating, ink values and 4+ color process.

To provide a comparison of these approaches, Inkjet Insight has drilled down on the family of presses from

each OEM where the KPI’s fit within the specifications listed. A list of “commercial ready” roll and sheet-fed inkjet devices that can complement or replace your conventional offset is also included.

We reviewed the specifications and print quality for over 65 inkjet models included on the Inkjet Insight Device Finder. Each series of inkjet presses were compared based on respective resolutions, minimum drop size, gray levels and ink configurations needed to address stated requirements. Inkjet models in the chart specify the series,

or family of equipment, and not always the specific model because the configuration options are considerable. Each offers different options based on the customer’s paper and coverage requirements.

A book of business may require additional drying power or, perhaps, priming (in jetted or anilox form) or post coating. So, even though you may see the general specifications for an inkjet model, talking to the OEM’s about your specific KPI’s can open up options which address what matters most to you at the best price. Let’s further define the criteria used for evaluation.

Reproducible Color Gamut

We reviewed the specifications and print quality for over 65 inkjet models included on the Inkjet Insight Device Finder.

For decades, commercial printers have provided 4-color process printing which can target industry color spaces such as SWOP, GRACol and FOGRA. These spaces have set our expectations for 4-color reproduction. Each device listed can, within specific speed, drying and media configurations meet or exceed industry color space standards.

4+ Colors or Expanded Gamut Commercial offset printing often provides more than four color options. Traditional devices may have spot colors or additional base

For details on specific devices and market KPI’s se https://apps.inkjetinsight.com/device-finder/ June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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DIGITAL & INKJET

Your eye interprets graininess from “dots” and not from openly spaced patterns. colors to enable a range of colors which cannot be reproduced in a 4-color process. The series of presses in the table include traditional 4-color process options with inks that provide high chroma values, as well as 4+OBG (orange, blue and green) or spot color options.

Expanded process chroma ink sets and additional colors can meet or exceed standard industry color spaces, though each may require specific paper, priming and drying.

Be specific about your color space and reproducible gamut requirements and test extensively.

Image Depth - Gray Level Resolution A concern with inkjet is that colors can appear flat with less image and color depth than conventional offset.

Gray levels of 8 or higher deliver The more drop sizes available, the finer the control of th printed image.

the complex image depth associated with offset.

To achieve image depth in inkjet, a complex balance of resolution, bits processed per pixel and multiple drop sizes (gray levels) are balanced to give the illusion of multiple shades within a color area of the print.

These elements which make up the 36

Discussing your required KPI’s, paper needs, workflow, finishing and press room requirements with OEMs is critical to proper evaluation. Ink coverage and color space target requirements should also be discussed in depth because they affect production speed requirements and non-porous media compatibility.

illusion of depth require much more processing complexity to process quickly and accurately.

In the past, inkjet’s high-speed variable data processing requirements imposed process limitations on producing better color depth.

Inkjet technology has progressed, and image depth has improved significantly. Although inkjet still trails offset in some cases, the devices listed provide the highest resolutions and gray level options with the smallest drop values. In combination these features provide deeper printed image depth.

Reduction of Highlight Area Graininess One of the biggest drawbacks of inkjet printing for commercial printers has been the graininess apparent in small reproduction images and in light highlight areas such as flesh tones. Inkjet’s use of FM screening can create a grainy appearance.

Tightly spaced dots create the appearance of darker tones, while open spaces create the visual

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For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/11329288

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DIGITAL & INKJET effect of lighter image areas. When drops are farther apart, with more paper white showing through, we focus on the dot, which makes us perceive a grainy appearance. To help minimize graininess, smaller drop sizes are needed. Devices that offer the smallest minimum drop size and/or use custom screening methods can create smoother tonal values reducing graininess in highlight areas.

Use of Standard Offset Coate Media and Finishes Conventional commercial printers do a lot of business printing on coated offset stocks. Coated offset papers are designed to repel water.

It’s not a big surprise that this characteristic can create issues when working with inks that are mostly water. Inkjet OEMs have bridged this compatibility issue through advanced

ink chemistry, including reducing the amount of water or using a different carrier, and the addition of jetted or flood coated primers.

Do Your Homework and TEST, TEST, TEST. Each of the devices listed meet most or all of the KPI’s important in the commercial printing market.

Some exceed commercial capabilities in one manner or another. Of course, your configuration and mileage may vary, so always do careful research and verify the process used to create samples.

Discussing your required KPI’s, paper needs, workflow, finishing and press room requirements with OEMs is critical to proper evaluation. Ink coverage and color space target requirements should also be discussed in depth, because they affect production speed

requirements and non-porous media compatibility.

Go to InkjetInsight.com and create your own inkjet device comparison and review the items that are important to you, your sales teams and of course your customer. You can also download test files and tint books.

Want to learn more? Visit www.

InkjetInsight.com and create your own custom side-by-side comparison or talk with the Inkjet Insight team to gain more, you know, Inkjet Insight.

Note to OEMS: Think your technology should have made the cut? Check your device listing on Inkjet Insight to ensure your data is complete and up to date.

See Inkjet Insight: Understanding Gray Levels (https://inkjetinsight.

com/knowledge-base/understandinggray-areas-inkjet/). Find article here PrintingNews.com/21068709 ■

Partial screen capture of Inkjet Insight’s device comparison. Visit www.InkjetInsight.com to view more comparison data 38

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DIGITAL & INKJET

Creative die-cutting. © Highcon

Embellishments:

What’s Old Is New Again and Still Adds Value! — Part 2 Embellishment has been a function of print production for as long as there has been printing. There is no doubt that embellishment does add value to the printed product. Especially with the more recent introduction of digital embellishment technologies designed to complement digital printing. Now that embellishments have finally begun to capture market awareness, new developments are happening all the time. In part two of this series, David Zwang looks at new mainstream technologies that add embellishments and value to print and packaging production.

Article by David Zwang

I

n part one of this article, we looked at the value of embellishments and their long history. In part two we look at the mainstream enabling technologies that add embellishments and value to print and

David Zwang David Zwang specializes in process analysis, and strategic development of firms involved publishing and packaging across the globe. Contact him at david@zwang.com

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packaging production.

New developments in digital embellishment are happening all the time now that embellishments have finally begun to capture market awareness. There are many standalone digital embellishment devices, and now even some embellishment features integrated into digital presses or hybrid presses. This has created platforms to unleash design creativity.

Scodix was one of two of the earliest manufacturers to introduce digital embellishment, initially shown at IPEX in 2010. Scodix uses their PolySense polymer technology as the platform to create their wide variety of effects.

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DIGITAL & INKJET They currently offer five different polymer consumables to generate different types of embellishments for their devices. These include spot high gloss and variabledensity spot coating up to 250 microns in height or about 100 times higher than press varnish, enabling 3D effects.

They can also support most conventional hot and cold foil films in conjunction with the polymers on a wide range of substrates including uncoated, coated, plastic and laminated. They also support glitter effects and Braille in addition to many other embellishment effects—limited by your own creativity. They recently introduced two new products, the Scodix Ultra 101 and Scodix Ultra 202, in which they have made their wealth of embellishment knowhow available to make embellishment more productive and affordable. The top-of-the-line product is the Scodix E106, which can support a B1 sheet with all of the previously discussed enhancements at up to 4,000 sheets per hour (sph). Heidelberg and other press manufacturers that have partnered with Scodix to bring embellishment to their offerings.

MGI, the other pioneer in digital embellishment, introduced their JETvarnish embellishment technology at drupa 2008. As the name suggests, they initially focused on using UV varnishes to embellish the printed product.

Since then they have introduced JETvarnish 3D which can support up to 232-micron thickness effects. The JETvarnish 3D, which supports up to a B2 sheet at 3,123 sph and its sister production the JETvarnish 3D Evolution (EVO) which supports up to a 4,200 sph on a B2 and 2,291 sph on a B1 while printing on most paper and some plastic and laminated media as well. The JETvarnish 3DS introduced their iFOIL option, which supports hot foil in addition to the UV varnish effects. At drupa 2012, MGI introduced their AlphaJET press which was recently shown at ALL4PACK in Paris. This brings together all of the current and future MGI technology in a modular solution that will offer inkjet printing, UV varnish, foil, die-cutting and even printed electronics embellishment.

While it is really designed with smart packaging in mind, since it is modular, it will probably have many other uses. It may be released sooner; however, it will undoubtedly be in a prime position at drupa 2020.

Duplo, who is no stranger to finishing for digital equipment, introduced the moderately priced DDC-810

Scodix Ultra 202. © Scodix

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Digital Spot UV Coater, which uses varnishes to build up to 80-micron thick 3D enhancements. It can run A3 pages at 21 ppm and A4 at 36 ppm.

JetFX manufactures embellishment engines that uses NanoParticle Jetting of liquid polymer inks, varnish and foil to create a wide variety of effects. It enables an efficient print process for any label type, and allows the application of digital foil, tactile silk screen-like effects, spot varnish, mini textures, digital holograms, full flood varnish in gloss and matte. They offer branded solutions like the inline HP Indigo GEM, which was introduced in 2017. However, an offline webfed system is also available through an OEM relationship with AB Graphic International (ABG). JetFX also announced their RAINMAKER standalone sheetfed solution which can support a B2 format using the same technologies.

They said their solution is at least 30% faster and 30% less expensive than their other market competitors. It is expected to be available for commercial shipping mid 2019.

KLUGE, still one of the manufacturers of analog embellishment technologies, introduced their DM-Liner® using KURZ: DIGITAL Metal® series of products. This is a cold foil solution that uses a dry or liquid (electro-ink) toner to print the design on the paper. The metallization is then transferred to the substrate and hardened with an LED UV. Depending on the model, it supports A3 or B2 format and can embellish with foil up to 3,600 sph.

Inline embellishment in digital toner presses has been evolving as well. While it started with raised varnish and is now available from Xerox, Ricoh and Kodak, and it has reached new heights (no pun intended). The Kodak NexPRESS fifth station supports dimensional inks in Clear, Gold, Opaque White, Pearlescent White that can also simulate silver with a grey tint underlay, and Red Fluorescing dry inks you can embellish inline.

DDC-810 Digital Spot UV Coater. © Duplo

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DIGITAL & INKJET Ricoh supports Opaque White, Neon Pink and Yellow toners for their fifth station. Not only can the Xerox Iridesse add 3D varnish effects, it can also include gold and silver metallic and high opaque white dry toners. Adding ColorLogic software to many of these digital press inline solutions can extend these colors to a wide range of metallic embellishments.

Color-Logic software is supported by many printer manufacturers to create enhanced embellishments and security printing.

Xeikon is working on one-pass inline digital embellishments using their Fusion Technology. It should include high opaque white, foiling, matte and gloss varnish in flood and spot modes when released. It is focused on their label market, specifically wine, spirits and beers.

They expect to release the initial Fusion options later this year.

In hot and cold foil stamping there is a fair amount of waste, depending on the image area and the size of the carrier sheet. An even newer method of embellishment was developed

by Landa Digital Printing in the

similar to a cold foil process. This trigger image can be printed using any print technology.

The trigger image enters the Landa metallization module, which contains the metallization technology. This consists, at a minimum, of metal NanoFlakes and a donor roll. As the substrate with the trigger image printed on it passes by the donor roll, which is covered with a mono layer of NanoFlakes, the flakes are attracted to the trigger image. The result is a metallized print. This technology was subsequently sold to Altana, a global leader in specialty chemicals and coatings, and we should expect that they will license it and supply the NanoFlakes at some point.

Moving away from printed embellishments, Highcon produces a line of digital cutting and creasing equipment. Instead of using dies and counters it uses a high-power CO2 laser and “DART” (Digital Adhesive Rule Technology), which uses a UV curable resin. The Highcon Beam can support 30 x 42-inch sheets at

5,000 sph, while their other models can support up to 2,750 sph. They offer optional modules for stripping, variable cutting and fine detail cutting. Instead of hours or days for die making the make ready for these die cutters is about 15 minutes.

We can expect to see even more development in the area of embellishment technologies not just in labels and packaging, but also in commercial and industrial print as well. We can also expect to see increased adoption. And while there are additional costs for embellishment, the incremental operational costs are far outweighed by the incremental value it can add to a printed product.

Whether it is all about design enhancement or security, the needs for embellishment today isn’t that different than what it was in the 1st century—adding awareness and value to content.

More to Come…

I would like to address your interests and concerns in future articles as it relates to the manufacturing of Print, Packaging and Labels, and how, if at all, it drives Industry 4.0. If you have any interesting examples of hybrid and bespoke manufacturing, I am anxious to hear about them. Please feel free to contact me at david@zwang.com with any questions, suggestions or examples of interesting application.

Find article here PrintingNews. com/21068700 ■

Ricoh Pro C7210. © Ricoh

21st century. Initially called NanoMetallographyTM, it was initially shown at drupa 2016. This new metallization process is designed to produce zero waste at less than half the cost of foil. The process starts with the printing of a trigger image, 42

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MARKETING TECHNOLOGY

Lesson from the Cracker Jack Box: Let’s Use AR Responsibly Even as the technology and implementation of augmented reality races forward at blazing speed, many marketers are still stuck in the past. As a result, and as illustrated by my recent experience with the prize in a Cracker Jack box, it hurts the entire industry.

Article by Heidi Tolliver-Walker

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wo years ago, I wrote about Cracker Jack replacing traditional prizes in its boxes with experiences using augmented reality. I like Cracker Jack, but I don’t tend to buy it, so while I was interested in how this might work, I didn’t actually buy a box and check it out myself. Yesterday, though, a friend dropped two single-serving boxes off at our house. After munching my way to the bottom of the box, I looked for the prize to see if Cracker Jack is still using augmented reality.

It is. Cracker Jack is using the Blippar app. Instead of a traditional prize, I found a peel-off card that revealed a Cracker Jack logo that, when scanned using the app, took me to a game. The implementation was clunky, required me to download Heidi Tolliver-Walker Heidi Tolliver-Walker has been a commercial and digital printing industry analyst, feature writer, and author for more than 20 years. Her industry commentary can be found in national printing publications, blogs, and marketing publications.

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the app first, and as it turns out, launched a game that was cute but extremely simple and little more than a novelty. There was also a lot of “junk” in between (like ads for Blippar) that were irritating (insert eye-roll emoji) and negatively impacted the experience.

In an age in which even elementary school students are playing Fortnite on their iPhone X’s, it was a bit of a disappointment. Cracker Jack couldn’t do better than this?

Now I was curious. I went back and Googled Cracker Jack’s switch to AR games. The announcement was made in 2016. The news coverage was from 2016, too. All of it. So it appears that Cracker Jack implemented this three years ago, made a big splash, and hasn’t done much since. While AR has moved forward light years and has become a highly sophisticated and powerful tool, it doesn’t appear that Cracker Jack has moved forward much at all. When users interact with AR through the Cracker Jack prize card, they aren’t seeing AR as it is now. They are experiencing AR as it was three years ago.

What impact does something like this have on the market? I thought back to the conversation I had

with my impromptu focus group of millennials about QR codes. None in the group were using QR codes.

Why? Because they saw them as irrelevant. Most had never even tried them. Even if they had, they don’t use them now. Their reasoning was, “Well, we tried them back then. It was a bummer of an experience. So I learned my lesson. Why try again?”

That’s the concern here. Early (and present) user experiences matter. If they are poor, they create a barrier to use and adoption far into the future. Not only will people not use these tools again, but they aren’t going to encourage their friends to use them either. That’s not on AR. That’s on marketers.

The conclusion is simple. If we’re going to guide our clients into using AR for anything, whether it’s training, education or marketing, it’s important that we ensure that the implementation is really good. It should be relevant to the user, easy to use and showcase the best of what AR has to offer. Anything less hurts not only our own clients’ marketing, but the entire industry.

Let’s all enjoy AR, but let’s enjoy responsibly. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21068703 ■

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NEW PRODUCTS Baldwin Technology to Launch TexCoat G4 at ITMA 2019

▲ GlobalVision Releases Health Warning Inspection Tool for Tobacco Packaging GlobalVision Inc., announces the release of the Compulsory Packaging Information (CPI) Extractor for the tobacco industry.

The latest innovation from GlobalVision simplifies and accelerates quality inspections by extracting all health warnings on packaging before going to print. The CPI Extractor comes in addition to GlobalVision’s flagship Print Inspection module, which delivers a complete quality control system for the verification of labels and packaging.

As the preferred quality control solution of Philip Morris International, GlobalVision ensures that there are no errors or defects on tobacco packaging while eliminating the strain manual proofreading places on the workflow. The CPI Extractor automatically extracts and compares warning information from an approved file to counterparts on a scanned sample, flagging any differences between the two.

Along with artwork inspection, the system can verify and grade barcode quality without the need for a scanner.

www.printingnews.com/21069452

Baldwin Technology Company Inc. is pleased to announce the launch of TexCoat G4 at the ITMA trade show, in Barcelona, June 20-26, 2019.

The TexCoat G4 is the next generation of the Baldwin-developed non-contact precision application system for fabric finishing. The system enables a continuously high quality and productive textile finishing process with zero chemistry waste and drastically reduced water and energy consumption. The non-contact spray technology brings advantages compared to conventional methods of applying finishing chemistry. The chemistry is uniformly distributed across the textile surface and is applied only where it is required – on one or both sides of the fabric. The TexCoat G4 offers the possibility of unprecedented tracking and control of the finishing process to secure a consistent quality. The system offers automated speed tracking, fabric width compensation, real-time monitoring possibilities to track system uptime, performance and chemistry usage, as well as active care alerts.

www.printingnews.com/21069449 DALIM SOFTWARE Demonstrates DALIM ES Marketing Workflow Solution for the First Time at HOW Design Live DALIM ES is a collaborative workflow management and production platform, offering services ranging from online approval to web-based production tracking for all participants of the production cycle, including agencies, producers and brand owners.

The web-based DALIM ES soft-proofing system allows creative partners to review, comment and approve artwork from a calibrated, coloraccurate system. Tasks and approvals are automatically routed to the correct people.

Important for most designers, those who wish to work with a streamlined Adobe Creative Cloud workflow can access content directly from DALIM ES with the Silicon Publishing ES Creative Cloud Connector. With it, users can drag and drop files from an in-app window, creating links to ES assets from InDesign, or checking in and out Photoshop or Illustrator assets from ES, without leaving the Creative Cloud applications.

Accompanying collaboration is an audit trail along with key performance indicators (KPI) that allow retailers to fairly quickly discover bottlenecks in the creative operations process, and determine where errors might be occurring.

www.printingnews.com/21069443

PrintFactory Launches Linux Compatibility for Workflow Software PrintFactory has launched Linux compatibility for its workflow software suite, becoming the first software provider to offer a fully-supported workflow solution across the three main operating systems - Windows, MacOS and Linux. The launch of PrintFactory on Linux offers wide-format printers maximum flexibility in the way they work. For example, if prepress operators are using MacOS or Windows workstations, PrintFactory now enables jobs to be simultaneously processed on a Linux server. Offering advanced processing power, PrintFactory’s Linux compatibility offers an ideal solution for large format printers looking to cluster applications and RIP files on an industrial scale.

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New IMPRIMA LJ Plate for Label Printers Now Available

ColorGATE and freieFarbe e.V. Cooperate to Provide Spectral Descriptions of Spot Colors

Toray Graphics introduces a brand-new waterless offset printing plate, IMPRIMA LJ. Toray developed this plate specifically for label printers looking for a high quality, high durability water-washable plate that provides printing stability and significant sustainability value.

The IMPRIMA LJ has a printing resolution up to 175 lpi, and the IMPRIMA LJ plate is 200% more durable than comparable waterless offset printing plates. This thermal negative CTP printing plate uses a standard imaging wavelength of 830 nanometers. It is ideal for label production but can also be used for a wide range of other applications, including CD/DVDs, loyalty cards, metal decoration and for printing on non-absorbent substrates. These plates are also ideal for printers using UV curable inks as well as for sheetfed and on web presses that require production quality such as density stability during the print run. Its high resistance to chemicals and UV inks makes it an extremely durable plate. It also offers excellent screening at 1-99% with 36 micron FM or hybrid screening, and 2-98% with AM screening at 175 lpi.

ColorGATE and freieFarbe e.V. are working together to offer a solution for high color accuracy: open communication and management of spot colors based on mathematical color models and open standards.

Colors represented in a mathematical model with a fixed step size do not enjoy copyright protection. This is beneficial, because it enables the publication of the RGB or CYMK values, as well as the comparison to other systems or the arbitrarily fine calculation of intermediate and opposing colors. CIELAB and spectral data are the most important standards in industrial color practice, i.e. in the measurement and formulation of color. In contrast to RGB and CMYK, the LAB color space is also equally spaced.

www.printingnews.com/21069434

www.printingnews.com/21069440

Intec Auto Sheet Feeding Flatbed Cutter Unveiled at FESPA, Munich, 14-17 May Intec Printing Solutions Limited, innovators in digital imaging and finishing, continues its expansion of unique solutions by introducing the ColorCut FB8000PRO as part of the ColorCut range of digital cutting and creasing equipment.

The Intec ColorCut FB8000PRO is a modular system solution, comprising the FB8000 Flatbed Cutter and ASF8000 Auto Sheet Feeder. Both devices are feature-rich and offer huge production advantages. The operator can utilize “productivity mode” when manually feeding sheets – this is where the sensor seeks and reads each sheet to cut multiple sheets at a time – finished sheets are automatically moved along the table and into the collection tray.

The bespoke ColorCut Pro3 software has been remastered to enhance the device’s digital functionality. Rebuilt from the ground up, ColorCut Pro3 will generate unique QR codes for placement onto vector artwork – which in turn, is read by the FB8000’s onboard video camera. The new style circular check marks are also read by the software. The four corner marks ensure accuracy with the artwork/cut file and compensate for any sheet placement skew or print stretch. As a bonus, the video camera provides a live view to the operator’s workstation, which also helps provide a visual confirmation of the production status.

New Features for Labels and Packaging in Latest Harlequin Release The latest update to the Harlequin RIP, Version 12.1, introduces additional features for labels and packaging workflows, notably support for the new ISO standard for processing technical marks, and expanded support for systems requiring multiple RIP instances to handle high data throughput requirements.

Harlequin 12.1 extends support for systems using multiple RIPs by introducing an expanded framework, called Harlequin Scalable RIP, that is designed to support press vendors in building higher and higher speed digital front ends to drive faster and faster presses. It gives press vendors access to a complete scale of solutions from a single RIP, through multiple RIPs on a single server, up to multiple RIPs across multiple servers. Harlequin 12.1 also introduces seamless screening for repeats that are not simple rectangles, for example, for staggered imposition of hexagonal or rhomboid-shaped labels.

www.printingnews.com/21069002

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Planes, Trains, Automobiles... and Vans and Trucks…

Vibrantly printed latex graphics provide cost-effective “mobile messaging” for brand owners managing vehicle fleets.

Article by Mark Vruno

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he playing field for vehicle graphics remains a vast “canvas” for creative designers and the firms that can print colorfully on vinyl film. There are one-off wraps, and then there are larger fleet applications—ranging anywhere from two to hundreds and even tens of thousands of vehicles, depending on the client. Large is a relative term, of course, when it comes to describing wrap-job volumes.

Wrapping fewer than 100 vehicles is the “sweet spot” for ER2 Imaging Group, a wide-format print provider based in Hanover Park, Ill., near Chicago.

“Any job bigger [than that] is difficult for us to compete on,” said VP and Partner Gary Schellerer, Jr., whose father founded the company 28 years ago.

The biggest benefit of vehicle graphics, according to Tom Sitkowski of Bannerville USA, is their 24-hour, drive-by marketing effect.

“It really is fantastic,” Sitkowski said.

Mark Vruno Mark Vruno, a Chicagobased business publishing professional, has reported on the global commercial print industry for more than 20 years.

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“We’ve recently completed a couple different project with emergency vehicles. One example is the Minneapolis Children’s Hospital. The hospital outfitted their critica care mobile transport unit with a brightly colored design, printed on reflective film. The hospital opted for a fu coverage reflective wrap in 3M Scotchlite Print Wrap Fil 780mC. Their design is whimsical, fun and engaging. It really stands out and makes a statement. I’ve also seen some pretty cool full reflective bus wraps in 780m adopted by municipalities for public transit.”

“We get five to 10 calls a week from our own trucks out there on the road every day.”

Jessica Franklin, segment marketing manager at vinyl film media manufacturer 3M, agreed.

“Fleet graphics remain popular for large fleets that often make graphics a key part of their brand identity. There is also growing interest and adoption of fleet graphics among smaller fleets and small business owners,” Franklin said. “Continued investment in new equipment over the last couple [of] years, particularly for heavy-duty trailers, is favorable for graphic film application.”

Schellerer said that while ER2 has increased its capabilities to compete on larger wrap runs, the firm’s management team is content to service cars, vans, buses and some ambulances on a smaller scale— and leave the mega-transportation graphics jobs to others, such as Reidler Decal Corp., which

specializes in fleets of thousands.

Based in St. Clair, Pa., the 93-yearold firm prints fleet wraps for the trucking, rail and air-cargo industries.

(See some of Reidler’s train freight and commuter train-car wraps at

http://reidlerrailgraphics.com/graphicsgallery.)

Wrapping Trains & Trucks President Ted Reidler said his family’s firm can coordinate wrapping anywhere from one to 60,000 vehicles.

Sales affiliates extend their footprint to a much broader scale, he added.

“Our own crews can install wraps in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Phoenix,” Reidler said, “but we use 3M’s certified installer network for jobs in other states.”

Projects that massive can spread out over the course of an entire year.

“We might produce and install 100 [wraps] per month,” Reidler said.

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE To compete more cost-effectively on such large-scale fleet work, Reidler Decal recently invested (this in a new, EFI Pro 32r roll-to-roll LED digital printer. The unit was sold through Nazdar SourceOne, an EFIauthorized inkjet partner based in the Chicago area.

“Our digital market is the fastestgrowing segment of our business,” Reidler said. “We did a lot of research and comparing of presses, and we found the EFI Pro 32r gives us the most competitive advantage in speed, cost of ownership and pricing of ink.

“The 32r is around two-and-ahalf times faster than our previous equipment, has more capabilities to print on diverse substrates, and the ink is much more economical. It increases our capacity with higher speeds, while at the same time lowering our cost per square foot.”

The printer’s “cool cure” LED imaging helps to lower power consumption, plus it gives Reidler Decal the ability to print on a variety of flexible substrates, including thin or specialty media that cannot withstand the heat required with traditional UV or latex printers. It also features a built-in EFI Fiery digital front end (DFE), ensuring high productivity in Reidler’s digital inkjet workflow, together with EFI FAST RIP acceleration technology, RIP-andprint-on-demand functionality and the ability to print pre-RIPed files at the printer interface.

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Contour Wrapping on a Smaller Scale ER2 Imaging staffs 10 installers who are certified by United Applications Standards Group (UASG).

“When we have vehicles spread out across multiple states, we use our vendor network that we’ve built up over three decades,” Schellerer said.

“We print the graphics here [in its 35,000-square-foot facility], then ship them for installation.”

In addition, a creative department of seven designers makes advertising art functional for ER2’s customers.

Positioning and alignment are key, according to Schellerer.

“We can’t have letters in the middle of a door handle. Our designers ensure that wraps don’t fail from an installation standpoint,” he said.

ER2’s go-to output device is the HP LX3600 Latex Printer.

“Latex stretches well,” Schellerer said, “so there’s no discoloration. And it comes off the press without the need to out-gas, so it can go directly into the laminator.”

He refers to the LX3600 as “a true production machine” with a monthly duty cycle that tops out at 350,000 square feet.

“It’s 10.5-feet wide. We can load two rolls side-by-side. It’s also bolted to the floor, so we even can load 900-foot rolls,” Schellerer said.

Another element he likes is HP’s “unattended” feature, allowing

operators to monitor production off site from a smart-phone app.

Nearby, Signco, Inc. in Melrose Park, Ill., a near-west suburb of Chicago, wraps vehicles for customers with landscaping, moving and security businesses, as well as municipality police and fire departments, said Chris Ruffino, who directs the art department.

Ruffino attests to the sustained popularity of vehicle wraps but believes that full wraps have become less commonplace than, say, five to seven years ago, at least in his experience.

“It can be very expensive to wrap a full vehicle,” he said. “From the square footage of the material to the installation and labor, it’s not always practical. We are seeing a lot more quarter- and half-panel wraps, which are more cost-effective.”

Bannerville thinks the demand for mobile graphics may be strong enough to warrant a company name change.

Sitkowski, VP of business development said the company

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE is developing a marketing plan to bring in more vehicle wraps for the second half of 2019. The word “banner” in Bannerville often pigeonholes the firm.

Employing a four-member graphics team, the company produces and installs its share of wraps on service vehicles for heating/air conditioning and plumbing customers as well as non-profit organizations.

Bannerville outputs its clients’ vehicle graphics on water-based, 64inch HP Latex 360 and 570 printers.

Sitkowski agrees that partial wraps are a less-expensive consideration for many jobs.

“A lot of customers only need their logo, a phone number and website information.”

Signco, too, runs the majority of squad-car graphics on its HP Latex 570. The roll-to-roll model features four-pass speeds of 334 square feet per hour for outdoor applications—at high resolutions up to 1200 x 1200 dots per inch.

The firm has two full-time designers on staff, armed with the Adobe Creative Suite of navigation tools.

“We use a lot of reflective vinyl, which is visible at night. There are a lot of standards and regulations for fire and police vehicles,” he said.

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“While they’ve been around for many years, the technology has evolved a lot,” 3M’s Franklin said about reflective films.

The manufacturer recently introduced Scotchlite Print Wrap Film 780mC-10R White.

“Since launching this product, we’ve seen more truck fleets as well as buses adopt full coverage in reflective film,” she said. “Our 780mC is highly conformable, removable and offers heat-recovery properties from bruising that may occur during installation. This printable reflective film offers fleets endless design possibilities.”

3M recently wrapped a critical-care mobile transport unit with a vibrant design, printed on reflective film.

“The Minneapolis Children’s Hospital opted for a full coverage reflective wrap in 3M Scotchlite Print Wrap Film 780mC,” Franklin said.

“Their design is whimsical, fun and engaging. It really stands out and makes a statement.”

Media of Choice 3M is the media partner of choice for Bannerville, ER2 Imaging and Signco.

“We prefer Controltac Graphic Film IJ180,” Schellerer said.

“3M 180 vinyl comes at a premium cost but is the best product out there,” Sitkowski said. “It’s one media I don’t have to worry about ever failing.”

“If it’s vinyl, 3M is all we print on since we switched to digital [output],” Ruffino said. “It’s easy to remove and protects the paint.”

Signco’s in-house installers also are big fans of knifeless tape, especially for striping.

“Knifeless tape is changing the industry,” said 3M applications engineer Alan Miller. “Cutting tools can be a harsh instrument to fragile paint.

Knifeless enables creative graphic designs with varied elements, including adding dimensionality and/or texture.”

3M supports the use of rollers, such the RollePro, for rivets.

“This will help with the speed of installation. 3M continues to evaluate other techniques as they become available in the market space,” Miller said. “There are changes to the rivet styles, which can affect the installation techniques and speed.”

3M provides updates on rivet styles and various techniques through instruction bulletins, which can be found on its website or the app.

“We are seeing more flexible UV options,” said 3M lab manager Kristen McNamee. “An example is EFI using the Super Range XF inks in their grand-format printers. HP has launched their new-generation latex ink series, which can be used on fleet applications.”

3M partners with these hardware OEMs to provide a co-branding option that honors its full MCS Warranty, providing a seven-year outdoor, durable graphic solution. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21068707 ■

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For more information, visit Printingnews.com/ 10006791

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5/23/19 12:33 PM

WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Well-Schooled in Printing:

Chicago Loop Studio Wins

SpeedPro Project of the Year Story by Richard Romano

S

peedPro Chicago Loop (SPCL) celebrated its fourth anniversary last April and what better gift than SpeedPro’s Project of the Year Award? The studio won for its refresh and rebrand of The British International School of Chicago, a private K–12 institution with two campuses in the city—Lincoln Park and a newer one in the South Loop.

The British School and SPCL have an established relationship, as the British School was one of SPCL’s first customers.

The refresh and beautification project was the result of a capital investment project following a security review of the two campuses.

One of its goals was to help protect students as the campuses are in well-trafficked areas. For the Lincoln Park campus, the school’s security consultant recommended that the 60 classroom window panels and nearly 2,000 square feet of glass be treated with a film to reduce visibility to passersby. The window graphics were designed not only for security, but for branding purposes, as well.

“We did a series of window perfs, Richard Romano Richard Romano has been writing about the graphic communications industry for 20 years. He is an industry analyst and author or co-author of more than half a dozen books.

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Brand of the marketing aspect of the new graphics was to highlight the British School’s associations, such as with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

and because it’s such a well-trafficked area, branding was obviously something that they wanted to take into consideration, bringing visibility to the school,” said Eric Lazar, owner of SpeedPro Chicago Loop.

The British School has pretty strict branding guidelines, but, added Lazar, “they do think outside the box.”

Many of the window graphics were based on student artwork which was digitized for printing on perforated vinyl. Student artwork was also used for wall murals and staircase graphics.

Environmental graphics are a huge and growing print application, and SPCL produced extensive interior and exterior imagery for both campuses.

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE Floor and wall graphics were among the many various components of the British School of Chicago refresh and beautification project

Playing on the international nature of the British School student body, SPCL produced a 30-by-10-foot world map using magnetic wall materials from Visual Magnetics.

“The idea is that it would be interactive,” Lazar said. “We then added anti-graffiti lamination and did some cutouts to engage the students.”

If a student was from, say, France, the student could take a little magnetic star and use it to show where France was.

Wall and floor graphics were designed to reinforce the school’s core values, highlight its academic partnerships (such as with MIT and the Juilliard School), recognize student achievements and communicate a positive environment to visiting parents. These interior graphics also included various whimsically designed murals for the “early learning” corridor, a two-level contour-cut stairwell graphic, several small murals in stairwell landings,

two sets of floor graphics and a dimensional PVC sign treated with a sparkled laminate.

The South Loop campus, located in a more residential area, required a more conservative approach to its graphics. The exterior in particular posed an installation challenge, comprising 4,700 square feet of windows spanning two floors.

Access to the second floor required maneuvering around a large stairway located below a major set of windows.

Inside the South Loop campus, SPCL designed a flexible wayfinding/ room-naming system that could be easily swapped out.

Continue on page 62

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Idealliance Develops

XCMYK Color Space for Inkjet and Digital Inkjet and digital technology typically have a large color gamut—larger than Idealliance GRACoL and Fogra. This market needed a color space, profile and dataset so Idealliance created XCMYK. Article by Tim Baechle

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ince 2006, GRACoL has enjoyed enormous success as a worldwide default color space for preparing CMYK files. The combination of GRACoL and G7 has greatly improved the efficiency and consistency of print production, not only in offset, but also in every printing method like flexo, gravure, inkjet, electrophotography, liquid

electrophotography (LEP), screen and dye sublimation. For many printers and print buyers, GRACoL

has become the de facto standard for exchanging CMYK files between one process and another.

Tim Baechle Timothy Baechle is the Chief Executive Officer of Idealliance formally the Vice President of Global Print Technologies & Workflow.

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE expanded-gamut printing easier and more efficient by researching and publishing optimized methodologies, ink specifications, and ICC profiles. The goal of the project is to bring at least some of the convenience and easy file interchange already enjoyed by GRACoL to the expanded-gamut market. But first some basic questions had to be answered, such as how many inks are needed, and what color should they be?

CMYKOGV (7-Color Expanded Gamut)

The one limitation of GRACoL is that its color gamut is noticeably smaller than that of many new printing processes, which puts GRACoL printers at a disadvantage when maximum color saturation is required. GRACoL is perfect for general commercial printing but falls short of the richly saturated color gamut needed for packaging and high-impact printing.

When more color is needed on press, the traditional solution is to augment the CMYK inks with additional inks and custom ICC profiles under the generic

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term “expanded gamut” (or “extended gamut”) printing. Unfortunately, this approach lacks the standardization benefits of GRACoL because every expanded gamut system uses its own unique ink colors, software and ICC profiles, and files made for one system cannot be printed directly on another.

This was addressed by the Idealliance Expanded Gamut Project.

The Idealliance Expanded Gamut Standardization Project The Idealliance Expanded Gamut Project seeks to make

Traditional expanded-gamut printing uses up to seven inks— normal CMYK plus (typically) orange, green and/or violet, hence the generic process name “CMYKOGV.” Optimizing the OGV ink colors was a key goal of the Expanded Gamut Project, but an equally important goal was to determine how the CMYK inks should be printed and augmented.

If the CMYK inks are only printed to GRACoL specifications, the full potential of CMYKOGV printing cannot be achieved, because the OGV inks do nothing to expand the gamut in pure cyan, magenta or yellow areas. To maximize the gamut of seven-color printing, the gamut of the CMYK inks must be expanded independently of the OGV inks, which brings us to the concept of XCMYK or “eXpanded-gamut CMYK.” The Idealliance ECG program worked to create an industry standard test chart, methodsmand procedures for calibrating, and a target characterization data set for ECG (Extended Color Gamut) printing, which was the world’s first of its kind.

The ECG Program will provide the following benefits for the industry: Continue on page 63

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Vycom and AZEK Open Recycling Plant for

Sustainable Substrates Story by Richard Romano

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ycom, a division of The AZEK Company, is a manufacturer of plastic sheet products for the sign and display industry. Vycom substrates are designed to replace wood, metal and other traditional materials in a variety of applications. The AZEK Company, which also manufactures materials for construction and other industries, recently opened its own recycling plant in Wilmington, Ohio, which is being used to supply the raw materials for some Vycombranded materials as well as other AZEK products, with more on the way. We recently spoke with Kevin Duffy, VP of Sales and Marketing for Vycom, about the new plant, what it means for Vycom substrates and the company’s sustainability efforts.

WhatTheyThink: How did the decision to open a recycling plant come about, and is it the first of its kind for AZEK? Kevin Duffy: It’s the first of its kind for AZEK, and just to be clear, we’ve traditionally used recycled materials, both post-consumer and post-industrial, for many years.

What this allows us to do is become vertically integrated with the raw materials. So we’re now buying the post-consumer/post-industrial material on the open market, taking it into our facility in bale form, and 54

(Above) Vycom’s Polycarve line consists of multi-colored high-density polyethylene (HDPE) sheets that can be used in signage and graphics applications. (Right) Kevin Duffy, VP of Sales and Marketing for Vycom

then sorting, washing, grinding, reprocessing and putting it into a form that allows it to be put right back into our products. I think it shows our commitment not only to both recycling and sustainability, but also to our product lines for the long term.

WTT: AZEK produces different materials for construction and other industries. How much of Vycom’s substrate material comes from what is recycled at the plant?

KD: The Wilmington plant is a polyethylene recycling plant. At Vycom, we run multiple types of materials. The majority of what

we produce today for the sign and graphics market is a PVC-based material. We do use polyethylene for other products such as our Polycarve, which is our color material that you can route through to a different color in the core, and that has the ability to have recycled content in it and certainly could be supported from that plant. Overall, the majority of the material that’s going through the Wilmington plant today will go into our deckboard products that are produced at another facility just down the street in Wilmington.

WTT: What specific kinds of materials does it recycle?

KD: It’s single-use packaging. It’s a mix of different types of polyethylene from high-density, to low-density, to linear low [density]. Again, having the ability to control the process and the quality allows us to take in multiple different streams and we can tune the products to whatever we need for our offerings on the decking side.

WTT: From where does the plant acquire the recyclable materials?

KD: We’ll work with municipalities, waste haulers, recycling companies— anybody that’s out there. In the past, we would have worked directly with people that are already reprocessing these materials, but now we can actually just take the raw materials themselves that had been reclaimed and put them right into our operation. There are multiple avenues and we negotiate long-term contracts.

WTT: Are materials made from recycled materials more or less expensive than those made from “virgin” plastics or other materials?

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE KD: It depends on the quality of the recycled material. In some cases, if you really want a pristine, like-new product, the recycled material could actually cost more because there’s a cost to recapturing, reprocessing and making sure it’s very clean and free of contaminants. If you’ve got more capability to handle some of the mixed materials that can have some level of contamination, the economics get much more favorable. That’s what we have with our decking products, because 80% of it is the core material that is basically a structural filler and doesn’t need to be perfect, unlike the outer cap component of the deck where you get all the aesthetics, the long life and UV protection and nice looking pigments.

WTT: Overall, are you seeing a

greater or lesser demand for recycled materials from customers? And is that demand related in any way to a willingness to pay a premium for recycled materials?

KD: There’s no question that we are definitely seeing a genuinely stronger interest in recycled materials. I think the old premise that everybody loves recycling but nobody was willing to pay for it is no longer true—I think we’re moving into a different stage where people are saying, “You know what?

We’ve got to find the answer to this together.”

WTT: Are there any plans to open new plants in other parts of the country or internationally?

KD: We’re exploring that. The initial output of that plant is about

50 million pounds annually, and we’re going to double that later this year. By the end of next year, the plan is to have that plant up to about 200 million pounds of polyethylene capacity.

WTT: Any other expansion plans on the horizon?

KD: I think we’ve really done a great job of colocating that facility with our deckboard manufacturing facility in Wilmington. So we’re going to explore further capabilities in our Scranton location where the majority of Vycom products are manufactured.

We’re fully committed to recycling and to these initiatives, to the circular economy, doing the right thing, and being a good corporate citizen.

Find article here PrintingNews. com/21069518 ■

For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/10004280

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WATCH LIST

The Ecommerce Trend in Labels and Packaging Dawn Olsen of Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S., helps customers profit from their print investment as quickly as possible.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21064386

When and How to use Polymeric Calendered Vehicle Wrap Film Polymeric calendered vehicle wrap film can often b the difference between bidding on or winning a job Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21065950

Kodak Rolls Out Inkjet Innovations in Packaging Will Mansfield, Director of WWMarketing EISD for Kodak, talks about the company’s recent announcements surrounding new developments.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21066585

Black Gator Board - Quick Mask File Setup Our NEW Black Gator Board is quicker and easier to set up than you might think! Check out this brief tutorial.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21067120

Nashville Science Center Billboard Nashville Science Center billboard application Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21067830

3M Introduces the Award-Winning Graphics Hub Tammi Johnson, Business Development Manager for 3M, talks about the Graphics Hub, a software and website platform.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21067986

McDonald’s Augmented Reality Campaign for Avengers’ Endgame | JCDecaux JCDecaux and McDonald’s have joined forces for an exciting augmented reality campaign.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21069199

FESPA 2019 is All About Innovation Mark Hanley of I.T. Strategies talks about the vibrant digital print market represented at FESPA 2019 in Münich, Germany.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21069219

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Komori is Best Kept Secret in Production Inkjet Listen as Jacki Hudmon, Sr. VP Sales and Marketing for Komori America, speaks with Inkjet Insights.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21066210

Giant Baseball Player for MLB PrintHpole used their Massivit 3D printer to create this 8.5-foot (2.6m)-tall baseball player for F&F’s MLB fashion store.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21066213

Creating Impact Kevin Chen, the master of embossing behind the design of the 2018 greeting card from Iggesund Paperboard, shows how to create more impact.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21067122

Convergence Connects Communities Brandon Hensley and Joshua Carruth talk about how digital printing technology is driving convergence across many forms of printing.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21067817

HP’s Smart Printing Steve Newton, Software Solutions Manager for HP Large Format, talks about HP’s cloud-based “smart printing” for wide-format, facilitated through PrintOS Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21068762

Ultimate TechnoGraphics Provides Software Solutions for a Variety of Workflows Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21069008

KAO Collins Offers Specialized Inks for Almost Any Application Kristin Adams, Marketing Manager for KAO Collins talks about the company’s vast portfolio of inkjet inks.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21069221

Xante’s En/Press Gives Customers More Mailing Options Rui Cardoso and Melizza van Gelderen take us on a tour of the Xante booth at Hunkeler Innovationdays.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21069222

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TEXTILE & APPAREL

WhatTheyThink Exclusive:

EFI Acquired BDR Boya Kimya and What’s Up with EFI BOLT

Why

We spoke with Adele Genoni, EFI Reggiani’s Vice President and General Manager, to get the inside scoop on her company’s acquisition of BDR Boya Kimya, a leading manufacturer of reactive inkjet inks for industrial digital textile printing. While we had her on the line, we also asked for an update on EFI BOLT, the world’s fastest digital textile printer.

Article by Cary Sherburne

E

FI has maintained a particularly aggressive schedule of acquisitions over the past few years, acquiring companies that either get them into new markets (like the acquisition of VUTEk, to name just one example) or strengthen their position in existing markets. The announcement of BDR Boya Kimya, based in Bursa, Turkey, falls into the latter category.

We spoke with EFI Reggiani’s Vice President and General Manager Adele Genoni to learn more.

WhatTheyThink: BDR Boya Kimya is a fairly new company, only having been founded in 2016, but according to your press release, has quickly gained significant market share for reactive inkjet inks for digital textile printing. What is the background of the co-founders and how did they achieve this so quickly?

Adele Genoni: Co-Founder Ibrahim Demir worked for EFI 58

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Reggiani in the past, so he has long been an expert in the textile field.

His partner and co-founder, Serra Saatçıoğlu Yildiz, also has a good background in the industry. They both impressed us because they are very bright and passionate for

business growth and success. Their success comes from a combination of their industry knowledge, strong relationships with customers and a good product. In only in a couple of years, they were able to become well-established in the Turkish and Pakistani textile markets.

WTT: Was EFI already producing its own reactive inks for textiles?

AG: Yes. We already have been producing water-based reactive inks in the UK. Now we will have two plants producing water-based reactive inks, one in the UK and the other in Turkey. The combination of the two businesses puts us in the leading market share position for these inks. We will be offering both EFI Reggiani and BDR inks and will provide whichever ink is most suited to a particular customer’s needs.

WTT: Will you be selling these inks to other textile printer manufacturers, as BDR was?

AG: Owners of EFI Reggiani industrial digital textile printers will access to both inks. The BDR line of inks will continue to be offered also to other OEM producers of digital textile printers.

BDR headquarters in Bursa, Turkey, following the EFI acquisition of BDR. Front row, far right: BDR co-founders Ibrahim Demir and Serra Saatçıoğlu Yildiz. Front row, far left: EFI Reggiani VP/GM Adele Genoni.

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TEXTILE & APPAREL WTT: Will you be offering BDR inks on a worldwide basis, then?

AG: We will. These inks quickly became well-known in Turkey, Pakistan and a few other countries.

Now, we can give them access to the larger global footprint of EFI Reggiani. There is a lot of synergy in what we can do together. BDR will have access to EFI Reggiani’s global customer base and customer support infrastructure. They are bringing to EFI Reggiani their customer base.

Their production operation is located in Bursa, one of the most important textile hubs in Turkey, just a couple hours outside of Istanbul.

WTT: Will BDR take on local manufacturing of other EFI inksets?

Will EFI take on manufacturing of BDR’s recipes in the UK or other locations?

AG: This is only Day One [we spoke on the day of the announcement]. We want to strengthen our position in waterbased reactive inks for the success of our customers. We may take some of those steps later, but nothing has been decided yet.

WTT: Ink prices are always an issue with anything inkjet. A while ago, I had an opportunity to speak to some BDR clients, who expected to see dramatic reduction in ink prices over the next couple years. What effect will this acquisition have on ink prices?

AG: The market prices for reactive inks have gone down as production volumes have increased. That is a trend that will likely continue, although there is a level below which you can’t go any longer. The ink price is one of the key elements speeding up the analog-to-digital transformation in textiles, because it reduces the printing cost per meter.

We at EFI Reggiani have developed a greener and shorter process, one that is even more cost effective,

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based on our TERRA printer line up and pigment ink. A shorter process implies less investment in pre- and post-treatment equipment and chemicals, offering a lower printing cost per meter, less use of water, energy, chemicals and waste.

WTT: When will the textile community have an opportunity to meet the BDR principals and talk to EFI about reactive ink strategies?

AG: We will be together at ITMA in June in Barcelona, and there we will present our reactive ink line-up, the combined product range, and both Ibrahim and Serra will be there to answer questions as well.

WTT: Some time ago, EFI acquired Rialco, one of Europe’s leading suppliers of dye powders and color products for the digital printing and industrial manufacturing industries.

Do the Rialco colorants play any role in BDR ink sets? Just curious if BDR was a Rialco customer or whether it got its colorants from other sources.

AG: For sure we partner with Rialco as much as possible to leverage all the synergies, but Rialco is not in this field WTT: What has been the initial reaction of BDR customers to this acquisition?

AG: Again, it is just Day One. We have just disseminated the news to customers via emails, and, of course, the press release, so more comments will be coming. The team at BDR is really excited about the opportunity to be part of a group like EFI. WTT: Can you give us a BOLT update? Have any been installed yet at customer sites, beta or otherwise?

AG: There has been a great deal of interest in BOLT. We are a bit selective in our sales efforts at the moment and we have been giving dedicated demonstrations to customers. We already have two signed contracts, one in Italy and one in Pakistan, and there are other

contract negotiations ongoing. The BOLT in Italy is currently in its final installation phase. We want to take the process one step at a time and make sure the system is solid and our customers are fully satisfied.

WTT: EFI had a virtual reality tour of the Nozomi at FESPA…any plans to do something similar with BOLT at ITMA? AG: We will have a real BOLT at ITMA, printing fabric at the show, so attendees can take advantage of live demos there!

WTT: I recently read about an inkjet waterless textile dyeing system that can dye 2,000 square meters per hour. With the BOLT running at up to 90 square meters per minute, why wouldn’t someone choose this, even if it is to print solid colors only? Are there any limitations in BOLT that would make that not a good idea?

AG: I’m surprised every day at how good BOLT is. Customers are bringing in their digital designs, and it is amazing how well BOLT is printing them. Plain colors, geometric patterns, fine lines, deep black, smooth gradients…any limit can be overcome. BOLT can print plain colors well. BOLT does have outstanding penetration for a digital printing technology. Several customers have commented on the fact that color penetration for BOLT is outstanding compared to other digital textile printers.

WTT: Thank you, Adele. Is there anything else you would like to add before we close?

AG: We believe the acquisition of BDR will be phenomenal for our future steps in textiles, enhancing our capability with ink and chemistry, and fitting well into the entire EFI textile ecosystem. We are really excited about it. More to come!

Find article here PrintingNews.com/ 21068936 ■

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE PRODUCTS Canon Expands UVgel Printer Family with New Ocè Colorado 1650 Unveiled: Karibu, the swissQprint Roll-to-Roll Printer Karibu, the first swissQprint roll-toroll printer, made its public debut at Fespa 2019. This is a UV inkjet printer with a maximum print width of 3.4 meters. Karibu incorporates ingenious features aimed at high efficiency and reliability as well as huge versatility.

Karibu features a Light Box right next to the printing area, for immediate and continuous quality control of backlit prints. Karibu has a Mesh Kit integrated with the print bed. This makes clean and simple work of processing permeable substrates, as well as full bleed printing. Karibu has four beaconlike status indicators affixed to the print beam. They are observable at a distance and inform the operator about machine status and printing progress. So it is always possible to keep an eye on Karibu, even while the operator is elsewhere in the print room taking care of other equipment or tasks. Additionally, swissQprint has developed an ink set specifically for the new Karibu roll to roll printer. The cured ink layer is flexible to ensure suitability for all roll media.

www.printingnews.com/21068512

Canon U.S.A., Inc. announced the new Océ Colorado 1650 large format graphics printer, expanding the family of roll-to-roll devices featuring Canon UVgel technology. The Océ Colorado 1650 introduces Océ FLXfinish technology that enables both matte and gloss print finishes, a new ink, increased media and application versatility and a fully integrated double-sided printing feature. The new 64-inch production graphics printer builds on the breakthrough productivity, output quality, ink savings and automation of its predecessor, the Océ Colorado 1640. The new product delivers optimal performance for print service providers (PSPs), producing applications such as self-adhesive vinyl, canvas, wall-coverings and front- and back-lit graphics that require a high degree of flexibility for finishing, mounting and framing. The Océ Colorado 1650 incorporates Océ FLXfinish technology, a new approach to LED curing which allows the operator to choose between a matte or gloss output for each individual print to achieve different finishes – without the need to change inks or media.

www.printingnews.com/21068856 FESPA 2019: Durst Launches New P5 Printing Systems, Modular Software Solutions and Services for Large Format Specialists Under the Motto “Pixel to Output” Durst has launched the P5 350 and P5 210 new printing systems for large format specialists based on the P5 technology platform. With P5 350 (print width up to 3.5 m) and P5 210 (print width up to 2.1 m), Durst is expanding its P5 portfolio with two new hybrid solutions. The new printing systems set a new standard in flexibility and versatility, as they can print on both roll media and boards. With a multiroll option for the P5 350/210, users can load rolls during printing to reduce setup times and increase efficiency.

www.printingnews.com/21068619

Trotec Adds Environmentally-Friendly Wood Products to Materials Line Trotec Laser, Inc. has added an eco-friendly wood material to its materials product portfolio. Designed for laser processing, TroCraft Eco products are sustainable, recyclable, fully biodegradable and emissions-neutral. The new wood-based material combines the properties of sheet metal, composites and plastics – making it stable, flexible and permanently malleable, just like metal sheets. Made from high-quality cellulose fibers, TroCraft Eco is manufactured without chemical additives, binders or bleach, which means the material is safe for people and animals. Due to its low weight and easy processing, TroCraft Eco is also a great solution for interior design, model making and industrial design.

www.printingnews.com/21068945

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE PRODUCTS Mimaki Announces JFX200-2513 EX Large Flatbed UV Inkjet Printer European Launch at FESPA 2019

Expanded Automotive Aftermarket Portfolio by Avery Dennison A significantly expanded automotive toolkit was showcased at this year’s Avery Dennison FESPA stand. Additions to the range include three new Supreme Wrapping Film colors, a new option for paint protection and a comprehensive range of automotive window films.

The new colors in the range are SWF Gloss Metallic Fun Purple, SWF Gloss Metallic Passion Red and SWF Satin Metallic Energetic Yellow.

For users who want to protect their vehicle’s paint against the challenges of the road, and maintain value, Avery Dennison launched a medium to longterm Pure Defense Series that complements the existing Supreme Protective Films Series.

Completing the range of automotive solutions is the new Avery Dennison Automotive Window Films portfolio – three different ranges for solar protection, occupant’s comfort and extra passenger privacy.

Avery Dennison AWF HP Pro is a premium automotive window film with shrinkage performance, quick drying time and ease of handling, along with the superior solar performance that comes with 4 visible light transmission levels.

Avery Dennison AWF HP is a costeffective film range that also offers very good solar performance.

Adding protection from shattered glass is made possible by using Avery Dennison AWF HP Safety.

www.printingnews.com/21069426

Mimaki Europe, announced the European launch of the new JFX200-2513 EX large flatbed UV inkjet printer.

Introducing a new print mode and an extra printhead, the JFX200-2513 EX boasts substantial productivity increases on previous JFX models. This entry-level printer also uses Mimaki’s 2.5D Texture Maker to enable smooth embossed print at the touch of a button. For the first time, this allows print service providers to offer large format digital print with enticing-to-touch dimensional textured effects without lengthy file preparation. Opening new and valuable application opportunities for customers, the new Mimaki layering technology has been designed for supreme simplicity and ease of use. Eradicating the previous time-consuming and skilled process of creating multiple Photoshop files featuring stacked stepped layers for smooth expression, Mimaki’s genuine RIP software ‘RaterLink6Plus’ completes the process in seconds. It achieves that by adding a greyscale image of the original coloured file in the RIP.

www.printingnews.com/21069431 Esko Launches Motorized Roll Feeder

The new Mactac ColourWrap materials, in 50 different colors, were showcased at the brand’s FESPA 2019 stand. The Mactac brand now offers a cast wrapping film giving the flexibility and ease of use demanded by car wraps. The range offers access to materials that are affordable, easily applied and offer very good conformability properties for 3D projects. The low tack, microstructured adhesive gives straightforward installation with bubble-free results.

The Mactac ColourWrap Series offers 50 different colors in cast quality, including gloss, gloss metallic, matte and matte metallic finishes. Installers get the 3D performance and film choices needed to turn heads.

Esko has announced the launch of a Motorized Roll Feeder for its Kongsberg C64 digital cutting table, developed to deliver accurate and efficient cutting of soft signage materials. Eliminating inaccurate cuts on soft signage jobs due to wrinkles, stretch distortion or imperfectly rewound rolls, the new Motorized Roll Feeder incorporates an active material feed. It avoids stretch by actively feeding the material to the cutting table, rather than pulling it. The combination of the Motorized Roll Feeder and built-in Esko Kongsberg software compensates for distortion during cutting. The Motorized Roll Feeder handles large rolls to enable wide format converters to keep up with their digital printing capacity. High volumes of large jobs, long print runs and dense materials like PVC require a solution that easily handles heavy rolls.

www.printingnews.com/21068751

www.printingnews.com/21068615

New Cast Wrapping Mactac ColourWrap Series

June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE Continued from page 51

“They didn’t want to do permanent signage in the classrooms for each of the teachers, so we used Visual Magnetics materials,” Lazar said.

Printed magnetic panels could be easily moved if a teacher changed rooms, and new ones could be printed as additional faculty came on board.

Throughout the process, Lazar and his team were aware that they were serving dual purposes, as the campus graphics also need to serve as a recruitment tool for the parents of prospective students.

“They’re doing tours, and when they bring parents in, it’s got to be a special place,” added Lazar. “The graphics are very much a marketing tool.”

A key to the success of the project was the close relationship that SPCL has with the British School.

“They are as great a client as you could possibly get,” Lazar said.

SPCL has grown rapidly in four years, despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that Lazar, like many SpeedPro franchise owners, doesn’t have a background in the printing industry.

“I served eight years in the Marine Corps,” he said. “I was trained as an Arabic translator, but I worked in intelligence for an electronic warfare squadron.”

After his hitch was up, he spent 13 years in broadcast television in the

Chicago area and the last five years as a regional sales manager for a group of TV stations.

In 2008, he started a mobile technology company, which was eventually acquired, and then the company that bought it was itself acquired.

“In the course of seven years, the company was basically purchased three times.

“I spent a year talking to three different business brokers and strangely the only commonality between what they were recommending was the printing industry,” he said.

Specifically, they suggested SpeedPro. Lazar was lukewarm to the idea at first, but as he investigated the SpeedPro franchise opportunity, the more he started to like their culture and the niche they were in, especially the B2B nature of the business.

SPCL has averaged around six or seven employees, and scales up or down with independent contractors as he needs them.

SPCL is located near McCormick Place and thus gets a lot of trade show graphics work. The company also does a lot of work for local Chicago businesses and the city itself, including graphics for the 2016 and 2017 Chi-Town Rising, Chicago’s New Year’s Eve celebration. He has also

(Above) SpeedPro Chicago Loop used Vusual Magnetics’ magnetic substrates to create an easily swappable roomnaming system. (Left) Student artwork was used as the basis for new window graphics to help protect the privacy of students.

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Whimsical artwork was used for the Lincoln Park campus’s “early learning” corridor.

done high-profile work for Laurence Gartel, “the father of digital art” who launched the Art Basel Miami Beach “art cars” exhibition.

Lazar chalks up his success with SPCL to his tendency to think not like a printer.

“We take a much more agencyesque approach,” he said. “We’re looking for something that is really focused on ‘surface impact’—how do we engage your client? What do we do to drive ROI, whether it’s brand recognition or driving dollars or social engagement? I think that’s a differentiator, and that’s really the lens that we look at everything through.”

He also makes certain to keep an eye on new technologies.

“My worst fear is that all the outside glass is going to turn to LED and we’re going to be out of business,” he says. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21068705 ■

WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage June/July 2019

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE Continued from page 53

■■ P roviding a common ECG target for use with a wide range of software ■■ Providing a calibration methodology ■■ Providing printing aims and characterization data

XCMYK (Four-Color Expanded Gamut) XCMYK was a GRACoL committee research program that explored the maximum color gamut achievable with just four (CMYK) inks. To date, the thousands of press runs over two-plus years have shown XCMYK printing can consistently yield a color gamut much greater than GRACoL, although not as large as CMYKOGV. In November 2016, Idealliance released the XCMYK profile and announced a new color space or Characterized Reference Print Condition for general industry use, representing XCMYK expanded gamut printing that can be achieved on digital (inkjet, EP, LEP) and offset presses.

XCMYK or CMYKOGV—Which Should You Use? The XCMYK and CMYKOGV expanded gamut methods are not competitive, but rather symbiotic, because XCMYK already defines the CMYK gamut of an optimized CMYKOGV color space. XCMYK is simply a more cost-effective stepping-stone whose color space (and costs) lie somewhere between GRACoL and CMYKOGV. So, which should you use?

■■ If you want the very largest color space possible, and the work merits the cost of extra color units, use CMYKOGV. ■■ If you want a color space significantly richer than GRACoL but less expensive and complicated than CMYKOGV,

52-53_63_Idealliance.indd 63

use XCMYK, especially if you are printing EP, LEP or inkjet.

■■ If you want excellent commercial color printing with maximum file interchange potential, but don’t have the need for expanded gamut, use GRACoL. Regardless of which system you use, remember that because GRACoL, XCMYK and CMYKOGV are all based on the same CMYK inks as well as G7, they share many of the benefits that have made GRACoL so successful. These include easier file exchange, standardized ICC profiles, standardized proofing specifications and standardized workflows.

Many digital devices now can print gamuts that are larger than traditional print standards such as GRACoL. For these devices, simply using XCMYK can produce color that is much more vibrant and appealing.

For offset print, XCMYK involves running inks at higher densities and is considered specialty printing.

XCMYK provides a significant gamut increase over GRACoL and Fogra.

While GRACoL can reproduce about 67% of the Pantone+ library, XCMYK can reproduce about 85% of the Pantone library and the Idealliance

ECG (CMYKOGV) can reproduce up to 98% of the Pantone library.

XCMYK is part of the broad ECG initiative from Idealliance moving through domestic and international standardization right now. Currently with ISO/PAS 15339, which are the CRPCs 1-7 (created by Idealliance Working Groups), and additional CRPC (Characterized Reference Print Condition) will be added, CRPC_8 (which will be then formerly known as XCMYK) will meet the unique color demands of inkjet and digital printing. The importance of this color space cannot be overstated as it gives this market a color space, dataset, and profile which meet the demands of our ever-evolving industry, which is the work of Idealliance.

Idealliance’ PPC Working Group has made profiles, datasets, as well as basic information about calibration and profile use available for anyone in the world. To learn more about XCMYK and to download the profiles, datasets and other information go to www.gracol.org, which is an Idealliance website for quick technical downloads.

Find article here PrintingNews. com/21068704 ■

June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage

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Canon USA............................................. 68

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Ennis Inc. (Folder Express).................... 17

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Zund America........................................ 14 PrintingNews.com/10008759 zund.com; 414.433.0700

June/July 2019 WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage

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ASSOCIATION INSIGHTS

Building Community, Driving Excellence, Navigating the Future Article by Ford Bowers

T

oday’s printers must navigate a shifting terrain, spurred on by new technologies and colliding markets. It’s what we call convergence, and the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association’s (SGIA) job is to help the industry in general, and our members in particular, to carve a successful path through it. We are a platform, a place where suppliers and end users of printing technologies come to learn and connect.

Building Community Community, long at the core of SGIA, is a cornerstone of this platform. Our membership comprises many diverse market segments.

Our Community Development department, established in 2017, focuses on building connections between members and supporting our volunteer leadership through committee work and communitybased events.

Our committees represent Apparel Decoration, Digital Textile and Décor, Graphics Installation (PDAA), Graphics Production and Functional Printing, and their charge is to address the unique needs and common challenges that come with

each area.

To keep these connections yearround, we have launched and are in the early stages of growing our online community, PRINTERLink.

This online resource allows members and nonmembers to build connections, engage in conversations, and tap into the industry network specific to their market segment.

Serving as a Resource for Growth While helping to foster connections across the industry, SGIA recognizes that solid business intelligence and an understanding of industry trends are key to good decision making. In 2019, we launched a new approach to our research efforts that combines benchmarking around employment, products and services with a broad analysis of how market segments within the printing industry are affected by changes in the economy.

But it’s not just about market data and business intelligence. Sometimes, our members find themselves faced with regulatory nightmares. With the expansion of our Environmental, Health and Safety services, SGIA helps to demystify industry regulations and works with members to ensure compliance.

Establishing Best Practices Ford Bowers Ford Bowers is President & CEO at Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA)

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SGIA has continued to expand programming and certifications in the area of best practices to support our members’ growth and to enhance the industry.

We currently offer certifications in

color management, vinyl installation and sustainability (through the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP)).

SGIA also recently announced the Digital Inkjet Specifications Working Group. This group is striving to develop and publish recommendations/targets for the digital wide-format inkjet market and anticipates expanding.

Supporting the Future Workforce To make our resources more accessible, we reduced dues for printer members, reintroduced our individual member category and opened membership to students — a group essential to our industry.

To support workforce development, SGIA aims to increase awareness around career paths in the industry and the opportunities for young professionals. To support this effort, the organization formed a Young Professionals Group, which will convene for the first time this fall.

In addition, SGIA’s foundation is awarding $40,000 in scholarships to students this year, with the goal of growing the funding to $50,000 annually.

See Convergence in Action Printing is a dynamic industry, and there are more opportunities available today than ever. PRINTING United (Dallas; October 23 - 25, 2019) will bring the phenomenon of convergence to life, uniting the segments of our graphic community under one roof, so all will benefit.

By providing accessible resources and information, creating opportunities for engagement and growing our communities, SGIA supports our members and helps grow a fast-changing industry.

Find article here PrintingNews. com/21070024 ■

WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage June/July 2019

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For more information, visit Printingnews.com/10004298

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