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THE MAGAZINE FOR FORWARD THINKING PRINTINGMAY/JUNE 2021

Explore more…COVER STORY Drupa: the greatest show on Earth but in virtual reality.BIG REVEALS The pick of the new presses.PANDEMIC The success stories emerge as nimble printers adapt.Explore more at printbusiness.co.uk

Established in 1952, Italian company Zechini has become the world’s specialist manufacturers of bookbinding and converting machines for short, medium and longer runs

www.printbusiness.co.uk May/June 2021 3

THE EDITOR’S COMMENT

THE MAN IN THE HAT, GARETH WARD

has been the editor of Print Business

since its second issue in 2005. Five years

later he took control of the magazine in a

management buyout and fully achieved

his vision to create a unique publication

for printers.

What Print Business does is take all this

information – supplied via press releases,

announcements at events, word of mouth

or good old fashioned journalism – sorts

the puffery from the facts, weaves it

together and puts it into context for those

who run print businesses.

AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING that Print

Business publishes are the printers. Those

whose businesses are no longer about

simply feeding paper into a giant lump of

highly engineered metal and selling the

sheet that comes out the other end. Those

who face myriad decisions, some of which

point in opposite directions, and need to

know more than how fast it prints.

They need to know what affects them

and how. Just as every print job is bespoke,

every print company is different. There is

no one-size-fits-all in this industry.

BEFORE COVID Gareth Ward was out

and about all the time. He went to print

factories and talked to printers in their

language. He has seen first hand the

problems they face, the solutions they find,

their achievements and their innovation.

He has finally been able to safely visit

some factories.

BEFORE PRINT BUSINESS Gareth Ward

worked on the leading weekly magazine

Printing World for 22 years and was editor

for 15. It is this experience, and 360° view

of the industry, that gives him his sixth

sense about printing. His ability to spot

trends, often years before they become

apparent in the mainstream, is legendary.

THIS IS PRINT BUSINESS, THE MAGAZINE FOR FORWARD THINKING PRINTING.

THE FUTURE IS THE FUTURE IS OUT THERE: IT JUST OUT THERE: IT JUST NEEDS EXPLAININGNEEDS EXPLAININGTHE PRINTING INDUSTRY RARELY

has the opportunity to set its own direction

to the future. This has been the case for

at least the last 50 years ever since the

widespread use of litho printing brought

affordable colour to magazines and the

advertising industry. Print, and cinema,

were the only channels for messaging

in colour and print was somewhat more

convenient. Printers enjoyed a 30-year

halcyon period when good money could be

made and what they produced, for lack of

rivals, was very much in demand.

But since the turn of the century and

especially since the Lehmann Brothers

crash, printers have been battling

head winds. The internet, smartphone

technology and more recently 5G and

the Internet of Things and most recently

Covid-19. All these have had a huge impact

on print without printers being in control

of these developments.

It was ever thus. Outside the

development of lithography and laser

imaging, print has been driven by wider

developments. In the nineteenth century

increasing literacy prompted demand for

newspapers and novels, the development

of laser diodes coincided with the creation

of CTP technologies and latterly digital

printing. New engineering techniques

developed for the microchip sector is

today allowing mass production of inkjet

printheads. Inkjet technology is still in its

infancy and its potential largely untapped.

Very few printers think of these longer

term shifts. We feel the earthquakes but

do not recognise the tectonic movements

underneath that create the earthquakes.

When we do, there is opportunity to

be had. Robert Keane, for example,

recognised this while completing a thesis

at one of the top business schools in

France. Drawing inspiration from Jeff

Bezos at Amazon, then in its relative

infancy, he realised that the internet could

be harnessed to enable the purchase of

print and that by consolidating hundreds

and thousands of orders for the humble

business card along a highly automated

production process, a decent margin might

be made. Vistaprint was born and launched

the online print sector. More than 20%

of print is being ordered this way already

and there is no end to this growth in sight.

Keane, of course, was not a printer and did

not think like a printer.

That is important because those of us

with our heads down at work, stuck to

the day to day of finding orders, filling

presses and managing staff, rarely have the

opportunity to look up or to feel the shift

of the ground beneath our feet. This is

where outside help may be needed. This

is the role of a show like Drupa. This is

why understanding what technology can

do and how it works will help process the

implications and discover opportunities.

Drupa, like so much else, was forced

to close its doors and go online this

time around. While we all missed the

www.printbusiness.co.uk

4 May/June 2021 www.printbusiness.co.uk

COMMENT GARETH WARD’S THOUGHTS ON…

conviviality, the ability to smell and touch

new equipment and see new applications

being demonstrated, some of the key

messages came though loud and clear in the

presentations over the four days it lasted.

First AI is coming. We can argue whether

this represents artificial intelligence,

machine learning, pattern recognition or

artificial ignorance. But we cannot argue

about the effects in the wider world.

Decisions are being taken by software,

programmed by humans. This means

printers have to be linked into the broader

Network, to be able to deliver shorter

runs, faster turnarounds, bespoke products

and probably taking on management of

distribution.

Keynote speaker Michael Gale outlined

some of ways that the shift to limitless

computing and communications capacity

is going to change the way that the world

operates. His questionnaire to discover

whether your business is AI ready, may not

be definitive. But it is a good place to start.

There are implications for the types of

skills that printers need, and moreover the

skills that will not be needed. We support

the drive to recruit apprentices for the

operational tasks that still exist and will

continue to exist for a transition period.

However, we also need to recruit a different

type of person, one that is savvy with these

new technologies, programmers and data

scientists. Go Inspire CEO Patrick Headley

tells us that around 25% of the company’s

staff are now data scientists. That is a

strong investment in the future of that

business.

Everyone has felt the impact of Covid on

their businesses. This will drive automation

of tasks where it has previously

not been worth the investment.

It is. And it is propelling a

rapid increase in online ordering,

affecting even those businesses

that have prided themselves on personal

relationships. I

n the last year many of these companies

have managed without the traditional press

pass. They are unlikely to come back into

the factory now restrictions are ending.

Kelvin Bell, director of Vpress, predicts

that without an online presence for taking

orders, printers will be out of business

within two years.

At a higher level these changes in

technology are why Precision Proco has

appointed Steeve Roucaute as its first chief

technology officer. His task is like the guy

climbing up to the crows nest with

a telescope to get advanced

warning of pirates on the

horizon or to spot land

before those on deck.

It is a shift too from the

fundamental operation

of a litho press which

most in print understand.

Lithography is at its heart a

chemical process. Oil and water do not

mix, and many problems can be solved

through chemistry – wetting solutions,

different blankets or roller coverings,

changing development solutions, pH

and more. In the inkjet world chemistry

remains important, but physics is even

more important. The developers of the

technology spend months perfecting signal

wave forms, compensating for electrical

PUBLISHING Print Business is published six times a year by Print Business Media Ltd Haymakers, Swamp Road, Romney Marsh TN29 9SQ | 01580 236456 | [email protected] www.printbusiness.co.uk

CONTRIBUTORS Printed by Manson Group | Printed on Gallerie Silk not via a contra deal. Open to offers.

EDITORIAL Editor/Publisher | Gareth Ward | [email protected] | 01580 236456 | 07866 470124Press releases should be sent to [email protected]

COMMERCIAL Publisher | Debbie Ward | 01580 236500 | [email protected]

ADMIN & SALES SUPPORT Publishing Assistant | Sarah Cross | 01580 236456 | [email protected]

MEDIA INFORMATION The Media Pack is on the homepage of printbusiness.co.uk

THE ROAR OF THE GREASEPAINT, THE SMELL OF THE CROWD Drupa is theatre, where we the audience are enthusiastic participants and keen to watch the performance and discuss it in the bar afterwards. page 22

CONSULTANCY IN MAGAZINE F

OR

MAT •

DRUPA


mailto:[email protected]

printbusiness.co.uk




printbusiness.co.uk


…PREDICTING, ACCEPTING AND EMBRACING CHANGE COMMENT

interference and understanding the impact

of orifice geometry.

In order to be on top of this coming

world, education is needed if nothing else

to be better equipped to judge whether

the transition of offset pages to inkjet

makes real sense and that the technology

offered has the capability claimed by the

enthusiastic salesperson and whether the

sales message makes real sense. Inkjet

is a new way of doing things that has

tremendous potential yet few understand

the fundamentals of what might become an

expensive mistake.

Virtual Drupa also pointed to another

tectonic shift that will shake all printers:

the climate crisis. Print has a tremendous

record of environmental improvement

over recent years and is one that we can

justifiably be proud of. But the rate of

change needs to accelerate. The use of

carbon balanced paper is a start, becoming

a carbon balanced printer is the logical next

step, but is only the beginning. UK printers

have been among the most enthusiastic

adopters of ISO 14001, so some

understanding of how to measure, assess

and implement change exists across the

industry. However, ISO 14001 alone is not

going to be enough to satisfy print buyers

who are working for companies that are

implementing zero carbon policies, circular

economy principles and need to know from

the businesses that supply them that they

also adhere to these principles.

These are still early days for

sustainability and the early adopters have

an opportunity to differentiate themselves

in a market where one print business can

look very much like another. For those that

do not make this shift, the receiver’s office

awaits.

The industry no longer has the luxury

of time to ponder these decisions and to

implement them in a leisurely way. As

it is said of the failed millionaire, at first

he went bankrupt slowly, then suddenly.

Printers may easily find themselves in this

position as policies at their customers can

swiftly shift.

We have already seen magazine

publishers drop polywrap as fast as

possible. Two years ago the Periodical

Publishers’ Association was still defending

the material claiming that it was widely

recycled. Today magazine printers have

experienced a precipitous drop in the

demand for the plastic material in favour

of paper wrap or even, as we have, in

favour of naked mailing. We can hope that

large format printers experience the same

collapse in demand for PVC, a material that

is almost completely unnecessary in the

printing industry because valid alternatives

exist. Printers need to be leading these

changes or they will find themselves

overwhelmed by them.

And beyond this the next shift is already

building. It is not visible yet, at least not

our eyes. To quote cyberpunk novelist

William Gibson, “The future is already

here, it’s just not widely distributed”.

Just as Robert Keane identified before

starting Vistaprint, there are opportunities

out there for a print business.

What is certain is that we will not find

them if we stay within the confines of

the business as it is today. The very best

printers will this with their sensors out in

all kinds of directions; they will be seeing

to understand new technologies. The

future is out there. Our job at Print Business

is to try to explain it to you. n

NEWS The Monday Morning News ezine is a popular collection of a handful of the week’s news, always going beyond the press release and often exclusive. One email, no third parties. Sign up at printbusiness.co.uk/subscribe

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CONTENT Content is copyright © Print Business Ltd 2005-2021. All rights reserved.

ARCHIVE Previous issues are available for subscribers. See the Archive page under the Information tab at printbusiness.co.uk available issues.

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DIVERSIFICATION CAME OUT OF THE PANDEMIC Demand for commercial print has plummeted leading some companies to diversify out of necessity in the first instance and have found themselves in a better place as a result. page 47


printbusiness.co.uk


6 May/June 2021 www.printbusiness.co.uk�

INFORMATION/TECHNOLOGY

Pyramid picks B1 RMGT Pyramid picks B1 RMGT for next phasefor next phasePYRAMID PRESS HAS ordered a six-colour B1 RMGT 1050 sheetfed press for installa-tion in November.

It will replace a Speedmaster 102 at the Nottingham business and joins an earlier version of the new machine, a Mitsubi-shi V3000 that the company installed less than two years ago.

That had been a press used by Central Colour, just three miles away, until its collapse and liqui-dation. And while an opportune purchase at the time, Pyramid director Paul McGuigan says the Mitsubishi has performed beyond all expectations. When the company had to decide on its next new press, there was no need to run trials or to see one in action. It was a choice between a Speedmaster XL106 and the latest RMGT machine. And

point by point, the Japanese press came out on top.

“We looked at it from the total cost of ownership perspective, the technology featured and the benefits we had seen with the Mitsubishi,” he says.

Its experience with the first press has been key.

“We have always been a Heidelberg house but when the

opportunity came up to buy the Mitsubishi we knew it was reasonable press and have been really, really impressed with it. We then realised that it was not simply a little faster, but a lot faster than the ageing CD102 we had and the plate changing, four plates switched over in 90 seconds was an eye opener, espe-cially when we have jobs that

require 30-40 plate changes.“The CD102 is an old press

that is getting expensive to run in terms of maintenance, it needs IPA which the existing Mitsubishi and the new press do not.”

The new press will also take less power to run than the Heidelberg being replaced. It has an extended delivery unit, double chamber coater, Smart FPC simultaneous plate change and Smart Assist Printing which automates set up and keeps the press in balance. At makeready the press starts to print tabbing the stack when good copies have been reached.

Pyramid also runs a Speed-master XL75 installed in 2016 along with Stahl folders and Polar guillotines from Heidelberg.

Pyramid directors Paul McGuigan and Jonathan Smith with the existing Mitsubishi V3000 press which will be joined by the latest version at the Nottingham business in November.

Integrity’s Integrity’s Clarity gains Clarity gains connectionsconnectionsINTEGRITY HAS increased the diversity of its Clarity hybrid mail offering to enable customers to include reply paid envelopes and a scanning service to deliver responses into the cloud.

The Clarity Response service has been developed follow-ing requests from customers who want a means to managing data from a questionnaire or changes to terms and conditions that have to be logged digitally. Standard hybrid mail offerings lack the versatility to insert reply envelopes at the mailing stage.

Integrity Connect, says managing director Chris Walton, has come up with a way to do this. “During lock-

downs hybrid mail has worked incredibly well for us. Many customers want to include a call to action, where filling in a form or agreeing to change in terms or conditions so customers have asked whether we could include a DRE which is not normally possible.

“Now, by partnering with Opex, we have found a solution to include the reply mechanism

and to scan the filled in sheets directly into a database in the cloud.

“As soon as we do this, the customer is notified that there is a response waiting for him.”

A barcode printed on the sheet assigns the answers to the specific customer, say the resi-dent of a housing association’s property. “We have developed this in-house and it has meant we are first to market with this as part of a hybrid mail offering. It is something that custom-ers have been asking for,” says Walton.

The development is part of continuing investment at the Midsomer Norton business. In January its commercial print operation took delivery of a Hunkeler CS8 finishing line to run alongside the Hunkeler CS6 that was installed in 2019. This expands the company’s capacity to handle cut and folded leaflets

to a round 10 million a week. Lockdown has seen a rise in the volume of door drop leaflets, aided this year by continental suppliers pulling out of the UK following Brexit.

“We have also started dealing with media agencies,” says sales director Andrew Law. “We can produce door drop work very efficiently and cost effectively. People don’t associate us with this type of work, but it shows we are starting to engage with a slightly different audience.”

Halstan adds Halstan adds iX320 inkjetiX320 inkjetHALSTAN PRESS HAS installed its second Canon cutsheet inkjet press, adding the flagship iX320 to the i300 it had bought last year. The Amersham book printer is fast becoming Canon’s showcase user for the litho replacement technology.

Chris Walton says demand for the Clarity Response service has soared.

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TJ Books reaches support TJ Books reaches support partnership with Hobbspartnership with HobbsTWO INDEPENDENT print businesses have formed an alli-ance in a move which is likely to be the forerunner of a number of similar partnerships.

Hobbs the Printers is linking up with TJ Books in a move which begins with a strategic support should an unforeseen event, an outbreak of Covid perhaps, strike one of the companies. The other would step and complete work for a customer who might otherwise be let down.

However, the two already see the next step being the ability to collaborate on tender opportu-nities offering a wider range of services with the firepower to match that offered by a larger business.

The two both operate in book production, with this being the main focus of TJ Books at its factory in Padstow, while Hobbs

the Printers offers a broader range of work, including book printing.

Both are well invested: TJ Books has installed equipment from Canon, most recently an iX3200 HD cutsheet inkjet press, and Duplo DuSense since Andy Watts led a management buyout in 2018. HP Indigo has been digital print supplier to Hobbs, which has also been the first UK company to install the

MBO CoboStack to make its folding operation more efficient.

The two are of a similar size with Hobbs employing 130, TJ Books around 120 before Covid. There are no plans for any formal merger.

Watts says: “We will continue to work independently, servic-ing our clients on a daily basis. However, this novel situation of two well established and respected printing companies

working closely together as partners is designed to provide the customer with peace of mind knowing that whatever the challenges or their unique print requirements, we will work together to provide a solution and get the job done in a swift turnaround.”

“Forming this alliance was an absolute no brainer.”

The logic from Southamp-ton is equally compelling, says David Hobbs. “With so much uncertainty in the world due to Covid-19, we believe this is a smart business move that will benefit both of us as well as the industry at large. What is great is that while both companies have similar processes and equip-ment, each also offers different, more specialised services.

“This gives us a resilience that many other companies don’t have at this time.”

First Indigo 15K First Indigo 15K for Platinumfor PlatinumPLATINUM PRINT IS UP and running with an HP Indigo 12000, the first in the UK to have the 15K value pack to enable the B2 digital press to print with additional colours and effects.

These features will appeal to a customer base drawn from marketing departments and agencies. They include seven-colour extended gamut printing, ink fluorescent ink, white, clear ink for spot varnish effects, invisible yellow ink that reacts to UV light and the ability to print 1pt text.

“We are delighted with it,” says managing director David Wyvill. “It was delivered just before Christmas and has been running since the first week of

January. This is our first Indigo and we are quite amazed at how HP have looked after us.”

When Platinum merged with Harrogate Printing in 2016, Harrogate had operated an Indigo which was left behind when the business was consoli-dated on the Platinum factory.

“It was an old model and we had very modern Ricoh toner based devices and the Ricohs have done us a very good job,” he says.

The Indigo 12000 takes the company into B2 digital print-ing. “We have looked at the Komori and Fujifilm inkjet machines over the last four years and we were aware of the Ricoh, though haven’t seen it. For us B2 digital sits between the Ricohs and the B2 Komori litho presses we have,” says Wyvill. “We think there is a lot of opportu-

nity in B2 digital, opening a lot of other markets.

“We think that the seven-colour digital machine will give us everything we could possibly need for the majority of the work that we might do once customers know that it’s available.”

Trivor comes to Trivor comes to end of roadend of roadIT APPEARS THAT XEROX has discontinued its continuous feed inkjet press. A note on the product pages of its website site

says the Trivor 2400 HD “is no longer sold as new”. The press was built at the former site in France which has been closed. Xerox has replaced the cut sheet Brenva from this plant with the Baltoro, but has made no announcement about any replacement for Trivor.

CPS upgrades CPS upgrades with XL75with XL75CPS GROUP HAS TAKEN delivery of a Heidelberg Speedmaster XL75, part of a multi-year plan to overhaul the company’s production platform. “We have had some older equip-ment that we needed to update,” says national account manager Darren Roberts. “The plan was to replace two of the older presses with a more productive

Andy Watts says that the alliance between TJ Books and Hobbs the Printers will help both companies overcome any events that can lead to disruption for customers.

The Xerox Trivor is no longer available.

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Phuzion opens up online Phuzion opens up online connection for printconnection for printPHUZION MEDIA IS supply-ing the underlying technology that Bauer Media is using to enable readers of its Grazia and Heat titles to link from print to web pages to view additional content or purchase items.

And the technology is not reliant on specific apps, QR codes or embedded codes or watermarks. Phuzion Media is calling the technology “Visual commerce”, saying that applica-tions expand beyond magazines into catalogues, brochures and direct mail, making a printed communication as measurable as an email or digital message.

For Bauer Media, Phuzion has created what Google calls

Progressive Web Pages. These look like apps on the home screen of a smartphone, but are short cuts to that website, bypassing that need for readers to use a search engine or to recall a URL to access the site, and the relevant page on that website. It will collect the data to show that the phone has triggered the connection.

The readers need to first acti-vate the link and here they use the smartphone’s camera to scan a QR code printed in the maga-zine. “We say it’s the only QR code that you will ever need,” says Phuzion director Harbir Guram.

The publisher, or printer,

sends the image to Phuzion to render it live to the phone. This can also be linked to a personal landing page for a direct mail campaign, using data that is part of the phone’s identity and provides time and location when a click through is made – all valuable analytics for the marketing industry.

“Print has always struggled to show its worth through links back to the client,” says Guram. “This joins the dots and closes that gap. We are getting a lot of feedback from agencies. This could be a game changer for them.”

Smartphones with scanning capability are becoming ubiq-

uitous while consumers are suffering from digital fatigue. Phuzion’s proposition is posi-tioned to take advantage, working with TV as well as printed pages, packaging and posters.

“The technology has been working in the Middle East and in Singapore which demon-strates that it can be effective en masse,” he adds.

“During the pandemic people have become used to scanning a QR code with their phones, but magazine publishers are not so keen on having QR codes and there is a limit to the infor-mation generated. We are on another level in terms of what we can do.”

machine that could produce the speed and quality and the leap forward in technology that we didn’t have before.”

The includes Inpress Control on the new machine, which will enable the company to slash start up waste. “We can colour manage on the press itself, though we are still reliant on the press operator to scan the sheets and manage colour on the run,” he says.

The press is also configured to print on 800 micron board, useful for the growing volume of packaging work handled.

The Caerphilly company has built a strong position as a supplier to the furniture and carpets market, producing the different spread of print, from brochures to signage, manuals to labels that this sector requires. As well as manufac-turers, it counts retailers on the client roster. “Because of this close association we can even be sending print to China along with clients’ products,” says CPS owner Simon Green, “We

have found a unique niche which makes us different from other commercial printers.”

Komori releases Komori releases NS40NS40KOMORI HAS ANNOUNCED that the Lithrone NS40, its press using Landa’s nano technology, is now available for sale. It will be available in four-colour plus coater and seven-colour plus coater configurations, driven through a Komori developed front end. Other specifications are shared with the Landa S10.

Cerutti Cerutti teetersteetersPRINTING PRESS manufac-turer Cerutti, the world’s only producer of publication gravure presses, is fighting for survival after the continuing Covid crisis has jeopardised relaunch plans.

The company was founded in 1921, but instead of celebrat-

ing its centenary there is a real risk that the Italian business will close down.

Its two operations were Officine Meccaniche Cerutti in Casale which produced publication gravure and flexo newspaper presses, and Cerutti Packaging Equipment in Vercelli, both in the Piedmont region in northern Italy. Last year these were reorganised into a new business, Gruppo Cerutti which took over the opera-tions in September with a much reduced workforce operating from the Casale factory.

Unions representing the staff

have been protesting the plans, including the claim that under the transfer to new ownership, they would lose accumulated redundancy rights. At its height Cerutti employed more than 1,000 with sales of more than €260 million, selling gravure presses to the likes of Polestar and Prinovis and flexo news-paper presses to Harmsworth Quays Printing for production of the Daily Mail. It acquired the gravure press arm of KBA and focused its packaging efforts on gravure technology.

Now the collapse of demand in long run gravure publica-tion print and a shift towards shorter runs in packaging and improvements in flexo technol-ogy, have left all with a stake in the future of the business in conflict while administrators seek new investors. Administra-tors are reported to have locked the doors to staff, which has also prevented completion of work on a packaging press which is reported to be almost ready for shipping.

Cerutti press production is under threat.

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Flagship Indigo hits the Flagship Indigo hits the ground running at JDPground running at JDPJOHN DOLLIN PRINT IS creating production records from its newly installed HP Indigo 100K, only the second of the B2 digital presses in the UK, as the transformation of a one-time family owned business by new owner Venn Holdings, continues.

Its installation will be followed by upgrades to the finishing departments, improvements to broadband connectivity and installation of a second XL75 over the summer. JDP owner, Venn Holdings, is also eyeing its second acquisition, one that will dovetail with JDP, says director Anthony Thirlby.

The decision to invest in the high speed Indigo, capable or 6,000sph when printing in CMY only Enhanced Produc-tivity Mode, was not planned,

says Thirlby. After acquiring John Dollin Print, which ran an Indigo 12000 alongside and Indigo 7600, the new owners met HP’s team.

At that meeting, HP Indi-go’s UK and Ireland country manager Peter Jolly explained about the new press. “They started talking about the 100k and how we might make the

commercial model work. We want to standardise on the four-page format and my gut instinct is that this is where the oppor-tunities will be coming,” says Thirlby.

“I’ve seen the Indigo 10000 and 12000 installed at a number of printers around the world, sometimes perhaps too soon. The 100K is much more market

ready.” It is also, he says, beau-tiful to look at “and it takes a lot to impress me. This is the right machine for us, increasing output without seriously upping the labour cost.”

The 100K will run SRA2 paper as standard and will be dedicated to printing commod-itised commercial products. The 12000 will be fitted with the kit to handle thicker substrates to enable it to take on cartons and more specialised jobs to address the creative market. The 7900, like the Speedmaster SM52 and XL105, will go.

The boost in B2 sheet production has spurred invest-ment in a Horizon StitchLiner and PUR perfect binder. These are needed as soon as IFS can arrange for delivery, Thirlby says.

There had been no intention to by the 100K says Anthony Thirlby, but the numbers added up.

Management Management team buys team buys KongsbergKongsbergESKO HAS COMPLETED the sale of its Kongsberg cutting tables division to a manage-ment team backed by Opengate Capital. The Norwegian business retains a presence in Ghent as well as manufacturing in the Czech Republic. The new Kongsberg Precision Cutting Systems busi-ness will be led by Stuart Fox.

KM strikes deal KM strikes deal with Focuswith FocusKONICA MINOLTA HAS continued its strategy of using dealers to increase the reach of its product range, naming Focus Labels as distributor of the Accurio Label 230 digital label press.

The toner machine joins Focus’s own flexo and inkjet presses and will present custom-ers with a greater choice as well as provide Focus with scope to reach different customers.

Jon Hiscock, head of produc-tion and industrial print at Konica Minolta Business Solu-tions UK, says: “This is an ideal partnership for us as Focus has a well deserved reputation for label technology expertise and trusted customer support. With almost 40 years of experience in the industry, the team at Focus are very well placed to introduce new and existing SME custom-ers to the Accurio Label 230.

CPI Books CPI Books second Jetpresssecond JetpressCPI BOOKS HAS installed its second Fujifilm Jetpress, the latest 760S joining the 720S

which was installed almost three years ago. That was a shift from toner to inkjet, and clearly a successful one as the company has returned for a second.

Record setters Record setters of Texasof TexasUS COMPANY FORT Dear-born is claiming world record performance from the Heidel-berg Speedmaster XL106 it installed at the start of last year.

In the 12 months since commissioning the press has delivered almost 82 million impressions, edging towards the 100 million impressions goal for Heidelberg customers. The company is a specialist label printer with a number of sites across the US.

The factory at Fort Worth, responsible for the notable performance, has two XL105s

and two XL106s, the first installed in 2019. This has UV curing and is not the press that the company uses for its short runs. The newer machine, which has achieved the record, handles the long runs, printing from CutStar reels.

Alfaplas adds Alfaplas adds Welsh printerWelsh printerFLEXIBLE PACKAGING producer Alfaplas has acquired Sarpak a producer of PE and compostable films in Port Talbot.

The Welsh company can print to eight colours and gener-ates sales of €12 million from output of 7,000 tonnes pa and 53 staff. Alfaplas operates five flexo presses up to 1,600mm wide, including a Flexotech-nica Evo CI machine, at a site in Hereford.

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Priory pursues pharma Priory pursues pharma opportunityopportunityNORTHERN IRELAND printer Priory Press Packag-ing has installed a six-colour B2 Lithrone, replacing an older version of the same press, but although the format and the supplier are the same, it is a very different machine.

The machine includes the full array of Komori’s automation suite which will boost efficiency of the business and cope with the company’s organic growth. That requirement accounts for 90% of the reason to invest. The other 10% of the invest-ment is reflected in Komori’s PDF Comparator system to check the integrity of the file signed off at prepress with that printed on the machine. It will allow the Newtownards busi-ness to tackle pharmaceutical packaging.

“We are making a statement of intent,” says managing direc-tor Mark McConville. “We have

held off the decision because of the uncertainty around Brexit because the majority of our business is exported to the south. Once we knew that there would be no hard border we decided to go ahead.”

The specification was decided from the company’s track record in producing food packaging. This requires adherence to BRC standards of quality and hygiene. “We take our quality assurance very, very seriously and we use BRC as the manage-ment tool it was intended to be,

helping us to self improve and build in quality assurance from start to finish.

“Our quality assurance consultant suggested that we should look at the pharmaceu-tical cartons market.” That, says McConville, is where the company can add a revenue stream.

The biopharma sector in Ireland is growing quickly, even before Covid-19 and many large producers want an alternative supplier to the main interna-tional groups that produce the

majority of their packaging requirement. Priory Press Packaging can become that alternative. Makeready is fully automated, checking register and adjusting colour and then scanning to ensure the press stays in colour. It generates a report which combined with a report from press and from a new carton gluing line that the company is investigating currently, will be an audit of a complete job for a customer.

It has also automated aspects of prepress production with installation of a PackX system from Hybrid Software.“We have already started to see effi-ciencies from installation of the press, and though operators are used to the Komori, there has been a learning curve. They have to learn to let go and let the numbers run the press. It is about learning to trust the technology.”

It employs 95 and generates sales of €21 million.

Alfaplas is in turn part of the French Sphere Group which runs 15 production sites across Europe and has an emphasis on working with sustainable plastics and papers for house-hold use. Sphere president John Persenda says: “This acquisition will provide both companies with new manufacturing capa-bilities, enable them to offer their customers a new range of environmentally responsi-ble products and capture new markets for continued growth.”

Sphere is confident that demand for compostable pack-aging, growing for the last decade, will continue to increase as segregation of waste increases demand for this type of plastic. It reckons that the UK opera-

tion can generate sales in excess of €70 million.

Zenith boost to Zenith boost to plate productionplate productionZENITH PRINT GROUP, already a major Heidelberg customer, has upgraded its plate production with a Supra-setter 106. This is capable of 45 plates an hour output. It joins a similar machine installed at the South Wales company in 2018 to deliver plates to three B1 Speed-master, one an eight-unit press.

Brunel moves Brunel moves for efficiencyfor efficiencyBRUNEL PROMOTIONS has moved from the two-storey

Bristol factory that has been its home for 100 years to a modern plant just three-and-a-half miles away.

This has been laid out to deliver efficiency of produc-tion on a single open floor with offices above instead of the old fashioned layout forced by a combination of tradition and the premises.

“We have been in the process of putting together an invest-ment strategy for the business since taking over a couple of years ago,” says Mark Shipley, operations director of Brunel Promotions.

“The old factory was more about the way that print busi-nesses had evolved, in the days when you needed tonnes of litho equipment,” he says. “Today it is about digital, prepress and

finishing so the new premises is a much more suitable location for us.

“The old site was also in the middle of a residential street which made it harder for larger lorries to get to us. Now we are on a modern industrial estate.”

The company has brought across the equipment needed for calendars, diaries and promo-tional production with plans for more.

“The investment in new, state of the art equipment means we will be able to offer even higher quality calendars, diaries and notebooks with faster turna-round times and we fully expect to take a higher percentage of market share as a result,” he adds. It amounts to a spend of £300,000 in the coming years, he says.

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Toyo’s S5 LED UV ink Toyo’s S5 LED UV ink powers aheadpowers aheadTOYO HAS REGAINED ITS clear blue water advantage in LED UV inks with the release of its S5 Flashdry inks for sheetfed offset printing.

The inks comply with all the legislative requirements set by governments and Eupia and are designed to suit printers print-ing to ISO 2647-2 specifications. The new ink no longer requires hazard labelling for health or environmental warnings and has passed Ingede’s deniability tests with a perfect score.

The ink is being produced at Toyo’s European factory in Belgium where Andrey Andreev, Toyo’s European product manager for low energy products and technol-

ogy, says: “Toyo Ink Europe has been aggressively pursuing the group’s goal of bringing the most advanced and sustainable systems to the global market-place by leveraging the group’s expertise in highly reactive raw materials design and formula-tions for low energy curing .

“The Flash Dry series has already established itself as a trusted and well reputed brand in the industry, and we are delighted to have brought better productivity and performance to this popular low energy curing ink lineup. The new FD LED S5 inks are also deink-able and designed to meet the sustainability needs of today’s commercial printers.”

The ink has already been rolled out to Toyo customers in the UK. Jamie Poyner, manag-ing director of Toyo UK, says: “The 3.1 version of the ink met the requirements of changed legislation preventing the use of certain photo initiators in Europe. And now the S5 estab-

lishes the market differential we have previously had. We have always been technology market leader and everybody else has been playing catch up and had been closing the gap.

“We are incredibly happy with the S5 ink it reestablishes the technology differential we are used to. When that gap closes, the ink becomes more of a commodity and price becomes the differentiating factor, which is exactly what happens with conventional inks.

“LED UV is definitely the future way of printing. There will always be a demand for conventional inks, but that will be for the commoditised part of the commercial print market.”

Print Show Print Show event to be firstevent to be firstTHE PRINT SHOW IS coming back and will take place at the NEC on 28-30 September alongside the Sign Show and at the same time as the PPMA packaging equipment event. This is likely to be the first, and possibly only, print exhibition to be staged in Europe this year.

Kodak takes Kodak takes on ECRMon ECRMKODAK HAS ACQUIRED the platesetter business of ECRM strengthening its position as a provider of both platesetters and plates, though the ECRM technology does not currently support Kodak’s Sonora process-free thermal plates.

The move is a first acquisi-tion for Kodak since being hit by financial troubles and reaf-firms executive chairman and CEO Jim Continenza’s commit-

ment to Kodak’s plate business. “Acquiring these assets of an impressive company like ECRM makes us an even stronger player in the CTP category, and we will continue to look for ways to better serve customers across the spectrum of traditional and digital print,” he says.

ECRM is one of the best established names in digital imaging, having begun life as a provider of test scanners, evolv-ing into the iconic Autokon flat bed scanner for the newspaper industry and then into ‘virtual drum’ imagesetters. These were a favourite for OEM suppliers, the UK’s Hyphen included, to badge and sell.

The current portfolio is headed by Mako, a reference to the shark, which is a fast plate-setter using violet diode imaging and appealing to smaller print businesses. At the same time ECRM has been developing its interests outside printing, in medical imaging and security systems for example.

PE purchase PE purchase for Colormanfor ColormanDUBLIN PRINT AND pack-aging group Colorman has been acquired by Woodberry Capital, a private equity business run

by Patrick Doran who previ-ously sold America Packaging to Saica for €160 million. Color-man currently has sales of €29 million, running Manroland and Heidelberg sheetfed presses and is active in commercial and carton printing.

Xaar unveils Xaar unveils new gen headnew gen headTHE TRANSFORMATION of Xaar is continuing with the second printhead introduced under the ImagineX rebrand now shipping.

This is the NitroX, offer-ing greater speed and uniformity across the head and consequently across printhead arrays, than the 1003 head that it succeeds. The 1003 remains as a legacy product and continues in manufacture.

“The progress and the restructure of Xaar is going extremely well,” says CEO John Mills. “The financial results

Jim Continenza says ECRM deal is proof of Kodak’s commitment to print.



Plant Positive Print earns Plant Positive Print earns accolade for Seacourtaccolade for SeacourtSEACOURT HAS WON ITS fourth consecutive Queens’s Award for Enterprise in Sustain-able Development having achieved the accolade for the first time in 2007.

Through what it calls planet positive printing, it has been able to offset 110% of its green-house gas emissions, thanks to avoidance and offsetting initia-tives. “We are doing lots of things,” says managing director Gareth Dinnage, “leading the change and setting new stand-ard in our sector – that’s what we have always been committed to doing. As a business we want to be a force for good.”

The company is no longer eligible for recognition by Emas as this is an EU initiative, but

has stuck by the requirement for continuous improvement and transparency. And it has joined the B Corp scheme where it is the highest scoring print-ing company in the world. The company says: “We help our clients by printing their materi-als in a way that goes back more

than they consume – we call this Planet Positive Printing.”

“There is a growing aware-ness of the importance of sustainability,” says Dinnage, “from some clients. Others are not particularly interested.”

During lockdown Seacourt completed its work on under-standing the supply chain of the products that the company uses. “We are able to manage our entire impact, which is what Planet Positive Printing is about. That’s the service we deliver,” he says. “We were reassured to find that we had already been using products and paper with the lowest carbon impact. We just continue to push forward. we have done the hard work and will not be rowing back.”

Also celebrating is FFEI, another four time winner. Its award came in the Innovation category and for a non graphic arts product. This is its digital micro imaging technology used in digital pathology by creating multiple high resolution images of tissue samples in a single pass.

It began in this field after supplying a flatbed Lanovia scanner to a company interested in using it for tissue cell imaging and has continued to work on specialist scanners, introducing AI technology to improve the process.

The award recognises the impact of the Ventana D200 slide scanner, launched in 2018 and used in cancer diagnosis.

demonstrate very strong cash generation and keeps a strong cash balance and we are Ebitda positive.”

The change to a model supply OEMs and what Xaar cals Unique Developer Integrators, and eliminating the confusion caused by indirect distribution, is paying off. And the NitroX printhead is set to reap the bene-fits of this shift.

The new printhead is the first to adopt a new naming conven-

tion based on the elements of the periodic table rather than a family of numbers. This would have made the new printhead the 2003, which as Mills points out, suggests a technology that is 18 years old.

As well as a step up in speed and consistency, amounting to a 40% increase in productiv-ity, the Nitrox head is designed to be switched out and replaced quickly and for ease of service. “The better uniformity and fast set up will make a massive improvement,” says Mills.

Incodia steps up Incodia steps up cut and creasecut and creaseINCODIA INTERNATIONAL has ordered a Promatrix 106 die cutter, three years after installation of a Heidelberg CX102-8+L UV press at its Colchester site.

The Heidelberg Proma-trix 106 CSB comes with

stripping and blanking which was not available on the platen it is replacing. This is a 30-year-old Sanwa which has given good service but is outdated compared to the Promatrix. “We have to move with the times,” says operations manager Richard Bridger. “We looked at various suppliers, including Sanwa, and chose Heidelberg because of the good partnership we have with them since instal-lation of the press.”

That had replaced a 30-year-old press with a galvanising

effect on the productivity of the business. It produces loyalty and gift cards and the collateral to go with it including some packag-ing work. The press includes spectral colour measurement, making it the first of its kind in the UK with this enhancement.

The printer also runs Heidel-berg’s Prinect data management and uses Saphira consumables. “The switch to the new press is like moving from driving a Reliant Robin to a Ferrari,” says Bridger. “We expect the same of the platen.”

Gareth Dinnage says Seacourt continues to set sustainability standards for the rest of print.

CEO John MIlls says Xaar’s revival is on course

Incodia is buying a Promatrix platen.

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Amcor backs EPac’s move Amcor backs EPac’s move in digital printin digital printAMCOR HAS MADE WHAT it calls a strategic investment in EPac, the digital-only flexible packaging producer, which will enable the expanding group to open additional sites.

The investment in exchange of a minority shareholding in the young business is put at $10-15 million. Further invest-ment in future is not ruled out.

EPac has sales around $100 million from sites in the US, Canada, UK and Indonesia. It is also opening a site in Ghana and during 2020 announced plans for additional sites in Wroclaw in Poland and Lyon in France. There are 18 sites in operation and five under development.

There was also an order in

2020 for a further batch of HP Indigo presses, this amounting to 26 of the Indigo 25K, to give the company 76 digital presses in all. Each site has two or three presses with a laminator and pouch making machine.

The target market covers start up business wanting smaller volumes than the minimum order quantities that traditional suppliers like Amcor can cope

with. These include food busi-nesses, cannabis products, pet foods and lifestyle products. A key aspect is speed of turna-round, far quicker than the established providers can cope with. There is also an appeal for larger brands wanting to test the market for new products and to cope with proliferation of skus without increasing costs. Amcor CEO Ron Delia says: “We are

incredibly proud of Amcor’s innovation and R&D capabili-ties but with our scale and global footprint we are also uniquely positioned to supplement our internal efforts with investments in complementary technolo-gies and business models. Our investment in EPac is the first corporate venture type invest-ment for Amcor and provides a great opportunity to learn from a high growth start up.”

EPac was formed less than a decade ago with its first site opened in 2016, by Jack Knott, CEO Virag Patel and Carl Joachim.

By comparison Amcor gener-ates sales of $12.5 billion from 230 sites and 47,000 employees.

Kolbus breaks Kolbus breaks Irish duckIrish duckPAKFORM, ONE OF Ireland’s leading independent provid-ers of corrugated packaging, has installed a Kolbus Autobox MultiNova box gluing machine at its factory near Cork.

It is the first of the machines made in Ampthill to be sold to Ireland following a flow of orders from other parts of the world.

Pakform’s requirement came from needing a replacement for a corrugated gluer to take the place of an old machine that was no longer fit for purpose.

The 30-year-old business provides a range of stock and bespoke boxes and trays in both small and substantial quantities. It has needed to handle smaller batch sizes efficiently, which the MultiNova delivers with a quick set up time, automatic feed, up to date gluing systems and a small footprint. It also has a

modern safety guarding system.It has proved to be the effec-

tive. On the second day of operation, Pakform was running at 1,400 boxes an hour more than twice the speed of the veteran piece of equipment it was replacing.

K&B shows leap K&B shows leap in ordersin ordersKOENIG & BAUER’S strong position in large format sheetfed press is paying off as orders for this style of machine from carton and label producers accounted for most a double digit rise in orders for sheet fed presses in the first three months of the year.

It says that 60% of the €33 million increase in orders for the quarter compared to 2020 came from the packaging sector. Only Manroland Sheetfed offers competition in large format sheetfed presses.

However, continuing head-

winds in other areas kept the overall order increase to 5.3%, while sales were down overall by 7.8%. The company sales this compares favourable with a machinery suppliers’ average of 13.8% decline.

If the company soared on demand from carton producers who have been running at full speed during the pandemic to keep up with demand for pack-aging, it struggled in the digital and webfed division.

Service contributed 28% of group revenues of €243 million (€264.2 million). This is coming close to the company’s 30% target for revenues earned in this way, though the company is also aware that this may be misleading due to the subdued machinery sales.

The order backlog of €674.5 million is 2.7% below this point last year, but is also 6.7% higher than the order backlog at the close of 2020. In Febru-ary and March press orders had increased 7.8%.

First Rapida X First Rapida X shippedshippedKOENIG & BAUER HAS installed its first Rapida 106X. The futuristic looking press was intended as its key Drupa announcement. It has gone into operation at German printer Krüger Druck & Verlag which is running an eight-colour perfec-tor with fully automated plate handling. n

Each of the EPac sites is equipped with HP Indigo technology for printing.

Krüger Druck & Verland is the recipient of the first Rapida 106X.

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COVER STORY DRUPA REFLECTIONS

THE DRUPA THE DRUPA THAT WASN’T THAT WASN’T THERETHEREVIRTUAL DRUPA HAS TAKEN PLACE, ALMOST WITHOUT BEING NOTICED. IT ATTRACTED THE COMMITTED, THOSE PREPARED TO ENDURE ONLINE PRESENTATIONS AND IN MANY CASES THEY WERE REWARDED FOR THE EFFORT THEY PUT IN.

Virtual Drupa was staged in a rendered version of the new entrance hall and multipurpose space that replaces the demolished Halls 1 and 2.

� www.printbusiness.co.uk May/June 2021� 23

DRUPA REFLECTIONS COVER STORY

THERE WERE NO CROWDED AISLES at the Messe Dusseldorf for Drupa this year. Instead of throbbing to video presentations, demonstrations of machinery and the sheer mass of bodies craning to see something or chatting over a coffee with a sales rep and a product specialist sketching out a techni-cal detail on a scrap of paper, the halls were dark, empty and silent.

But Drupa took place with printers hunched instead over monitors and iPad screens watching presentations and videos, some preprepared, some live. They could engage with exhibitors, or rather the companies that had paid to be part of the online showcase, because there were no stands and no equipment to walk around, so no real exhibition taking place. Drupa did not try to emulate the physical presence of the real thing in a virtual reality. The online Printing-Expo has done this, finding that rendering machinery with the preci-sion necessary to make it identifiable and convincing is a slow process.

Drupa wanted to do something, some-thing that put a marker in the sand to say that it took place. But it did not want to do anything that might persuade its customers that the future of the exhibition lies in online shows. It wants people back in Dusseldorf in 2024. The city needs people to return and fill its hotels and restaurants. The online version could not afford to be too slick and effective. It had to be a virtual success, not a real one.

Drupa also needed to do something to

help the industry’s suppliers promote the technology that had been developed for a show beside the Rhine in 2020. For many, a slot at Drupa is their only effective market-ing expenditure. The show should gather enough leads to last them until the subse-quent event.

More than that, Drupa has traditionally set the map for the direction of the print-ing industry over the following few years. There has been the Digital Print Drupa; the CTP Drupa; the Inkjet Drupa and the Landa Drupa. The show has always been a beacon for the global industry, and 2021 is no exception, even if 2021 becomes known as the Drupa that wasn’t there.

THE SHIFT TO ONLINE MEANT TOO that the focus shifted away from the melee in the halls to the speakers and confer-ence sessions that usually attract the highly committed, those wanting to rest their aching feet, along with friends and family.

The presentations varied in quality, perhaps because the four days of talks across two streams had been an amalgam of sessions that had been slated for the Drupa Cube, some from the speciality Drupa Touchpoints and some from other engaged organisations. It resulted in too much emphasis on textile printing and printed electronics to appeal to the core Drupa visitor who is a commercial printer.

However, there were nuggets of inspi-rational content that were definitely worth listening to – and which will remain acces-

sible for the next few months for those who have the patience to navigate to the right presentation.

Alongside these individual companies, Drupa’s paying sponsors, provided presen-tations about their latest technology, their strategies or merely used the video slot as a platform for the company and its directors. And there was new technology to talk about even though some major announcements had been made either last year or earlier this year.

THUS THE 2020 GENERATION OF Heidelberg’s Speedmaster XL106 had been due to be the highlight of its presence at the postponed event. Likewise for Koenig & Bauer’s RapidaX B1 sheetfed press demon-strating a striking new design and the latest in automation and time saving technologies. HP had just announced the new platforms for its liquid toner technology headed by the 100K and had been due to show these to key customers at an open house in Israel when the lockdowns began. These busi-nesses nevertheless decided to participate in Virtual Drupa.

Those that did so seem content. Expecta-tions had been tempered by the pandemic, so nobody was hoping for too much, yet for the mainstream companies there were enough people to justify the decision to be there.

Other companies had decided not to, among them Ricoh and Canon, which have subsequently made major product

B

A

The Messe administration building (A left) towers over Hall 2, which, along with the green space and Hall 1, has been replaced by the high tech entrance and multipurpose space (B left).



announcements, and Xerox and Agfa, both key exhibitors in the past.

In all Drupa reckons that it attracted 212 exhibitors from 35 countries and received more than 45,000 unique visitors. This compares to more than five times that number of exhibitors and a similar multi-ple of visitors that might attend the physical event. The 125 live web sessions were viewed by an average of 140 participants, which by the time a keynote signs up 500 or so and the major companies attract similar audiences, there will have been some very sparsely attended sessions indeed. Some of the companies’ own sessions saw a greater number. Among these was Fujifilm which attracted 400 to its live video presentation of the new Jetpress 750 HS B2 inkjet press. It was one of the major product announce-ments staged at the event.

THE NEW VERSION IS BOTH FASTER and can consequently address more segments of the market, says Taro Aoki, product marketing manager for Fujifilm Europe, both for like for like quality and the speed of throughput.

The HS specification has the top speed at 5,400sph, 50% faster than previously. This is achieved through a change in resolution from 1200x1200dpi to 1200x600dpi and potentially some alterations to the applica-tion of priming fluid and to drying. These cannot be extensive as the company says that it will be possible to upgrade from the 750S specification to 750 HS.

Regardless of any competing machines, the opportunity with the Jetpress will be to expand its footprint from specialist niches in photo products and book covers where the Jetpress has been popular, to tackle more mainstream applications.

As these are shrinking in run length below the volumes that are comfortable for most sheetfed litho printers, the appeal of a digital alternative increases. Fujifilm’s decision to head in this direction may now be timely.

HOWEVER, FUJI IS NOT GOING to have the field to itself. Ricoh is trailing its R75 B2 inkjet press and interest in the Konica Minolta/Komori B2 UV inkjet press is growing. Komori slipped out that it upgraded its version to the IS29S, a few months after its partner announced the KM1E. And there is competition too from continuous feed inkjet presses. To date most of these have a heritage in transactional printing, the formats, the quality, footprint and user base demonstrates this. The major-ity have been placed in transactional, direct mail and latterly book printers.

Few have been designed from the commercial printing industry, indeed Heidelberg’s and before that Manroland’s efforts at digital printing have failed. One exception though is Kodak’s Ultra 520. This is a CF inkjet press that is definitely aimed at a commercial print user.

It is a first press designed around Kodak’s Ultrastream printheads. These made an appearance as a technology demonstration

on a narrow web press at Drupa 2016 where Anton group was announced as the first development partner for the high quality printhead. In five years much water has passed beneath the bridge since then.

Kodak SVP for print Randy Vanda-griff provides three reasons why the press deserves consideration as a tool to move litho printing to digital. Quality is not a problem thanks to a 600x1800dpi resolution; it uses relatively low cost water based inks and can print on almost any grade of paper. A 150m/minute throughput is at least on par with the most productive of the piezo machines, possibly faster.

The first machines will be shipped to early adopters in the summer with commer-cial installations starting later this year, says Vandagriff. “We have started ramping up the supply chain, we have taken orders and people have been putting their money down,” he says.

KONICA MINOLTA HAD ANNOUNCED its upgrade to the KM1 as the KM1E last year, so had little new to say about it, concentrating instead on the upgraded quality control technology on the CS14000. Not so Kyocera which has only recently started to ship the TasKalfa C15000 Pro, a first cutsheet inkjet production press from a supplier whose heads are incorporated into a number of digital presses and whose MFP devices have a reputation for reliability.

Kyocera is not pretending that this two-page press can transition litho work to



digital, indeed it is printing on uncoated stock or inkjet optimised papers only. Instead the target is the electrophoto-graphic world, where many companies are still running an older generation of press that is less efficient and reliable. The inkjet press can print on white paper, eliminating preprinted litho for short run transactional and some kinds of book printing.

IT IS RATED AT 1 MILLION impressions a month, offering low energy consumption and relatively small footprint. Just how small depends on the modules that are added to the press that can stretch the space needed from 3 metres to 8.2 metres.

The same machine is being sold by Bluecrest as the Evolujet to feed printed sheets to its mailing systems and as a companion to the Intellijet presses badged from HP. The appeal says Bluecrest is the ability to bring work that has previously been outsourced under the one roof, saving time and cost.

As the trend in a mailing has been towards inclusion of more pages, keeping work in-house becomes more attractive explains Marco Boer. He is a consultant for IT Strate-gies and was presenting alongside Bluecrest. “We think that toner will drop from 60% of the market to 40% in the next four years,” he says. “Inkjet has been around for some ten years and is a proven technology in continuous feed printing. It offers signifi-cantly higher productivity than toner, so one inkjet machine can replace two toner

presses. And that matters a lot in terms of cost. Inkjet has significantly fewer moving parts which means greater reliability and inkjet prints in colour.

“Printing in colour in toner is incredibly expensive, so is used selectively in trans-actional printing. Inkjet democratises the ability to use colour.”

Combining a reduction in outsourcing, reducing labour costs by running fewer presses combined with the ability to print colour at lower cost equates to the appeal of inkjet, he says. And because colour can be used in the design of a document, there is an indirect saving to the end customer because clearer communication results in fewer calls to the help line. “Inkjet is a really, really low risk investment decision and until now there has not been an affordable solution in the market,” says Boer.

AWAY FROM THE TRANSACTIONAL market where Bluecrest specialises, Kyocera itself explained that the TasKalfa can print books which require colour, though not necessarily of photographic quality. And because it will handle 52gsm paper, there is opportunity with medical leaflets. It will also print envelopes “anywhere where the ink can get into the fibres of the paper”. Work is going on with CVG and Mondi to profile and optimise papers for the Kyocera technology.

There was little else from the digital press suppliers, nor from the litho presses as the 2020 version of the Heidelberg Speedmas-ter and the latest Koenig & Bauer Rapida

had been announced last year. Komori was the exception describing the new Advance models that are now available. Both German companies provided presentations on how artificial intelligence and big data are going to help shrink unplanned downtime and provide more control to printers thanks to the millions of data points that the manufac-turers collect to discover patterns in machine usage and, though the application of artifi-cial intelligence, to keep machines running.

THE ISSUE OF ARTIFICIAL intelligence was a key one for the two-track conference that ran over the four days. It is something that companies cannot ignore, explained Michael Gale, whose keynote presentation ran on both the opening and the closing days of Drupa. Artificial intelligence is coming and printers need to get to grips with its implications was the message. He has produced a ten part questionnaire that will unlock a company’s understanding or lack of it, and provide indications of where attention needs to be given.

Another of the keynote presentations introduced another of the key themes for the event and which will affect all in the industry in the period until, everyone hopes, Drupa can open its doors for real in 2024. This was Dr Gabrielle Walker talking about the urgent need to tackle the climate crisis, how businesses have to de-carbon or risk this planet becoming as hostile to life as the planet Venus.

Her message was that climate risks are

Agfa and Xerox were two of the key exhibitors of previous Drupas to give Virtual Drupa a miss. Konica Minolta and Komori were two of the Dusseldorf stalwarts who chose to make product announcements at the online event.



now a major concern for the central banks, for energy companies that are having to write down the value of their assets, and basically for every business across the globe. This was not Greta Thunberg’s berating of the generations that had caused the current crisis, but a more smoothly delivered argu-ment that was ultimately equally disturbing. “Climate change is here,” she repeated. And this lies behind the wildfires that have swept across Australia, California, India and Africa in recent years. “This poses a direct risk to supply chains,” she added.

THEN COMES DROUGHT, MORE extreme weather forms and the risk that these will result in uncontrollable migra-tions as people seek to leave affected areas. “If you do not have a net zero target, you are not at the table,” she says, “ and if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.”

Larger companies are taking action and will be cleaning up their supply chains, the implications of this falling on companies further along the supply chain. “Every busi-ness however big or small has to be part of this,” she said.

It was a shame then that Fujifilm, having discussed the latest version of the Jetpress, was not talking about the new version of its process-free plate, the Superia ZX. It left Kodak to talk about Sonora’s latest incarna-tion as a plate that can be used in 90% of applications today.

There are currently 5,000 printers world-wide using Sonora, four times as many as

used the previous develop on press Thermal Direct plate. And already there are users with large volumes. A typical Thermal Direct customer consumed 5,000m2 of plate a year, the typical Sonora user is at 20,000m2 a year with some sites running at 300,000m2

a year. This would include Bluetree in the UK.

THE SONORA XTRA PLATE HAS BEEN updated to improve on press performance, image contrast and scratch resistance. It is being produced in commercial quantities at the Oesterode site in Germany with US sites coming on stream later this year, says Chris McCullough. “We will not stop devel-opment until we can move every printer to process-free plates,” he says.

The rise of LED UV has a strong sustain-ability aspect as the energy required to dry a sheet is significantly lower than with even the most advanced hot air/IR units. Away from the main presentations UK company GEW outlined how its lamps straddled both the big data and the sustainability strands of Drupa’s messaging.

And now the Crawley company says that thanks to standardised production, it can deliver an LED UV system for less than the equivalent conventional UV set up.

And interest in the LED technology is rising, both in mainland Europe and increas-ingly in the UK. There are multiple reasons, says international sales director Gary Doman. “There’s the variety of products that can be printed, from uncoated papers

to plastics, the absence of spray powders,” he says in a presentation for Virtual Drupa. “The quality of the UV printed product is much better, it is sharper, cleaner and brighter than conventional print.”

LED technology is now dominant in narrow web labels, in large format inkjet and industrial applications. Offset litho has been slower to adopt the technology, mostly because of the perceived cost.

“It’s where we aim to grow and be disrup-tive,” he says. “LeoLED is a complete system, including the power supplies, the interface and software.” It also includes the connection to GEW’s cloud to allow the Crawley company to monitor the perfor-mance of each of its systems, to spot any malfunctions that will need intervention and to carry out a diagnostic check.

“THE CONCEPT IS SIMPLE. We have a single high power LED array that we use on all applications,” says CEO Robert Rae. “If we face a demanding application, we change the conversation away from lens design to focus the beam and just ask ‘Haw many do we need?’. It means for example that we might need three arrays in the delivery of a B1 press with coater. And we can deliver an LED UV solution like this for less cost than the competition.

“It’s about volume. We manufacture the same lamp across all applications which also results in the best quality and reliability as the main process problems and errors are eliminated over time and volume.”

Kodak is famous for its extravagant Drupa stands, winning the best booth at the 2016 outing with the Kodak Quarter, a virtual city complete with businesses, shops and cafes.



And GEW can log into every LeoLED system across the globe as all are connected to the internet. This enable remote moni-toring and service, problem diagnosis and early detection of problems, the same sort of functionality that the press vendors were talking about.

INTRIGUINGLY WHILE GEW WAS able to log into a live customer in the US and to show real data, albeit too small and too quickly for an observer to glean anything, the Germans had created fictional examples to avoid contravention of data regulations – not that GEW had done this.

The postponement of the real show meant that Koenig & Bauer was unable to demonstrate an early version of its Varijet 106, the combination press being developed with Durst. The first beta will be installed later this year at a German carton printer and further along the road there were hints that a version intended for commercial printers is under consideration.

Koenig & Bauer Durst is also develop-ing inkjet technology for corrugated carton production. So too is EFI. It went into detail about the MCorr130 as an entry level machine for corrugated print production. The MCorr 130 is built combing the experi-ence gained from Nozomi high speed single pass inkjet press for corrugated with its experience of scanning head printing from the Vutek range.

The new machine, which enters beta over the summer ahead of a Q3 launch, also uses

the same inks as Nozomi with orange, green, violet, white and clear ink options.

While there is automated handling of sheets both for loading and offloading it is still only capable of 25% of the output, though this remains highly competitive against other suppliers. The scanning head is controlled though twin maglev drives which zip across only the print area addressed, rather the width of the potential print area on each sweep across the material.

The MCorr 130 is aimed at transform-ing more corrugated production to digital printing as a partner to the higher volume Nozomi. it will also print on 120gsm papers and folding box boards sharing some of the architecture of the Vutek XT machine, though with corrugated specific changes. And later this year, EFI plans a further new inkjet press for the packaging sector.

AND THERE IS PLENTY MORE content in the Drupa archive to be watched at leias-ure, at least until later this year. Here, at least, it is the same experience as with a physical show. It was simply impossible to see and learn about everything on display. You have to be selective.

And of course, there was content from Landa Digital Printing and a comment from its founder Benny Landa. The company produced two video presentations, one for cartons, the other for commercial printing. The first W10 press for flexible packaging applications will be ready for a customer “in the near future”. It reports there are now ten

S10 machines running across four continents and more of the S10P perfecting version in Europe and the US. This includes Groupe Prenant, a commercial printer near Paris, that is on the verge of ordering its second Landa S10P press. And Benny Landa was on hand via a video from his garden in Israel to offer a wish to back in Dusseldorf in three years’ time. “It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost five years since the last Drupa. I’m sure you miss, as I do, the excitement of Drupa, the electricity in the air, the new product introductions, the demonstrations, the theatre presentations and the meetings with friends and colleagues.” Drupa will be back. n

At the end of Drupa 2016, Print Business editor Gareth Ward recorded an off the cuff round up of the show. Did he get it right? Watch it and find out…

youtu.be/B6mGwy9GenQ

Benny Landa chose Drupa 2012 for the launch of nanography, an event that had the world of print talking for years after.


NEW DIGITAL PRESSES RICOH

RICOH RICOH BETS BIG BETS BIG ON BLACKON BLACKTHE RICOH R75 B2 INKJET PRESS HAS THE SPECIFICATION TO BECOME THE BREAKTHROUGH INKJET PRESS FOR USE BY COMMERCIAL PRINTERS. RICOH IS LEAVING LITTLE CHANCE IN ITS PREPARATIONS. ASSUMING THAT IS THAT THE PRICING IS AS CAREFULLY CONSIDERED AS THE SPECIFICATIONS AND PERFORMANCE.

IT IS LONG AND BLACK AND HAS been promoted by a dragon. It has been under development for at least five years and under consideration for a few more. It is, Ricoh hopes, going to be a game changer. This is the Z75, a B2 sheetfed press using four inkjet arrays to print work that cannot be handled by toner or offset presses and equally work that has hitherto been printed on offset machines.

In Ricoh’s more optimistic projections this press becomes the digital GTO, the press that defines the transition from offset to inkjet just as the venerable Heidelberg press defined the transition from letterpress to litho.

Equally Ricoh knows that to achieve anything like this degree of success it needs more than a combination of iron, steel and electronics. And in the background it has been accumulating the personnel with expertise from both the digital and offset sectors to support the push to market.

It has also teamed up with business consultancy and training company Strat-egyzer to create market awareness courses for printers. While these are not exclusively about inkjet printing, they will help print-ers identify the new opportunities that inkjet creates and to understand the dynam-ics of their own business and that of their customers.

There will be new workflow and appli-cation tools as well as business tools for more accurate estimating and automated workflow.

It amounts to a full eco system driven by Ricoh with the new inkjet printing press at its heart.

Ricoh has always said that ‘we will bring a machine to market when we think we can be successful’. And when cost, quality, perfor-mance align with market need.

The recruitment drive has included the appointment of Mark Hinder, directly from


RICOH NEW DIGITAL PRESSES

the KM1 project team at Konica Minolta, to join Ricoh Europe in a business develop-ment role. Jurgen Freier, with Heidelberg, Polar and HP Indigo on his CV, has had an executive role while others have joined from Xerox, HP and most recently with David Farnsworth, becoming key accounts manager for the UK after leaving Screen Europe.

INTERNALLY RICOH HAS ALSO shuffled the pack. There is a new graphic communications group which brings all toner and inkjet printing activities, includ-ing the Z75, under one umbrella. “We are confident in the graphic arts market,” says Eef de Ridder, Ricoh Europe executive vice president. “It is a very resilient market and we are confident that it will be bouncing back very quickly.”

It will not be bouncing back in the same shape as previously. The series of lockdowns because of Covid-19 have, by all forecasts, accelerated changes that were already under-way. Trends towards personalised products, towards ecommerce, automation to reduce operating costs have all been stimulated and the combination of print and digital chan-nels to deliver a marketing message is better understood. All this plays to the strengths of digital printing and opens the door to more productive digital presses.

“OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS, digital print volumes will increase dramatically,” says Sander Sondaal, director of commercial print sales for Ricoh Europe. “Currently just 5.4% of commercial print pages are printed digitally. That will increase to 9.6 % of the total print volume, which will decline by 2.1%. This amounts to a compound growth rate of 4.6% and means an extra 700 billion pages to be printed digitally.”

As with all projections there are caveats and the precise numbers may be very differ-

ent to this. Another pandemic will throw everything out. But whatever the accuracy, print is moving to digital platforms and to inkjet which does not suffer the limitations on speed and format that bind electropho-tographic processes. “Toner is very good at short runs, it is very capable on all kinds of media, but the high running costs mean a low limit before offset becomes more cost effective per page,” says Sondaal.

“Inkjet bridges the gap. The Z75 can be a complement or an alternative to an offset press. It has the same quality as offset and can print on a wide range of media, not only by size but on all types of media. A printer would not need to keep separate stocks of the papers a customer is used to when print-ing offset.

“We expect it to print a lot of stop/start actions because of short print tuns and to handle a lot of data because versioning and variable data printing are expected to increase. All this is possible on the Z75. It is a function packed powerhouse.”

THE FIRST BETA SITE, PROBABLY close to the Ricoh inkjet development centre in Boulder, Colorado, will receive a press this summer. A first machine in Europe will arrive at its customer experience centre in Telford before the end of the year and commercial installations are timed to follow in the middle part of next year. This is a timetable that is driven by the technology, not by Covid.

There is a risk that printers may be reluc-tant to wait their turn and will instead switch for the HP Indigo 12000 and 100K, the Fuji-film Jetpress or the Konica Minolta KM1/Komori iS29 as already proven machines in the B2 digital print space.

The delay is because Ricoh wants to ensure that it gets this right. The Z75 is simply too important to Ricoh to fail.

The first version will be a four-colour

machine capable of printing without priming on coated and uncoated papers to 400gsm at 4,500sph. It will print on a maximum format of 585x750mm down to a minimum of A3 and on seven sizes in between. US versions will have a different range of sizes. It prints at full speed (half the output when perfecting) up to 300gsm and slows to 3,000sph above this and runs at half the pace when duplexing. Part of the beta test programme will be about testing these limits and proving that the press is as robust as Ricoh claims it will be.

There will be an emphasis on self and remote service. Inkjet generally has proved to be a resilient technology, but even so down time must be minimised which means that users will do low level maintenance and component replacement themselves.

“WE RECOGNISE THE GROWING importance of remote and self mainte-nance,” says Tim Taylor, global marketing director for Ricoh inkjet production solu-tions. “We want to transition as many people to feel comfortable with that type of service as possible.”

Construction of the press is far removed from the company’s toner machines which can be wheeled into position. The Z75 is something that will have to be lifted into place. It comprises a cast iron and steel framework to prevent vibrations affecting print quality and to stand up to the rigours of 24/7 production. There are also elements from the offset world, and if jointly devel-oped by Heidelberg, Ricoh is not saying. While feeder and delivery are easy to iden-tify, Ricoh is keeping quiet about how the paper is moved through the drying section and back to the print section and then to the delivery.

Ricoh has put a 2.6 million B2 impres-sions a month maximum duty cycle on the machine which even the heaviest users are

The Z75 is far larger than either a Fujifilm Jetpress, KM1, or an Indigo 100K, the machines it will find itself up against.


NEW DIGITAL PRESSES RICOH

unlikely to reach. Running non stop for every hour of a 30-day month amounts to a theoretical maximum of 3.25 million impressions: a two-shift six-day-a-week pattern results in 1.7 million B2 sheets a month. Neither calculation allows for stops between jobs or changes of paper.

A digital front end developed by EFI will link to a Ricoh workflow that will be developed for the press, probably based on Ricoh Process Director software. It will also integrate to other Ricoh applications like Marcoms Central and Avanti MIS, but will also integrate with third-party workflow systems that a printer might have.

The first versions will feed from two 2,500 sheet capacity bins with vacuum feeders delivering a sheet to a set of rollers which position the sheet for the vacuum print drum. It is fed on the short edge, some-thing that reduces the width of the inkjet array and saves cost. Apart from the lack of conventional grip edge on the sheet there is nothing for printers to worry about, says Taylor.

CAMERAS, SENSORS AND THE FIERCE vacuum eliminate the problems associated with portrait printing in the offset word and should ensure pin sharp registration, with image adjustment on the second side should the paper’s dimensions change during print and drying.

Once off the drum, the sheet is conveyed through its newly designed and still secret drying section with lessons learned from the experience of the Pro VC70000 continuous feed press.

The sheet can either be turned to be printed on the reverse side or passes to the delivery stack. There is only one on the first version of the machine, though additional stackers are likely to be offered.

RICOH IS ALREADY TALKING ABOUT taking fully dry sheets from the delivery into finishing. The feasibility of this will depend on the effectiveness of the drying system. If it dries paper as well as ink, users may well be advised to let the paper regain a moisture content before finishing, particularly PUR binding which relies on the moisture in the paper to be effective.

The version that will be available next summer will have a CMYK only array. The printheads that Ricoh is using are an adapta-tion of its latest piezo design with a robust stainless steel nozzle plate at 1200x1200dpi resolution. These are optimised to fire a new aqueous ink which has a heavy pigment load to cut the water content, an assist to drying, and to maximise brightness. Nozzle cleaning

is automated and takes place between jobs. Ricoh uses dynamic drop optimisation in its inkjet presses to maintain colour consist-ency and nozzle replacement compensation to avoid any telltale streaking.

The press was on course for a prelaunch introduction at Drupa 2020 and then at the postponed show this year. A teaser social media campaign has stoked interest and speculation into what many hope can be the ideal digital press.

THERE IS NO PRICING ASSOCIATED with the machine, either for the capital investment nor for service and consumables. The likely model will be a combination of monthly service charge and lease and a sepa-rate charge for the ink. It will be too much of a risk for Ricoh to levy a per page click charge. Because of the higher output than any toner, any minor error would be magni-fied to the detriment of one side or the other.

Ricoh hints at an average per page cost that is significantly lower than toner. According to Sondaal, it will be “affordable”.

“This is a press that should complement or be an alternative to an offset press,” he adds. “The quality is a match for offset, supporting the same range of media so a printer does not need to keep different stocks, and with the high production uptime that customers are used to from offset.”

WHILE RICOH IS NOT SAYING where the established offset elements of the design like this have come from. However, the company is a partner with Heidelberg on its toner presses which Heidelberg sells and the two collaborated on elements of the Pro C9200 design.

Heidelberg has ceased its own inkjet developments with the end of the Primefire 106, but has retained the inkjet knowledge and could be interested in this machine as a way to satisfy its customers and as a stepping stone back into inkjet printing.

A decision like this from Heidelberg would be welcomed by Ricoh. Not only would it endorse the relevance of the tech-nology, it would open up a vast base in commercial print that the Japanese company would struggle to reach let alone convince.

The DFE is a new design based on Fiery technology with a large touch panel display and able to support variable data printing as well as offering connectivity to a wide range of workflows in operation across the industry.

The developer anticipates an average user will produce 750,000-1.25 million sheets a month. Above this, for static pages at least, the company recognises that offset, particu-

larly with the benefit of instant dry LED UV technology, can be more effective. The R75 will not target these applications. It is for value add applications, where needing personalisation, triggered by an online order for photobooks, for marketing collateral or a campaign with multiple versions amounting to a sequence of ultra short run jobs.

According to Ricoh’s market research these are the jobs that all printers will have to cope with in future. Says Sondaal: “The typical user will be the printer that sees this opportunity. He will be a B2 printer already so is familiar with workflows and finishing and who needs to optimise productivity alongside the offset press or wants to replace it. He may also be a printer that no longer has a skilled press operator needed to run the litho machine. He is a customer looking to add value, if only from the cost/perfor-mance perspective. This printer needs to want to add value.”

RICOH’S CHALLENGE IS FIRSTLY TO find these companies and second to persuade them that the R75 is worth waiting a couple of years to get their hands on. The problems it faces stem from the nature of the print business Sondaal outlines. Many B2 printers are conservative by nature and tend to follow rather lead with technology. Secondly most of these have seen balance sheets obliterated by the effects of pandemic. However desir-able this press, however good it turns out to be (very good indeed we suspect), the target commercial printers may struggle to be able to afford to buy it, at least until the pandemic is a long way behind. l

Ricoh has been running a teaser campaign to stoke interest in the new machine which will not be available commercially for another year.


CANON UPDATED DIGITAL PRESSES

Canon speeds ColorStream Canon�has�improved�production�performance�of�its�ColorStream�inkjet�press�beyond�the�150m/min�barrier,�though�it�is�still�not�able�to�print�on�coated�papers.

CANON IS BOOSTING performance of its ColorStream CF inkjet press range with machines that increase the speed of its best selling inkjet platform.

The ColorStream 8000 comes in two versions, one at 160m/min the other at 133m/min. and both with 1200dpi reso-lution printheads with 720dpi or 600dpi respectively in the direction of web travel. The intention is to help customers migrate more work from offset to inkjet, though not all litho work will be suited to the new press.

The introduction comes five years after the introduction of the ColorStream 6000 which will continue in the portfolio as the 120m/min version. This is widely used in transactional, some direct mail and book printing. The ColorStream 8000 will offer more of the same.

“The new version will set new levels of productivity, print quality and applica-tion variability,” says Hayco van Gaal, VP production printing products at Canon Europe. It is not just faster throughput thanks to higher speed print heads and extra drying. “Everything that can be automated has been. The potential up time is around 90% thanks to predictive maintenance which is targets known down times for service and to the choice of long life compo-nents. It is intended for 24/7 operation.”

There is a new aqueous polymer ink for the press with a wider colour gamut to reach Fogra’s offset process standard for uncoated papers. Paper range is 40-220gsm and includes lower cost and recycled papers thanks to a new cleaning system ahead of the inkjet array. The fact that this can print on very lightweight papers will open opportunities in pharmaceu-tical leaflets Canon believes.

It takes a 570mm wide reel (560mm print width) which is wider than most of the competition and which provides more

versatility for book printing applications, one of the key targets that Canon has in mind. These are demonstrated in an impres-sive sample pack including an illustrated book, mailer, paper swatch with examples of micro text.

The ColorStream 8000 will print on inkjet optimised papers, but not coated papers. This keeps this machine separate to the ProStream machines which have that capability and will be the first choice for commercial printers taking their first step into inkjet colour printing. Nevertheless the printed results from the ColorStream are a notch up on the CS6000 thanks to the inks, the printheads and 11 years’ experience since the first model was introduced.

The printheads gain a cooling system which maintains the temperature at the printhead and so improves consistency of print by optimising performance of the piezo technology. Printhead cleaning is automatic, removing what used to be a manual task, and increasing up time by an estimated 33%. There is a paper cleaning unit to make sure dust is picked off before hitting the nozzles. It means lower quality and recycled papers can be printed.

Canon has included an extra drying saddle to cope with the faster speed and reduce the energy requirement. This is helped by the new ink set that has been developed for the press. The dryers ensure that paper remains in optimum condition for the second print unit and for further finishing, says Canon.

There are six print head slots in each print unit. Currently these are occupied by the four process colours with options for two MICR heads. Two are needed because the MICR inks cannot run as fast as the process colours. Other security inks will follow on from these as this is the biggest request from existing users. This also underlines

the initial positioning for the press. Canon expects transactional and direct mail print-ers to be first in line. Indeed the beta site for the press is this type of printer in Germany.

The ColorStream 8000 has an almost identical footprint to the previous models, just 5cm wider and 10cm longer, but it is not possible to upgrade from the earlier machine to this specification, although a forklift upgrade is. This may not be advisable as the additional speed may be beyond the capa-bility of existing roll handling technology or any inline finishing that is in place. The latest Hunkeler Popp8, however, is suitable and Canon expects to see implementations with roll splicing systems at the front of the press to exploit its print speed.

“The increased performance is what customers are asking for,” says van Gaal. “There will be additional features available in coming months as there have been for earlier ColorStreams.”

The first version available is the Color-Stream 8160 which is available now, followed by the ColorStream 8133 from 1 July. l

The sample kit from the Colorstream 8000 offers a variety of printed items, all on uncoated or inkjet optimised papers.


NEW LITHO PRESSES KOMORI

Komori reveals Advance to GoThe Japanese company presented its new Advance series press at the virtual Drupa where videos showed hands off operation of the press.

HEIDELBERG, KOENIG & BAUER and Manroland sheetfed had announced their latest generation presses in 2020, inline with the Drupa timetable. Komori did not. Instead it has waited until this year to unveil the Advance machines, both a B1 format machine and an SRA1 press. These are both available now, and will eventually become the standard press in the format. A B2 machine will follow.

The G40 Advance is built around the automation software, the integration and the cloud. There are mechanical changes to improve print stability at speed with adjust-ments to feeder and delivery and to the dampening system.

The most noticeable changes come with the automation building on the sequential makeready that Komori has pioneered. “It is about the combination of single-button operation and KP Connect automation,” says Peter Minis, marketing manager at Komori Europe. “This equates to the highest productivity.”

KP Connect Pro is described as “a revo-lutionary piece of middleware” and is key to the concept of Connected Automation, acting as the bridge between prepress, finishing and other processes, and delivering a visual means of understanding where the bottlenecks in the

factory are as well as optimising the produc-tion flow through the factory.

On press, the changes to the feeder improve the pick up of sheets at speed thanks to optimising the air flows around the feeding head to ensure a clean pick up, sheet separation and improvements to sheet alignment into the press.

The upgrades to the delivery also focus on airflow to give the operator greater control over the sheet with adjustment of air in 11 rather than the six zones previously. The aim is to keep the sheet stable at speed.

THE KOMORIMATIC DAMPENING system has been redesigned to offer greater stability in colour over a long run and when printing frequent short run jobs, by helping the job get into colour rapidly. The aim is to minimise the film of dampening solution delivered without the risk of emulsification.

The development is also part of the move towards extended gamut printing for pack-aging print using orange green and violet in addition to the CMYK inks. Komori is calling this Smart Color

There are changes to quality inspection and closed loop controls which enable hands off printing and hands off makeready.

Once the operator presses the Go button the press runs through a process of loading the job settings, eject-ing one set of plates and loading the next automatically. The press then goes through a start up sequence allowing the operator to follow the steps on a monitor. When all the lights related to each print unit turn green the press is ready to run,

Print Quality Assessment System applies the settings which it downloads through KP Connect from the cloud while Autopi-lot checks the print against the PDF of an approved press sheet to reach green status on each unit.

Once this occurs printing begins automat-ically for the number sheets on the digital job sheet. “The operator has not touched the press,” says Minis.

Komori is not showing the plate handling systems that the German suppliers have developed to help online trade printers handle frequent job changes. Instead it has automated the movement of sheets to pieces of finishing equipment using robotics and automated handling systems.

Both Apressia guillotines and MBO folders can have robotic handling to mini-mise the labour requirement. This is crucial for Komori because its is all but impossible to recruit people in Japan.

“THE INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT is changing rapidly and printing industry is no exception,” says Minis. “And it is increas-ingly challenging to find qualified personnel.

The Lithrone G37 Advance lacks some of the automation aspects of the larger press but is far from a manual machine. It has the PQAS quality management over colour control and registration and scanners to manage quality on either side of the sheet.

Then there is the Impremia NS40, the Japanese company’s interpretation of the Landa S10 nanographic press. Komori calculates break even to offset comes at around 2,000 sheets. The press will be sold as a seven-colour press for carton printing.

The first of the Advance series machines is about to be installed in Europe while a full set up to demonstrate automated integration will be in place in the Utrecht showroom before the end of the year. n

Komori has introduced the Lithrone G40 Advance as its most automated press to date. A first has already been sold in Europe.


GO INSPIRE PROFILE

GO INSPIRE GO INSPIRE WANTS TO WANTS TO SQUARE THE SQUARE THE TRIANGLETRIANGLETHE LEICESTER BASED GROUP HAS WON SIGNIFICANT CONTRACTS THE LEICESTER BASED GROUP HAS WON SIGNIFICANT CONTRACTS FROM BT AND TALKTALK IN A LEAD SUPPLIER DEAL. THIS IS THE FROM BT AND TALKTALK IN A LEAD SUPPLIER DEAL. THIS IS THE FUTURE, SAYS CHIEF EXECUTIVE PATRICK HEADLEY.FUTURE, SAYS CHIEF EXECUTIVE PATRICK HEADLEY.

ANYONE SEARCHING FOR THE Go Inspire website using the Google search engine will find themselves directed to a company that describes itself as a Market-ing Performance Partner.

This is because, chief executive Patrick Headley explains, the company today is much more than a print business. “Manu-facturing is still the bedrock,” he says. And it’s a bedrock that continues to receive investment with new finishing capacity, Böwe mailing equipment and an upgrade to its HP PageWide T250 inkjet webs to print with Brilliant Ink, as proof of this.

Marketing communications remain core to the Leicester company. As the technology and needs of these customers have changed, so too has the business. It has grown out of the Colorgraphic direct mail printing busi-ness that occupied the same site during the 1980s when the focus was on direct mail print with imprinting using Scitex printheads.

IT HAS EVOLVED THROUGH different strategies into today’s Go Inspire business, generating revenues of £85 million with direct mail as the backbone. Headley has been part of the story almost from the outset, rising through the ranks until he took over from Robin Welch as CEO of the

GI Solutions group in 2016. This already included a data management business and creative operation, but print on paper was still the main focus of the company.

“Manufacturing is all about price,” Headley continues. And as every printer has experienced, that price has been falling, as has demand for print, making growth through manufacturing a challenge at best. Growth, and profits, need to come from additional services and the business has to adapt.

TWO YEARS AFTER TAKING OVER, the business acquired Eclipse in Kettering, almost doubling the size of the company at a stroke. Further deals are possible though not inevitable. “We have had two or three chances to make an acquisition. First we need to be comfortable about a bolt on deal,” he says. “Now we need a period of calm. 85% of takeovers do not deliver what is expected.”

Headley takes his inspiration for the stra-tegic journey from a trip to the US in order to view some technology in action.

“We wanted to buy some kit from Vits and went to Fort Lauderdale in Florida to see it in action. The user’s factory was on a trading estate just like Scudamore Road, but with palm trees,” he says.

The operation of the factory was slick, but the inspiration came several hundred miles to the north. The same company operated an agency business with offices on Madison Avenue, the heart of the US marketing and advertising business. “The work from the agency is more profitable and when I was next in New York, I went to see the office. I took my lead for what could be done from that visit.”

Many manufacturing companies have tried to shift upstream, offering consultancy services as well as converting paper into printed products. Many have failed for not talking the right language and for remaining hooked on the heavy metal of a printing press and the attendant technologies. However, for those that can make the shift in balance towards becoming a marketing performance partner, there is a real opportunity. And this is driving the strategy for Go Inspire.

HEADLEY DRAWS A PYRAMID WITH manufacturing at its base, the foundation stones of the business. Above this comes the service level and at the apex of the pyramid comes the level where Go Inspire is talking eye to eye in the boardrooms of major brands about what constitutes the measure of success and about what the strategic objec-tives of the business are. The boardroom is


PROFILE GO INSPIRE

where the discussion is furthest from price of a printed mailer and more about making a communication as effective as possible and where print is only part of the communica-tion problem that a marketing performance partner can fix. This is where the greatest margins can be earned.

“We are well on the way to deliver this promise,” Headley says.

His aim is not only to climb up the pyramid but to change its shape. “We want to make the triangle square-ish,” he says. Currently if manufacturing pulls in 70% of revenue, services can earn 25% and the C-level consultancy brings in just 5% of highly profitable sales. The shape of his sketched pyramid changes as the block at the pinnacle becomes bigger, likewise the middle slice, which achieves a greater margin than manufacturing, spreads. In an ideal world this will become a square with revenue from each slice becoming equal. It is not going to happen, at least not in a hurry and not into a perfect square. But this sort of change is coming, helped by favourable winds that are now blowing against print management.

“TOO MANY PEOPLE DO NOT under-stand the cost of print management. Hence we want to act as a lead supplier where we will only put a mark up on work that goes out, rather than the stuff that’s done in-house,” he says. The more work that Go Inspire can keep control of, the greater its margins and the more effective its advice can be. In contrast much print manage-ment is about logistics and a constant push down on costs. As a consequence, he says, “we are going to see more migration from print management deals to lead supplier arrangements.”

The big win in this respect was winning the contract to handle the communication account for BT as lead supplier, joining a similar deal for TalkTalk that has more recently been renewed for a further five years.

Print management, having squeezed every last farthing from print suppliers, has run out of room to offer value and its model is broken Headley believes. The future is about the lead supplier, where a business with a bedrock of manufacturing can produce at competitive rates and place what it cannot produce itself. “Too many people simply do not understand the cost of print management. We will only apply a mark up to work that goes out, not the stuff that is done in house,” he explains. “I think that we’re going to see a lot more migration away from print management to a

Patrick Headley: “Too many people do not understand the cost of print management. We want to act as a lead supplier where we only put a mark up on work that goes out, rather than the stuff that’s done in-house.”


GO INSPIRE PROFILE

lead supplier model.” He admits that price remains important. “We had to be aggres-sive,” he says.

In doing so Go Inspire has retained volumes of work that it was already print-ing through Eclipse which would certainly have been vulnerable should a business with its own capacity have won the account or subject to further pressure on price under a new print management contract with the emphasis on saving cost.

The BT work does not cover statement printing, falling instead under the label of below the line customer communications: acquisition, retention, regulatory commu-nications and customer communication management. Lead management like this gives Go Inspire plenty of volume and is different to print management, tried previ-ously by St Ives. It didn’t work, but that does not mean that Go Inspire, cannot. “The St Ives manufacturing base was very maga-zine led, that is very different to us in many respects. Our manufacturing footprint is very much about direct mail and transac-tional,” says Headley.

At the announcement, Ben Snutch, Go Inspire’s group sales and commercial direc-tor, said: “We have delivered many of these service lines to BT as a third-party provider since 1998 and we are delighted to have the opportunity to work directly with the BT teams and agencies.

“I’M CONFIDENT THAT IN DOING SO we can prove ourselves as a forward think-ing strategic partner who understands the broader trading position and play a key role in helping BT to meet strategic objectives for customer comms.”

This falls in the remit of the company’s Star proposition, referring to “Strategies that Target key audiences to Acquire and Retain”. This combines data, programmatic mail, single-customer view, tracking all interactions between Go Inspire’s clients and their customers, regardless of channels, with the aim of optimising conversion rates and marketing ROI. Or more simply, as Headley puts it: “It’s about the right message, at the right time to the right person: get that right and the chances are that people will buy,” he says.

“Where we are finding favour is that we can make promises that are deliverable.”

Its ability to deliver across print and digital channels is being helped by a movement within brands to bring together the differ-ent and previously segmented marketing departments into a more holistic message, removing the silos that have concentrated on digital marketing, television advertising,

direct mail and more. “These departments are now talking to each other,” he points out. This will open the way to greater integration between the different media channels and a greater search for the effectiveness of how budgets are spent.

He continues to explain that there is a growing awareness of how much money is wasted in digital advertising, and just how ineffective banners and emails can be. This realisation was something heightened by the experience of the last year. Adword driven marketing is proving to be equally ineffec-tive even before upcoming legislation to disrupt the use of tracking codes to deliver targeted digital advertising.

The company has put the research together in a downloadble report What a Waste, to highlight the amount of money being wasted on paid search. It stems from not having a 360º view of each customer, treating everyone as a new prospect even when already engaged, pushing brand name advertising to people simply looking for a website or using paid search when other channels would have been most cost effec-tive and equally effective. “By reinvesting the spend that is currently being wasted on paid search, marketers could improve their ROI by 15%, which is signifiant given the large sums of money we are talking about across several markets,” the company says. The total wasted spend amounts to £728.9 million in 2020 says Go Inspire.

At the same time as questions are growing about the effectiveness of Adwords and other forms of digital marketing, print is gaining acceptance, particularly when it becomes measurable and when it links to the web.

Headley highlights where this is happen-ing: “The email box is one channel for marketing, so is the traditional mail box. Door drops and leaflets (products from Eclipse) are here to stay. Right now there’s not too much competition with door drops, and the medium has become more respon-sive. Some are even calling the printed door drop The New Media.”

It follows on from the return of the printed book, something underway before Covid struck but where sales have reached record levels in the last year. Print is back in favour, provided it is simple and responsive says Headley.

The chosen tool is increasingly the QR code. The simple matrix mark has been around for many years, but in the past 12 months has appeared everywhere as part of the contact tracing efforts to control the spread of the virus. Consequently people understand what to do with a QR code.

“On one recent campaign, TalkTalk has found that 55% of the responses it received had used the QR code,” he says.

The implications can be extensive, going beyond helping customers reach the section of the website with their account details or where the offer resides. With much market-ing material the consumer is stimulated to go online to make a purchase, but there is no direct link between the printed page and the website. As a result the customer tends to head to Google to enter a search for the company name. This exaggerates Google’s role in the marketing process. “Something has stimulated the consumer to go to Google in the first place. The company has spent a great deal on Adwords and believes this has been responsible for the sale, but it is not necessarily the case,” Headley explains.

WHAT IS INDISPUTABLE IS THAT retail patterns are changing in favour of e-commerce. The announcements of store closures during lockdowns is indicative of a trend that is accelerating but was already in place.

This is changing habits, including for how the Headley family shops. “The announcement that John Lewis is closing its Peterborough store means that I will not go to Peterborough and the decline of the high street will continue,” he says.

Online is the beneficiary of course with marketers therefore striving to capture eyeballs for their websites and stores. The QR code is one way to move a person from a message to the online check out. Their pres-ence on a website, flicking through pages of products, using online to browse before committing themselves to a purchase. This can stimulate a piece of print, arriving a couple of days later, aiming to clinch the sale. And that piece of print will be viewed a number of times in a week, repeating the message each time.

This is where the data side of what Go Inspire comes into place. It helps under-stand what motivates a shopper’s action and to understand what offers will be best to close the sale. This may be on print or digital. Effectiveness is the most important measure, not whether something is printed. “We are using data to help the sale take place,” Headley says.

This has meant investment in the right people. The groups employs 400, 100 of whom are data scientists. This is a number that will surely increase as Go Inspire evolves and expands. Headley reckons that sales of £130 million are possible with the greatest growth coming as the company squares the triangle. n


WORKFLOW PORTALS

WHY ONLINE WHY ONLINE IS NO LONGER IS NO LONGER OPTIONALOPTIONALTHE CHANGES SWEEPING ACROSS THE ECONOMY PROMPTED BY THE PANDEMIC AND LOCKDOWNS MEAN THAT BUSINESSES ARE PREPARED TO DO BUSINESS ONLINE AND SO MUST THOSE THAT SUPPLY THEM.

PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF online retail range from the “things will go back to normal” to the “this is the new normal now”. But the struggles that many traditional retailers have had in the last year, from high street fashion to flagship department stores indicate that the future is about online purchases. And what holds for books, clothes, electrical goods and food, will also hold for print. Every printer needs to have a sales and marketing strategy that acknowledges this.

For some this end up as a watching brief and a decision to not act immediately, but for others that failure to act could become fatal.

There are many in print who will say they have tried to work through websites, but that it has failed. At least one large printer invested a hefty sixfigure sum only to realise that its approach was not working. It has refined the offer and how it operates and is back to producing work gained online. Others have produced websites, sat back and waited for orders to come in. And found orders failed to materialise. And blamed the technology. Many many more have not taken these steps, claiming their customers do not want it. According to the BPIF around 50% of the industry has no ability to take business through websites.

The experience of the last 12 or so months may have altered this attitude accelerating a change that was underway and putting pressure on directors to join in. Online shopping is now normal for 64% of consumers. This statistic is quoted by Vpress and Making

Websites Better ahead of the launch of CloudtoPrint, a collaboration designed to help printers get online and then to start selling print through an effective website.

“You cannot launch expecting to sell business cards,” says MWB director Paul Warren. “That ship has already sailed.”

Kelvin Bell, sales director of Vpress, adds: “Today it is simple. The pandemic has massively accelerated an existing trend where physical retail and manual ordering processes – such as email and telephone – were giving way to online specification and purchasing. We have seen ten years of market evolution compressed into one.”

THE BUSINESS CARD IS PERFECT for online sale: it is a standard product that everyone understands, it needs to be personalised for every buyer, and it is simple to make. And the large online print providers have cleaned up though automation, through low pricing and thanks to constant marketing. Any printer new to online printing is advised to keep away from the business card. It is impossible to compete with these companies. The costs of marketing through Google Adwords can mean paying more for an order than the value of that order. Instead, says Warren, “printers need a niche, something that is meaningful enough that it can make some money”.

To succeed against the highly industrialised approach of the large online companies, smaller printers need to do something that the commoditised print finds it hard to cope

with. This might be print on different materials; it might be a same day delivery for those in city centres; it might be work that requires a higher degree of manual labour or is disruptive to the smooth flowing of Tradeprint’s, Precision Proco’s, Bluetree’s or the Solopress factories.

Once the product range that will be specified and ordered online, has been decided, it is a question of building these into a website and tying the digitally harvested order into a production workflow, possibly one optimised for this type of order.

Bell adds: “It’s about leveraging your specialisms – those products and services that make you unique. You have painstakingly engineered them to make your customers look better – so you need to maximise their reach. Commodity items can be routed to the trade print factories, but you can still keep your customers close, and take a margin on those basic products.”

THE THINKING THAT CUSTOMERS will go back across the bridge and return to their offices and to picking up the phone is flawed. Instead more and more will be bought online. As customers gain confidence they move from simple products like business cards to more complex printed products, packaging for example. And the next online print wave will be about packaging.

Bell says that this means printers “must make moving their business online a top priority. If they haven’t done so within the


PORTALS WORKFLOW

next two years, they will cease to be, out manoeuvred by competitors and their business will rapidly be adversely affected. I wish it wasn’t that stark, but it really is.”

Equally many printers understand this but do not understand what to do. “A lot of companies have a website that is just not working,” Bell continues. “It may have been designed by cousin Tommy, but it is not fit for purpose. People need a print specific site.”

IT IS NOT JUST THE HOME CRAFTED sites that may not have the desired effectiveness. “You can spend thousands,” says Warren. “Rather than speak to a web agency that doesn’t know this sector, we know what will work, what will get the clients coming in.”

This is the basic CloudtoPrint proposition. It marries the technology expertise of Vpress with the design prowess of MWB. Warren has known Vpress for more than a decade, watching how the technology has developed and with the appreciation that as much as the self built online technology does not work, nor is commercially available mainstream software always appropriate or effective.

The Vpress technology both captures the specifics of a job through templates for that product type, it also passes the specification on to an MIS or to a production workflow, frequently via Enfocus Switch. The API that Vpress has will also integrate with standard applications, like Wordpress, Woocommerce, Etsy and Shopify. This means the software is positioned to exploit the growth of new businesses that only operate online, where print can be needed as a leaflet to accompany a product that is sent to a customer, as the carton it is presented in, as an instruction manual. And it needs to be ordered in small batches, if not in print run of one quantities.

“We see the growth coming from variable data as companies use mail shots to local

businesses or households, for short runs of packaging, for menus as hospitality open up, postcards, greetings cards: all are achievable,” Bell says.

MWB’s role is to create the look and feel for the website and then the SEO to promote it. Adwords for common print products are unlikely to be part of the mix. Warren’s own background has kept him close to print if not always given him inky fingers. “And I have always loved the printing industry,” he says, recalling a start on the shopfloor at a print business.

That appreciation means MWB can help printers avoid the obvious, expensive and frequently ineffective SEO tools.

“We are passionate about the print industry, and coming from the print industry, we are able to help printers articulate their value online,” says Warren,“Vpress and ourselves can then assist them on the journey to pass ordering through to their presses and remove as many manual touchpoints and inefficiencies as possible. Ultimately, our goal is to empower forward thinking printers to future proof their business.”

THERE IS A COST FOR CLOUDTOPRINT, no more than for Vpress alone, and is a fourfigure sum, far less than the salary of an additional sales executive, and working 24 hours a day which few sales people in the 21st century are prepared to do. There is a cap on the number of online jobs that pass through the Vpress servers, but set so high that few are going to breach it. And should they do so it will be an indication that online is really driving new business. There is training included as well as a number of templates to get the printer up and running within days. “You get the Vpress software and the web to print website for the cost of the software alone,” says Warren.

Both are convinced that once printers start to take orders online there is only one

direction and that this will lead to bigger projects that can be funded from the early success, creating spin off websites to focus on distinct customer communities, direct to consumer photo products on one hand, specific packaging products for artisan businesses on the other.

“WHEN YOU FIRST PASS YOUR driving test, most of us did not go out and buy a powerful sports car – it’s too much risk. You need to become competent and confident at driving before doing that,” says Bell. “When you take your business online it is very much the same philosophy, you need a vehicle that will comfortably, efficiently and safely deliver you to your destination – until you have the confidence and desire to really pick up speed and invest in a much broader and more complex solution.”

Warren also cautions that CloudtoPrint is not a sticking plaster that cures deeper problems in a business. “We tell printers that a website will not solve all your problems,” he says.

It will, however, help to keep print relevant and to keep the print business relevant as the way that print operates is changing. As automation continues to roll out through the industry, the skill base that printers offer moves away from technical adroitness alone into marketing, product innovation and creative skills. He says: “I understand what a challenge it is to go from a culture where you are a factory focused purely on efficiency savings, to where you need to be a specialist creative agency that can then facilitate production as well.

“One of the most important parts of this equation today is having a very strong and dynamic online presence. Your customers not only want to specify, design, order and pay for your products online, they also expect a much higher level of ease of use, and professional design than ever before.” n

People can log on and purchase print from any location, especially when workfing from home, and at any time of night or day.


PROFILE FLEXPRESS

Flexpress Flexpress flexes into flexes into book printingbook printingLEICESTER PRINTER FLEXPRESS HAS PROVED REMARKABLY AGILE, LEICESTER PRINTER FLEXPRESS HAS PROVED REMARKABLY AGILE, PERFORMING A COMPLETE CHANGE OF DIRECTION AS A RESULT PERFORMING A COMPLETE CHANGE OF DIRECTION AS A RESULT OF THE COVID PANDEMIC.OF THE COVID PANDEMIC.

A YEAR AGO STEVE WENLOCK, managing director and owner of Flexpress, was frustrated and depressed. The government had imposed lockdown and was slow in providing support for SMEs like Flexpress. He took to LinkedIn to vent these frustrations: “Order levels are down to about 12% of our normal levels… in 30 years trading we have never defaulted on any payment and having reinvented ourselves two years ago, we were just starting to make a great plan work”.

That carefully considered plan was cast aside in favour of survival mode and a year later Flexpress has managed to reinvent itself again. Wenlock is once again upbeat.

“When the pandemic started we realised that the sector that was surviving best was the book market. We quickly decided that part of the company strategy moving forwards should be more of that type of work. That we should become book specialists for the trade. So that is what we have been focusing on for the last year,” he says.

The appeal stems from the growth in demand for book printing as a locked down population took to reading – and writing – books. Then there is the difficulties in making books effectively. These are more complicated than the flyers, business cards and leaflets that are meat and drink to the majority of online trade printers and where ganging multiple jobs on a sheet can result in the sort of production efficiencies that drive down the costs of commoditised print.

Book work does not suit ganging, so

the online giants do not have access to the same efficiencies as they can get from business cards, leaflets and flyers. Equally many commercial printers lack the equipment and the skills to produce books inhouse, increasing the appeal of a trade print service. And because of this book printing has some protection that will prevent its margins being eroded. “We are targeting a market where there is more added value,” says Wenlock.

TO TAP INTO THIS, FLEXPRESS HAS had to adapt over the last 12 months. It has installed equipment for case bound books, for trimming and most recently the latest BQ500 fourclamp binder from Horizon.

As part of the latest generation of machines from the Japanese manufacturer, the BQ500 is equipped with ICELink, the cloud based digital communications system that can automate set up of the machine and feed data back to an MIS and to the manufacture for remote maintenance.

The binder handles both standard soft bound work and blocks for case binding. Being able to do both is deliberate, even though the batch size for perfect binding far exceeds that for case binding. Rather than find separate printers for the different styles of finishing, a customer wanting some case bound copies will give Flexpress the standard perfect bound element.

The issues that Flexpress faced a year ago were particularly acute. It had reinvented itself as a specialist trade printer

two years earlier and at the start of 2020 this was beginning to pay off. But in order to do this, the company had invested in B2 digital printing, embellishment capability and websites.

The HP Indigo 12000 has proved an ideal companion to the LED UV equipped RMGT 9 series SRA1 press, itself highly capable of the fast turnaround short run trade work that Flexpress had specialised in. “With these presses we are not focusing on long run stuff. The RMGT takes over when digital becomes too expensive,” he says.

There was a BQ270 singleclamp machine for perfect binding, but capable of short runs only and without the ability to take on increased volumes.

“I didn’t know what was happening at that point in time nor how long it would go on for,” says Wenlock. “And at that point we were quite highly geared as a business because we were preparing for some fairly aggressive organic growth.

“The plan we had was working perfectly until the lockdown stopped us in our tracks. we might have gone to use CBils. That’s all well and good, but it does have to be paid back. We had to rethink our strategy and 12 months later we are quite a different business.”

It is not just about the focus on books: the company looked to employ automation to handle processes that had previously been done manually. This included technology to deliver an online proof within seconds of the job being uploaded; it included the


FLEXPRESS PROFILE

equipment to improve case bound and spiral binding and to automate production of presentation folders.

“The drive was answering the question of how do we get the turnover back up with less people than we had had to use before,” he says. “We had been producing personalised document folders, but needed labour to make them up, now we have a machine to do it. We have become more efficient because we do not have the staff to be inefficient. This is the reality of the world now.”

The realisation that the book market was more resilient and should be the area for Flexpress to specialise in was followed by investment in Schmedt hardcover and pressing lines and Horauf threeknife trimmer. All had been refurbished by the manufacturers and supplied by Perfect Bindery Solutions.

Managing director Steve Giddins says the Horauf SN Demand threeknife trimmer was delivered ahead of the remaining equipment as it was ready to go. The case maker and casing units were being refurbished by the manufacturer. “The trimmer is a good machine, and we’ve sold two new and a couple of used ones already this year,” says Giddins.

“While it’s not a fully automated machine, the operator can adjust the knife position and cope with a different format of book so can move from one format to another in less than three minutes.”

All three were in place in the Leicester factory in the latter part of the Covid year,

ready to cope with growing demand for case bound books.

However, there was a lot to understand, not least in understanding that it needs five types of glue to turn out a case bound book. “Case binding has a big learning curve,” says Wenlock. “We started slowly with basic kit that we had already. We already had the capability for embellishment with the Duplo DuSense and foiling.

“We aim to provide a one stop operation to the book buyers with a choice of binding styles, tabbing and so on. There is not a big demand for case binding compared to perfect binding, out of an order for 500 books, ten might need to be case bound. This gives a nice demand for relatively short runs.”

THERE IS STILL A LABOUR ELEMENT as end papers and gauze has to be applied by hand. Horizon has modules that can apply these elements and as volume increases Flexpress can add these to the BQ500 at a later point.

“It can do the end papers and gauze, but we do not need those at the moment, which means that the BQ500 is the right machine for us. As demand increases, so will the kit,” he explains.

There is no sewn section capability as yet, but this too may change. “I didn’t think that 12 months ago we would be producing case binding,” he says. “Now we’re determined to be as good at case binding as we possibly can be. We want to offer a onestop approach

to book production, whether perfect bound, ring bound, or case bound.”

Looking back the last year has been unquestionably tough for Flexpress, but it has survived through determination and the agility to transform its business.

“We have survived several recessions and this time when we could see everything that we had worked for was at risk of going down the pan, and we might have buried our heads or as we did, say let’s fight back. Now we’ll come out of the pandemic in a stronger position.

“We understand that many will not be doing this, and when we hear comments like ‘I’m pleased I will not be investing any more’ and ‘I’m so pleased with the service you are giving us that I will not be investing in a new press’, it’s music to our ears, because it means that there will be more and more work going to the trade suppliers like us. This has given us the confidence to specialise, in our case in books and we are producing something that we can be proud of.”

It is working. Turnover started to rise through the year. By January sales were at 50% of the level a year earlier, in February at 60% and in March reaching 80% of the pre lockdown month in 2020. Flexpress has proved true to its name, its flexibility is ensuring its immediate future. “Twelve months after the start of the lockdowns, we are a quite different business,” says Steve Wenlock, managing director of trade book printer Flexpress n

Steve Wenlock says the start of the first lockdown was a severe shock to the business. Flexpress has since repositioned itself into a specialist trade book printer.


PROFILE PRINT4UK

THE DAY THAT PRINTING DIED, Chris Brady, like many print company owners simply did not know what to do. The government announcement of lockdown meant work was cancelled on the spot. He went home in despair. Two days later he was back at his desk. Many had decided to sit out the lockdown, hoping that the ‘all over by Easter’ message was correct. Brady was not one of them. Print4UK was about to perform a rapid pivot, one that has transformed the Enfield digital print business.

The company had grown over more than ten years on a diet of work for blue chip clients, in retail, in finance, in legal. This vanished because London was effectively closed for business. Print4UK had always operated HP Indigo technology, most recently an Indigo 7900 with premium white clear and metallic print options. That had helped the company produce high quality print for product launches, for events, for presentations and brochures.

Its annual spend on die cutting would be £50,000. The 2020 spend on trade services vanished, and is not coming back. The company has installed the UK’s first B2 format PFI Blade cutting table from Duplo UK. However, in April last year, that was in the future.

“Everything was going digital,” says Brady. The outlook for print was grim. Its first step to recovery was the launch of Brand4UK with a range of branded merchandise for the existing customer base. It was something that Print4UK had always been able to supply, buying through trade sources, but adding a mark up could make the offer uncompetitive. Now this demand could keep the business afloat. Indeed, says Brady, “without Brand4UK we would not be here today”.

That has grown beyond the existing the customer base and has opened new doors which are now being offered print. “It was ‘How can we do something for our existing clients?’,” he says. “Print just fell off the cliff and we had to ask how we could make up for this, what we could do for our existing clients?”

The more influential change was the start of a digital and print design business under the expanding Print4 group umbrella. Lee Hedger is managing director of Navy Blue. He had returned from the Gulf where he had run a digital design agency for 13 years and had got to know Brady’s father while there. Brady and Hedger were introduced, the idea hatched and in November, Navy Blue jumped into action.

It is an arrangement that marries two very different disciplines to great effect. Hedger

Print4UK: Print4UK: prepared prepared for almost for almost anythinganythingTHE EXPANSION MINDED BUSINESS HAS THE EXPANSION MINDED BUSINESS HAS ADDED REVENUE STREAMS DURING THE ADDED REVENUE STREAMS DURING THE PANDEMIC YEAR, AND INSTALLED THE FIRST PANDEMIC YEAR, AND INSTALLED THE FIRST BLADE B2 IN THE UK TO DELIVER MORE BLADE B2 IN THE UK TO DELIVER MORE FORMS OF INTRICATE CUTTING.FORMS OF INTRICATE CUTTING.

Chris Brady has expanded the scope of the business to compensate for the disappearance of conventional print with last year’s lockdowns.


PRINT4UK PROFILE

says: “The biggest issue that designers face is that they have to send jobs out for proofing or samples and have to wait for that job to come back. We can simply go downstairs and ask Dave on the Indigo if the idea will work or to run something out and within minutes we have the job in our hands. Other designers cannot do this.”

HOW EFFECTIVE THIS CAN BE was shown when Navy Blue was involved in the website design for a new home delivery food business and working with its chosen screen brand of blue. This, says Hedger, was specified as an RGB colour and challenge to print. At this stage Print4UK was not involved until Hedger could demonstrate how, thanks to the close collaboration between the two, could translate the on screen colour to one that could be reproduced on paper, on stickers, on bags and more. Print4UK won the print work alongside digital.

That synergy is now at the heart of the reborn business. “When I first met Chris, it was clear there was a real synergy between the print and the digital side. Print makes digital work harder: five years ago the QR code was finished, now it’s integrated into the printed page and takes the reader straight to a website, linking print and digital. And the QR code can track the effectiveness of print.” Furthermore there is a growing realisation that digital is not always the answer.

“AS PEOPLE CAN GET 400 EMAILS A day, there’s too much digital noise. But if you get a piece of mail, it will be opened,” Hedger continues. “Some agencies are purely digital, some purely print. This will not work any more. Clients that we talk to will tell us ‘I didn’t think of print’.”

His job is open their minds to the physical medium. And Brady’s job is to know what can be done in print. “We get lots of clients asking us for ideas and we always try to offer them something, perhaps using silver or metallic white from the Indigo.” And now it also has the digital cutting table.

The nucleus for digital design was already there in Print4UK. It had web designers, with both simple and high level coding skills, and photography experience. Navy Blue has been able to tap into this and added the polish and vision needed to it.

It has hit the ground running, quickly picking up where print had dropped off. Brady explains that where some in the City had switched from real events, where Print4UK would produce folders and all the other collateral needed for the day, Navy Blue can do the same for an online

event. The virtual version has also attracted double the number of attendees. It does not mean that print is eliminated. A printed programme for the day in front of a monitor and a printed report on proceedings can be part of the experience. Again print and digital are working together. It is a question of identifying which is best for which application.

Several months on the collaboration is clearly working. “We are getting work that we could never have touched before,” Brady says. “It’s about positioning ourselves correctly, ready for when the world starts to open up.”

And gradually it is opening up. The group is starting to produce work for customers that have been dormant for a year, though not yet to the same level as in 2019. “We think that 90% of work is coming from new clients, so that when work does start to flow back, and we know that it will never be what is was, we are ready,” he says.

Part of that preparation is a digital die cutter that sits alongside one wall of the finishing space. This is the first of Duplo’s B2 format PFI Blades, installed in April. It will handle a lot of the work that has had to be sent out, as well as opening the way to personalised finishing and value add techniques that Navy Blue can exploit.

“WE HAD STARTED TO LOOK AT digital die cutting early last year. Much of what we looked at was B3 in format which, while we have a two page press currently, would have been narrowing our market,” says Brady, clearly considering a larger digital press for when Print4UK moves when its lease expires later this year. Some suppliers were ruled out because of questionable quality despite an appealing price,

others because of the printer’s prior experience with that supplier.

“We liked the software on the PFI Blade,” he says. This was written by the same company that has worked for Zund, so understands the requirements of the industry, enhancing the standard machine which is brought in from the Far East.

Within days of installation, Print4UK had produced paying jobs on the Blade. And it has had chance to put what is the first of its kind in the UK through its paces. Brady enjoys this. In a previous life he was the digital press minder for the beta installation of the Kodak M700 Nexpress. “Every machine we get we put to the test,” he says, “and we make it work somehow.”

THE DEEP UNDERSTANDING IT strives for means that its five year old Indigo has fewer service calls than most because it can be fixed internally. And there are fixes identified for the new cutting and creasing machine already. One relates to the delivery and a tendency for sheets to catch on each other. This should be simple to sort out. Second Brady wants to be able to adjust the vacuum strength from the small control panel on the machine rather than by having to remove the side frame. Again it ought be an easy update. “And we are waiting for an embossing tool and a wider creasing tool, that haven’t been delivered yet,” he adds. While waiting, a double hit with the creaser is effective.

He reckons that the company will be able to retain around 75% of the die cutting work that had previously been sent out as well as expanding the range of deliverable products. But not all. An advent calendar has been mocked up on the Blade to check how doors will open and the strength of the material used. But the cutting sequence takes four and a half minutes to process each sheet and the order is for 3,000 units. This will go out.

At the other extreme the machine can produce simple rounded corners for Foamex backed signage, round cornered business cards, or can cut a winder for wool without the expense needed to produce dies. “We are trying to learn the costs of it. We need to find out the running costs, what makeready is needed and so what the break even between doing it ourselves and sending out will be,” he says.

And he is eyeing further new opportunities. A website for youngsters to be able to design a series their own avatar and then puzzles which draw upon the group’s expanding capabilities to design, to print and cut print in intricate ways. n

Lee Hedger runs Navy Blue, a design agency that is part of the group, working across both digital and print channels.

Introducing the NEW Valiani Omnia

Efficient, robust cutting table with automatic feeder

0800 1381 882| |www.plockmaticgroup.com

NEW VALIANI OMNIA

Contact us for more

information

The NEW Valiani Omnia, with its efficient automatic feeder, is an easy to use flat bed cutter that will produce packaging, point of sale, samples or short to medium production runs.

Load the feeder with up to 500 Sheets and let it run! This is our most productive cutter to date, the NEW Valiani Omnia takes a sheet size of 600mm x 800mm and cuts material up to 12mm thick with the oscillating tool. This machine is equipped with a vacuum table, camera and software that will ensure precise cutting results every time! Contact us for more information.


CUTTING TABLES FINISHING

THE DIGITAL CUTTING TABLE, a flatbed plotter of limited format, is fast becoming an essential piece of equipment for many commercial printers. It is a rela-tively low cost investment that can both save money by keeping work in-house that might otherwise be sent to trade die cutters and can provide an additional service to enhance a (frequently) digitally printed job.

On the one hand these are shrunken versions of flatbed cutting tables famil-iar to the equipment that is is essential in large format display printers, on the other there are machines that have emerged from other industries where precision drilling and cutting is necessary.

Many of the machines come from the far east, often the same machine is sold through separate channels under different brands leaving sales price, service and software to distinguish one supplier from another. Economies of scale and large production volumes make it difficult for western manu-facturers to compete. Hence the likes of Kongsberg and Zund do not have skin in this game – at least not yet. Kongsberg has recently regained its independence from Esko but will not be changing tack.

Italian manufacturer Valiani is an excep-tion. It has a range of cutting tables for different applications with the Omnia machine as its smallest format machine for this application. Others have expanded from SRA3 formats into B2.

The Valiani Omnia has an automatic feeder loading up to 500 sheets of up to 500x800mm in format. A suction feed system lifts the sheet into position where a camera will home in on printed crop marks to register the cutting process before the finished job drops into an output tray.

The software can accept a cutting file from various applications while a QR code is used to identify and automatically download set up information for a job. It means the device can be loaded with different jobs and can be left to run unattended, provided the tools do not need changing. The Omnia will process

a typical carton blank from an SRA3 sheet in 45 seconds, running unattended on material up to 10mm deep.

UK distributor is Morgana which also handles sales of the Optima cutting table, but this lacks the feeder that is deemed a necessity for commercial printers. A spokesperson says that Valiani is prepar-ing to launch new models to expand its product range. Before then the Milton Keynes company anticipates installation of an Omnia. “This is a more robust, much stronger machine than its Asian counter-parts,” says a spokesperson. It is also more expensive, though with the extra format and versatility offered, the ROI through keeping short run work that is sent out for die cutting in house or from the cost of die making, is relatively easy to justify.

The machines from China began with

smaller format cutting tables, available through Intec, ICS, Duplo and Vivid. The latter uses the Veloblade name for its range while Duplo International offers the same machine as the PFI Blade+.

However, where the Leicester company has stuck with the software supplied, Duplo has commissioned software and an inter-face from the same studio that created the software for Zund. It means greater inte-gration and a smoother user interface and is backed by Duplo’s network of support engi-neers. Now there is a B2 version alongside the SRA3 model, with the first installed at Print4UK in Enfield, only a few miles from BCA, the initial installation of the SRA3 version. Vivid specifies its version to cut 1.5mm compared to 1.3mm from Duplo.

These are still production capable machines, weighing in at over 380kg. In comparison the Computech F-Mark is an absolute lightweight, being a bench top machine that can be lifted away when not in use, thus useful where space is at a premium.

One user, says Dougie Smith, director of distributor Ashgrove Trading, keeps his on top of a filing cabinet. “It is very much an entry level machine for very short runs,” he says. It is also highly keenly priced (£5,500), making it a relatively risk free purchase. If demand takes off, a printer can step up to a more productive machine with greater refinement on creasing as well as cutting. For proof of concept, samples for promo-tional photography or focus groups, this is ideal.

“We were doing very well with them, though there has been a bit slow in the last 12 months. The people who have it tell us that it’s the one machine in their plant that has continued to be busy during lockdowns,” he says, “without the F-Mark they would have had nothing to do.”

It covers the range of social stationery, business cards and especially prototyping work without the need to pay for die making. “Short run packaging is now a massive part of the market today,” Smith says. l

CUTTING GETS TO THE POINT

Introducing the NEW Valiani Omnia

Efficient, robust cutting table with automatic feeder

0800 1381 882| |www.plockmaticgroup.com

NEW VALIANI OMNIA

Contact us for more

information

The NEW Valiani Omnia, with its efficient automatic feeder, is an easy to use flat bed cutter that will produce packaging, point of sale, samples or short to medium production runs.

Load the feeder with up to 500 Sheets and let it run! This is our most productive cutter to date, the NEW Valiani Omnia takes a sheet size of 600mm x 800mm and cuts material up to 12mm thick with the oscillating tool. This machine is equipped with a vacuum table, camera and software that will ensure precise cutting results every time! Contact us for more information.

A digital cutting table A digital cutting table is becoming a new is becoming a new must-have for many must-have for many commercial printers. commercial printers. And there is a range of And there is a range of models at different price models at different price points to consider.points to consider.

The F-Mark has been a popular choice in 2019, business slowing last year and is again a machine in demand.


SUPPLIER PROFILE PRINTIQ

PRINTIQ BIDS TO PRINTIQ BIDS TO BRING BREATH OF BRING BREATH OF FRESH AIR TO MISFRESH AIR TO MISTHE SUPPLIER HAS COME TO THE UK TO BUILD ON SUCCESS IN AUSTRALIA AND THE US WITH AN APPROACH THAT IS BASED ON THE CLOUD, APIS AND RAPID DEPLOYMENT.

WHEN IS AN MIS NOT A Management Information System? When it is a Manage-ment Workflow System. Just what this looks like is open to debate and where it crosses over into production workflow or enterprise management system is equally debatable: the borders between the tools are permeable.

This is a far cry from the first days of MIS. The task then was straightforward: to estimate a price based on a printer’s known costs, the cost of materials and the time taken to complete a job and the required margin. MIS helped an estimator generate better quotes and more of them.

The next phase of MIS development was stock control and into scheduling, directing a job to the most appropriate production path according to the parameters for a job. The Job Definition Format enabled the MIS to create a job ticket that could be understood by the production workflow, delivering a JMF file back so that the estimate could be compared with the reality.

That has enabled countless printers to cope with tighter margins, by identifying bottlenecks and producing more accurate pricing; to cope with an increased number of jobs; to become more efficient by ganging jobs on one sheet and by batching jobs that use the same papers together to minimise adjustments needed on press.

Now these traditional MIS suppliers themselves face a key question, whether they migrate to the cloud or remain server based. It is reminiscent of the great switch from MS-DOS and CP/M operating systems

to MS Windows during the 1980s. At that point the level of complexity was minimal and the transition was relatively simple. Today the arguments are more complex, to do with data security and speed of response on the one hand, ease of support and upgrades on the other.

It has also spawned a new generation of developers able to create software that resides in the cloud, that is modular in approach and that takes advantage of API technology to integrate with technology well beyond equipment that is part of the JDF universe and into third-party applications that help printers manage not only their businesses, their workflows and collabora-tion with customers and suppliers, perhaps sitting at the heart of a hands-off work-flow from web to print to courier company. This is a long way from generating a simple estimate.

New Zealand developer PrintIQ has walked into this febrile environment with an approach based entirely on the cloud, on open interfaces, on remote access and rapid modular development with integra-tion based on APIs. It quickly expanded into Australia and outgrowing that country has moved into North America and now into the UK.

“We never launched properly in the UK,” says founder and product director Mick Rowan. “We had planned a launch at Drupa last year, as an introduction to European markets.” That of course never happened. The company appointed Paul Bromley to


PRINTIQ SUPPLIER PROFILE

work from a small office in the centre of the country and in the year has picked up 21 UK customers, headed by the likes of Halstan Press and Bishops Printers.

It is already the dominant company in its homelands and is growing fast in the US where PrintIQ enjoyed what Rowan calls “our best year to date”.

At the start of 2020 it was not entirely unknown to UK printers. PrintIQ has taken part in DScoop events where it could meet UK businesses and others have connections with printers that are already using PrintIQ.

“Coming to the UK is not purely about the UK. It is in the long run a stepping stone to the Netherlands, to the Scandina-vian countries and to South Africa,” Rowan explains. “We have a good conversion rate when we get to speak to people. But they need to know about us first. We find that UK companies need to be leaner and sharper at making decisions. It seems to take longer to reach a decision than in other countries.” That should change as momentum builds and PrintIQ is less of an unknown quan-tity. Bromley has been active, with PrintIQ global sales manager Adrian Fleming prais-ing his “tenacious approach”, adding: “We are in a great position to continue that growth with UK staff on the ground provid-ing local support, together with the power of the global network in multiple time zones to back them up.”

Rowan identifies the competition as Tharstern, Accura, Optimus, and EFI in the UK, with Avanti, EFI and a host of home grown legacy applications in the US.

“UK SUPPLIERS ARE VERY MUCH providers of MIS technology. We are a management workflow system, managing a business from the upload of an artwork file to invoices and delivery of the job – straight out of the box,” he says.

Along the way there are links to web to print applications from Vpress and Infigo, to Chili and XMPie for variable data, into Enfocus Switch, Tilia Labs and count-less more. “There are lots of tools we can build upon, to preflight, proof and online payment, to direct a job to a DFE and then to a courier company,” he adds. “All the data floating around that is associated with a job and its progress can be captured, harnessed and used to deliver all manner of reports that can be presented in different styles and tailored to specific purposes, including sending these automatically to members of the team who are working remotely.”

The system starts with eight core modules: workflow manager, factory manager, inven-tory manager, outsource manager, shipping

manager, job track, payment gateway and quote intelligence. The system does not stop here. The user selects extra modules accord-ing to the needs of the business, from direct mail, large format, cartons and so on. Rowan explains: “The difference between us and others is that we offer a lot more. Print-ers that are expanding into other business sectors do not need to add an extra MIS, but can instead bolt on tools as necessary. The question printers should ask is whether their legacy system can do this.”

ROLL OUT OF AN IMPLEMENTATION is impressively quick, measured in weeks rather than months or more for some expan-sive systems. Even during Covid PrintIQ was able to have systems implemented in four months, thanks a strong project manage-ment process and communication about what is expected from all sides. This is very much a ‘secret sauce’ and reduces the fear that companies have regarding the disrup-tion when moving from one MIS to another. The straightforward user interface cuts the training requirement and allows inexperi-enced staff to get to grips with the software without the deep technical knowledge that may be necessary on older systems.

And if those tools are not immediately available through PrintIQ, there will be an API link to third-party applications for specific tasks.

The user can also feed back and make requests to the development team. If deemed suitable and of general appeal, these can be added to the roadmap and will be included on the four times a year software update. Two are described as major grades, two as minor.

If the request is not passed to the devel-opment teams, and is not already part of the development cycle, an additional feature can be added privately. This may be a link to a third party app that would suit the particu-

lar needs of that customer. An example, says Rowan, was a link needed by a US customer to integrate into its client’s FedEx account for payment. It is not a feature that would normally spring to mind, but for that customer it meant the difference between winning the contract or not.

Needless to say the contract was gained. The development was prioritised and the costs covered by the three or four customers that this was relevant to. “If something is really important we are able to fast track that work ahead of the next development cycle,” he says.

There are links out to accounting pack-ages like Xero or QuickBooks that neither require creation of an intermediate spread-sheet nor for an operator to switch out of the PrintIQ. There is an expanding integra-tion with XMPie as variable data printing increases in importance and with 3D render-ing software as the packaging and labels industry becomes more and more important.

Bromley says: “The list of options is as lengthy as it is impressive and includes fully integrated third party options encompass-ing: VDP, file verification, ganging and sheet optimisation, prepress systems, web appli-cations with API capability, and even other printers. PrintIQ is able to meet the needs of designers, digital printers, label printers, offset printers, packaging printers, as well as signage and large format printers.

“We are also able to link directly into web to print front ends like Vpress, Indigo or the likes of Magneto so that orders flow directly into the workflow without any need for double entry that can be needed on some other systems.”

SOMETIMES INTEGRATIONS CAN be too challenging or simply will not show the return for the software developer or for the print company. It would seem appealing to link the software into the systems oper-ated by consumables companies including paper merchants. “And we have spoken with paper merchants,” says Rowan. “But even in Australia there are different rules for differ-ent states, a different product mix and these are companies that are constantly changing the sku codes in their product mix.”

It is something that is not currently called for. Nor apparently is all the data that is collected from a press. “As long as a piece of equipment can generate data, we can consume it. We can collect data from a press, but as yet not a lot of customers want that.

“PrintIQ is a workflow management systems rather than an MIS. It’s an ecosys-tem where everybody involved in print can be part of it.” n

Paul Bromley, who represents PrintIQ in the UK, has already picked up 21 customers, including Halstan Press.

Why be shoe-horned into an outdated on-premise MIS when at printIQ we’ve designed and built a cloud-based Management Workflow System with the future of print in mind.printIQ - Far more than just an MIS. www.printIQ.com

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POTTS PROFILE

Why be shoe-horned into an outdated on-premise MIS when at printIQ we’ve designed and built a cloud-based Management Workflow System with the future of print in mind.printIQ - Far more than just an MIS. www.printIQ.com

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Potts picks Roland 700 for versatilityPotts Print (UK) has specified a six-colour Roland 700 Evolution as the machine to cope with commercial and carton work for the Cramlington print business.POTTS PRINT (UK) IS PROOF THAT it is possible to print for both commercial customers and for carton customers – and come to that for large format customers – from a single site at Cramlington in North-umbria on the same press line up.

This is being reinforced by investment in a six-colour Manroland 700 Evolution Elite, the first press of its kind to be installed in the UK when it is delivered in the coming months. It is already a Manroland customer having existing Roland 700s, but it has also operated a Heidelberg Speedmaster XL75. As a result the Speedmaster and one of its Rolands will be replaced when the new machine arrives. The six-colour configuration will meet current and future requirements for packaging customers.

It will also reduce energy consumption and help the company with its sustainabil-ity agenda. Potts is a fully carbon balanced printer, has installed EV charging points, changed its lighting systems and continues to seek other ways to cut its footprint.

It was not an automatic decision to buy the new press from Manroland Sheetfed, even with Potts supplying Manroland Sheetfed’s owner, the Langley Group, with print. For while Langley is a valued customer, it is not so important as to influence the purchasing decision, says Potts chief executive Shaun Johnson.

“It’s nice to work for them, but it’s not a life changing volume and will not make or break Potts. It’s about being loyal to our suppliers,” he says. “We have had great service from Manroland and it’s nice to be able to pay that back: we know the engi-neers, the technicians and the service levels

they provide. They will come out on a Sunday afternoon and there’s nothing that really gives us headaches.”

It was also a thoroughly researched invest-ment, loyalty does not supersede advanced technology. By the end of 2019, the Potts team had made up its mind.

“At the start of last year we were very unsure about what was going to happen, so we delayed the decision until this year,” he says. “Now we are confident moving forwards. We did a lot of research last year and investment in the new press was a no brainer.

“We have had a settled print room for a few years, so knew we had to update the print room. All the presses were good, everybody has cutting edge technology.

“We liked what Koenig & Bauer have to offer and we liked the people there.” It was not enough to swing the decision, however.

The new press is configured to cope with carton stock up to 1,000 micron thick, and the sixth colour (the machines being replaced are five-colour models) will have an appeal to the packaging clientele. “It

gives us more options,” says Johnson, “and it makes sense to have that for the ten-year life of the press. Currently a lot of the work we do is four colour with the odd five-colour job. With packaging it’s a good option to have.”

Unlike many presses for cartons, this press does not have UV. Johnson explains: “We stay away from that, we have looked at it, but it’s not a market for us and there are others that will print with UV much better than we can. We would prefer to stick with what we know.”

There would also be some issues with continuity with existing jobs with a switch to UV. Many carton jobs are repeats, with perhaps small changes to artwork. These have to be printed a year or more after the job was first approved and printed. Potts’ collection of standing dies will also be recalled for the purpose of a reprint.

The press investment is not the only move that Potts is making. It invested in the digital world says Johnson, installing a scanner last year in order to help ease storage prob-lems that customers have. “We all love ink on paper, but it becomes a hard job going through boxes of paper to find a document or receipt. By scanning and storing docu-ments like this they can be found,” he says.

There has also been growth in the pick and pack operation located in the same building as its large format arm. “We are trying to solve our customers’ problems,” Johnson explains.

And the spread of work has helped the company weather the lockdowns. Commer-cial work dropped 20%, compensated for by growth in direct mail, packaging and digital. l

Potts has returned to Manroland Sheetfed.


SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC MERCIA IMAGE

MERCIA DISCOVERS A POST-COVID EXISTENCEAMANDA STRONG IS A DETERMINED woman. It is simply not possible to build a business from a backroom into perhaps the last litho printer in Derby, raise three kids and survive a divorce without determina-tion. But by the middle of last year, she was ready to give up.

Mercia Image Print had seen most its work vanish thanks to lockdown’s effects on the key hospitality and retail sectors. “A big chunk of business had vanished overnight,” she says, “So we had to think on our feet, juggle furlough with production and find new products to fill the gap and secure our future.”

That turned out to be a move into carton production. “Commercial print is extremely hard. Mercia is the only printer left in Derby with litho facilities, I’m extremely proud of that. Now we have diversified into cartons and boxes. The world has changed. There is less promotional work around and the simple work goes to companies like Bluetree.

“We have always produced some boxes in house so that seemed a possibility and it has proved very successful. The trade print-ers and brokers do not want to get involved because more expertise is needed which is something that we excel in.”

Its existing customer base had a need for cartons, so was an obvious place to start. “These are clients that have known us for all these years,” she says. “Then there’s word of mouth.” Strong has also been involved in business networks in Derby, in market-ing and in networking groups for women in business.

Over the years it has brought the company to the attention of two local MPs. “From not knowing anybody, I have met some fantas-tic people and we get business locally and from the wider area that we would not have won before,” she says. “It’s all about the relationships.”

It was also about the capability. The company had design capabilities and cutting and creasing, though not previously used for cartons. “We talked to a customer who produces reed diffusers and would not have thought of coming to us for bespoke boxes and packaging. They were delighted with

the design and the finished product. We were able to design, print, cut and crease and glue in house.”

They were printed in four-colour process on the Mitsubishi Diamond 1000, on a 540 micron board, soft touch laminated, die cut and glued without leaving the Little Eaton plant, and earning the testimonial that the cartons “looked fantastic” from the custom-er’s print buyer.

As with other successful jobs, Mercia highlighted this with stories on social media, including LinkedIn leading to further inquiries and further proof of concept design and prototypes.

It led on to producing cartons for a Covid rapid flow test kit provider based in Derby. That order became Mercia’s largest ever single order and then too big for Mercia to handle. The work has now gone outside the UK, says Strong.

Despite the success in repositioning the business, the pressure of running the busi-ness, the absence from home and watching

the cashflow for 25 years had already taken its toll. “I felt that I had had enough of it. At the start we had to furlough the staff leaving just two of us to come into the office from 9am to 8pm each day,” she says. Strong decided to put the business up for sale.

“I thought that nobody would be inter-ested in a commercial printing company, but two or three days later we had a nice offer on the table and decided to go for it,” she says.

That came from the Print Design Factory in Sheffield leading to the completion of the deal in October. While Strong has sold her shares and is no longer a director, she is still the face of Mercia as company ambassador. “It’s difficult to work only two or three days a week,” she says.

The deal means that Mercia is now part of a larger group with digital print and B1 litho capabilities in Sheffield able to handle the work that is too large for Mercia. And invest-ment has been forthcoming. A Tharstern MIS is being implemented across the three operations under the same umbrella. Group commercial director Craig Ikin is positive for the future: “We look forward to maintaining and building on Mercia’s reputation as the leading print provider in Derby.”

Strong says she is immensely proud of having steered Mercia to be the last litho company in Derby, but more so about having somehow raised three children into “very nice people”. One is still a student, one a dentist and the third a data scientist. None wanted to follow their mother into the printing industry. l

Amanda Strong has sold Amanda Strong has sold her shares in Mercia her shares in Mercia Image Print having Image Print having steered the Derby steered the Derby printer through the printer through the pandemic year.pandemic year.

Amanda Strong with sales director Paul Ross flanked by Russell Kennedy (left) and Craig Ikin from the Print Design Factory (Sheffield).


BEYOND CMYK PROFILE

BOSS PRINT HAS UNVEILED ITS latest collaboration with design agency Suther-land. Following on from its nested Box of Boxes project and then the Robox interac-tive toy, printer and designer have come up with a pencil case that showcases the different skills each has. And it introduced the pencil case project via a Zoom call and activity on Instagram that designers were encouraged to be part of.

The latest idea kicked off pre-pandemic in 2019, resulting in production during June last year. The pandemic meant that it is only nine months later that it is coming into the limelight.

“We were waiting for the right time to launch it,” says Boss managing director Fenton Smith. Previous collaborations have resulted in a launch at Fedrigoni’s studio space in Clerkenwell. This has not been possible, resulting in a Zoom call where Jim Sutherland and Rebecca Sutherland explained their methods of working and enthusiasm for the project for an audience of well over 100 young designers.

“We have worked with Boss on projects for more than 20 years,” says designer Jim Sutherland. “The pencil case idea is to create something that people will use.”

He styled a logotype from shapes that are closely associated with pencils. Rebecca Sutherland, an illustrator, turned these elemental shapes into the four characters for each side of the box. These were to be foiled on to Imitlin, a high strength textured paper that Fedrigoni supplies and which resembles a book cloth.

“We chose the pencil case to strad-dle the virtual and physical world,” says Smith. The online event attracted an audi-ence of more than 100 and a number of those taking part will receive a pencil case. Around 250 registered to be part of the event and competition, resulting in some useful contacts for the business to follow up. Smith intended that the launch event would then trigger a spate of social media content as those selected will show off their prize on social media channels. “We would love to see them celebrate,” he adds.

And they did. There were videos of the

pencil box in pride of place on the desk, of the pencils being extracted and stories about the experience. “There have been reviews on Instagram and it is getting a lot of attrac-tion,” says sales and marketing manager Bonnie Lo. “It shows that people are getting excited about print again and are wanting to get their hands on something that’s physi-cal. We are linking that print with the digital world.”

The positive comments on Instagram – “This inspiring collaboration has produced a truly special piece. It will take pride of place on my desk.” – being typical, will magnify the message well beyond the immediate possessors of the pencil box. Many also mention the print and foiling involved.

Smith continues: “We hope that other designers will see this happening and that we can be involved in the conversations that follow. This is not like a piece of direct mail that will be discarded. This is something that people will want to keep.”

The quality and effectiveness of the finished box is testament to the collabora-tion between the printer and design team, about the selection of the papers and foils to be used and how the 2D concepts can be brought to three dimensional life.

“We started by trying to find the essen-tial elements that make up a pencil,” says Rebecca Sutherland. “We hope we have come up with something that adds joy to people’s lives.” l

BOSS PRINT PENCILS BOSS PRINT PENCILS IN IMPACT OF PRINTIN IMPACT OF PRINT

After a year of living in After a year of living in the online world there the online world there is a desire for physical is a desire for physical things, something that things, something that west London printer west London printer

Boss Print has tapped Boss Print has tapped into, while at the same into, while at the same

time having a foot in the time having a foot in the online door.online door.

The project used four colours of the Imitlin paper from Fedrigoni matched with the appropriate foils.


PEOPLE STEEVE ROUCAUTE

HAIL TO HAIL TO THE CHIEFTHE CHIEFPrecision Proco group has made Steeve Precision Proco group has made Steeve Roucaute its first chief technology officer and Roucaute its first chief technology officer and one of the few in the industry. He explains one of the few in the industry. He explains what the job is all about.what the job is all about.

PRECISION PROCO HAS APPOINTED its first chief technology officer, another step to marking itself out as a company taking a different path to others in print. Few, if any other, print companies have a technology specialist sitting around its boardroom table.

“The vision and strategy is to be a technol-ogy company before it is a print company,” says Steeve Roucaute who has filled the position. “Technology is what enables print volume and utilisation from the resources that we have. Therefore a CTO is required.”

Roucaute will oversee four production locations and four businesses, three print-ing and one in workflow technology and interface design. These came together late last year to build a group that is forging a new direction for print based on a shared vision of how print and online can interact to mutual benefit. Technology will be used to integrate the production operations into a single network, both for work and for communications.

“We have to link the four companies that share a common vision with technology, which is where my skill set comes in,” he says. There is already extensive use of Teams and similar applications to stage remote meetings, though an effective white board technology continues to illude him, he says.

Roucaute’s CV involves a spell at Preci-sion during the development and roll out of Siteflow, its print run of one workflow that has since been sold to HP, the merger with Where The Trade Buys, and growth of online purchasing, either fulfilling orders on behalf of photo and stationery compa-nies or running its own online operations.

He left in 2016 joining Cimpress subsidiary Tradeprint and then X8, a video conferenc-ing company that Gartner has recognised as a leader in its field.

“This was an equivalent to Zoom where human interactions are carried out remotely. And this makes the requirement for physi-cal media more important as more and more human interactions are carried out in the cloud. There is a need to seal the deal with something that is physical and print is excel-lent at delivering that.”

HIS OWN INTERACTIONS ARE GOING to include a great deal of online meetings. His base will be in Dagenham with other production sites in Nottingham, Sunderland, Sheffield and its software devel-opment site at Climb in Gateshead make online communications more practical than a constant shuttle between sites. In short, it is not a case of physical or virtual, but a meld between the two.

That expands into how business to busi-ness, business to consumer and consumer to consumer communications will evolve. It is he says about the omnichannel approach that Precision Proco is driving. Conversations with consumers will begin online, migrate to the call centre where a deeper conversation is followed by postage and delivery of a highly relevant brochure printed on demand and following payment made online, the product is shipped – perhaps in a well printed box and perhaps with a printed catalogue to stimulate the next purchase. “Print is not going to go away,” he says, pointing to the failure of the Kindle to oust printed books.

Nor is this sentiment for the way things used to be.

“Decision making should be data driven. We have to be very factual and the data element is vital for a technology business like the group is. We are going to be based on data, on analytics, on machine learning, artificial intelligence and so on,” he says.

It covers all technology businesses, from the largest to start ups set up by what a he describes as ‘technopreneurs’ who want to put up an ecommerce site selling printed products, he explains.

There will be an API connection between the sites and Precision Proco’s production resources, Roucaute aiming to make this as straightforward as possible. “The easier we can make that for API customers, the more of those people we can connect with and the greater the utilisation of our print technology.

“The opportunity is hugely exciting. There is a lot to do. We have to come up with technology solutions that are clever enough and that are easy to integrate. I am happy to be back working for a UK based company.”

THIS IS ENDORSED BY Precision Proco chief executive Gary Peeling who says: “Our strategy to deploy the most forward thinking and innovative technology which will help cement our place as the industry’s leader in workflow automation and utilisation.

“With Steeve’s direction we will be able to drive forward our plans, including develop-ment of our in-house marketing technology, Siteflow enhancements and overarching group technology programme.” l

Steeve Roucaute has joined Precision Proco as its first chief

technology officer, one of a very few in the industry.

EXPLORE MORE… there are hundreds of printer case studies at printbusiness.co.uk


#BEYONDA4 PROFILE

JJR looks Beyond A4 with Versant 280

Scottish printer JJR has Scottish printer JJR has opened up myriad opened up myriad

options having installed options having installed a Xerox Versant 280 a Xerox Versant 280 with the full range of with the full range of additional colours.additional colours.

JJR IS A SCOTTISH PRINTER THAT likes to say Yes. And with the installation of a Xerox Versant 280 with the Adaptive CMYK Plus kit with Vivid toner and fluorescent colour options, it is able to say yes to a lot more questions.

It had said yes to the Versant 280 when Xerox outlined the features of the machine that was only released at the end of last year. The contract period on its previous Xerox, a Versant 80, was coming to and, the Versant 280 was the logical next machine. The Vivid colours, gold and silver metallics plus opaque white and clear toner along with a pack of four fluorescent toners, provide another dimension. “It seemed to be something that we should go for,” says director Stewart Byron, “and we decided to have the Free-Flow Core at the same time.”

Byron admits that getting his head around the automation that was now possible took some time and that it took further time to build the workflows that are now saving time in production. This comes after JJR was forced to make three redundancies due to the loss of work in the wake of the lockdowns.

The Dumbarton company was kept afloat through work for the whisky trade, handling the tax stamps that are required by authori-ties in countries like Italy and Spain and need application to bottles for export.

“It kept us going as demand for print died away. Since then print has come back quite well, and the Versant has allowed us to offer more,” he continues.

“The white option was really import for us as we produce a lot of window stickers and cling films. We expect demand for fluores-cents on posters to come from play zones and night-clubs when these are allowed to open again. It’s what we could not do before.

“We like to print on different substrates, never-tear papers for menus for example.”

The new machine makes it easier for the company to print vinyls to floor sticker and thousands of stickers and labels that are cut out on the company’s F-Mark plotter. The FreeFlow Core is also proving its worth. Byron gives on example where a customer needed some larger posters from 12 A4 PDFs. These were resized in FreeFlow

and preflighted, saving time and avoiding mistakes.

The majority of customers come from the region and wider in Scotland, though work can end up throughput the UK, one of the customers being a wholesale catering supplies company. It looks for the sorts of jobs that are impractical for the large online trade print-ers to handle, small, awkward with plenty of embellishment and as far from standard four-colour process as possible, foiled swing tags or vouchers and boxes, for example. It can handle very small runs and prototypes using an F-Mark digital cutting unit. Byron calls it a cheap little machine, but it has opened a market that simply did not exist five or ten years ago and has paved the way for a future investment in a larger and more productive machine. A larger foiling laminator has been a more recent investment he adds.

For JJR it is very much about the value it can add to a piece of print through embel-lishment in finishing or at the print stage, where the Versant 280 is key. It keeps watch on trends that appear on social media and uses these channels, though not as yet its own online store, to find customers and to sell print. “We watched a webinar video from Xerox that was very interesting and all about how to sell, and upsell by showing customers what can be done a bit better – how appli-cation of metallics can transform something that is no longer just another leaflet,” Byron says. That webinar, Applications Now and Next and Beyond, remains available on the Xerox website.

While it only takes 15 minutes to remove CMYK toners and to replace them with one of the additional colour racks (remembering to register the change at the Fiery DFE), the company tries to batch jobs to minimise the number of times that this has to happen.

It is not all about added value and embel-lished print. The Versant 280 has helped the business with the more run of the mill work. Alongside the extensive finishing options, it retains letterpress printing and has two two-page Ryobi presses. “We do a lot of mail merge work through the Xerox and it simply eats up smaller runs – and we do a lot of those.” n

Stewart Byron says he was inspired after watching a Xerox webinar on possibilities with the additional colours possible.


LARGE FORMAT INFORMATION/TECHNOLOGY

Imageco takes next step Imageco takes next step on green journeyon green journeyIMAGECO HAS completed the installation of solar panels on the roof of its Holbeck premises in Leeds, a stride on its path to become a fully sustain-able business. It has switched to a renewable energy supplier and installed a voltage optimiser along with the solar panels.

Combined, the moves will cut the display print compa-ny’s output by 30,000 tonnes of carbon a year. This was a key suggestion from consul-tancy Planet-U Energy when managing director Nathan Swinson-Bullough approached

the business. “This has been on my mind for three years, since watching Blue Planet,” he says. “It started off by trying to use renewable media, replacing PVC where possible. Then I spoke to Planet-U about voltage optimisation to save energy and they suggested looking at solar panels.” However, the factory’s main roof proved not to be suit-able, so 84 units have been added to a flat roof, an installation that he says was only completed in the last month.

The consultancy has calcu-lated that Imageco could save

up to £225,000 over five years in total. This includes the first commercial installation of the HP Latex 800 printer. This has replaced a Durst Lambda with a considerable drop in energy consumption. It also runs a Latex 570, Vutek R2R 3.2 metre wide printer, Durst Rho 3200 and Zund cutter.

The company is already offsetting its carbon through Forest Carbon with tree plant-ing initiatives in Yorkshire. “For every 10m2 of print produced we will plant a tree,” says Nathan Bullough. “I have an electric

car and we are getting ready to be certified for ISO 14001with a target to plant 500 trees.

“This has been a personal journey to date: now it’s about educating staff to do the right thing, recycling and more. Our waste provider promises that nothing goes to landfill.”

Imageco is printing wall graphics on recycled PET mate-rials, recycled lightbox fabrics, polypropylene and Kavalan to replace PVC for banners. And there is work with Drytac to come up with further sustain-able display materials.

Precision Pro Precision Pro opts for recycledopts for recycledPRECISION PROCO IS using UFabrik Eco for large format panels and walls coverings. The material is made from yarn produced from single use PET bottles, and costs no more than the non recyclable alternative. A global sportswear client that has been pushing suppliers for more sustainable solutions with the CMYUK supplied material key to meeting this expectations.

Precision Proco is also using more eco friendly materials for paper boards and halving the thickness of acrylic boards for signage to cut its impact.

Next step for the business will be to evaluate Kavalan as a material that can replace the use of PVC in banners.

Robot handling Robot handling boost for Onsetboost for OnsetFUJIFILM HAS developed additional robotic automation options for the Inca Onset X high speed inkjet printer family.

The options cover a semi-automatic version with manual loading and automatic offload-ing and version which uses robots for both ends of the process.

“The new automation options available with the Onset X HS range are the result of close collaboration with our current Onset X customers,” says Matt Brooks, head of products and solutions at Inca Digital. “Longer run, full automation is becoming more and more common, and with the intro-duction of highly sophisticated robotic arms from ABB and Inca’s sheet pick up technology, our Onset X customers can now produce extremely high volume, high quality print work in even less time.”

This gives users the choice of four styles of automation, two as above with a system specific to corrugated board and a Dual

Flex system that can switch between robot and manual handling.

The first machine to this specification, an Onset X3 HS has gone into operation at ImageData group’s Howden factory.

Second Perfecta Second Perfecta in Coventryin CoventryBTP CRAFTSCREEN HAS installed a Baumann Perfecta 168 guillotine to handle both screen and digitally printed large format work.

This is the second Perfecta 168 at the Coventry business and replaces an ageing Dexter Lawson machine.

“We already had a Perfecta so investing in a second system was the natural choice when it was time to replace the Dexter Lawson,” explains director

Russell Inglis. “It was getting to the point where we wouldn’t be able to get parts for the older guillotine. We have work on both systems all the time and couldn’t afford to not have them both running.”

Durst trials new Durst trials new style dye substyle dye subDURST HAS RELEASED the P5 Tex ISub, a large format dye sublimation inkjet press with the transfer step incorporated into the machine.

The machine is aimed at soft signage rather than other parts of the textile spectrum. This is expected to show a 60% growth from 2017 to 2023, driven by the need to meet environmen-tal goals that are pushing PVC materials to one side.

The P5 is a 3.3 metre wide rollfed machine and the new version fires the Sublifix ink with a contactless fusing step to prevent bleeding or blurring of ink on contact with the textile substrate. The new machine is currently undergoing field testing in Italy. n

Precision Proco is adopting

recycled substrates in

its large format operation in

Sheffield.

ImageData is the first with Inca’s Dual Flex handling technology.


TRADE SERVICES OUTSOURCING

Cimpress reports post Cimpress reports post pandemic pickup for Vistapandemic pickup for VistaCIMPRESS HAS NOTED A pick up in orders in areas where pandemic lockdown restrictions have started to ease, prompting CEO Robert Keane to express his optimism that the mass customisation giant to poised to ride the wave as economies emerge from Covid.

And that optimism is being backed by an order with HP Indigo for a fleet of new machines, many the top of the range Indigo 100K B2 model.

In the company’s Q3 report, Keane says that lockdowns last year had a “severe impact” on the business with a steep decline in demand. Now with signs of life returning, he says: “Cimpress is positioned to succeed in a post pandemic world. Today I am even more confident of that post pandemic future.”

There is no indication where the unpublicised fleet of Indigo presses will be installed, though more than half will be installed this year, the company says. At Drupa 2016, Cimpress announced an order for 12 HP Indigo 12000 B2 machines, at the time the largest order for the digital presses. Unsurpris-ingly Cimpress is the largest user worldwide of the liquid toner press.

“Over the past decades, HP has been instrumental for our growth, not only in volume, but also in capabilities,” says Keane.

Unsurprisingly, the 100K was developed with companies like Cimpress in mind, says HP Indigo general manager Haim Levit. “We collaborated closely with Cimpress as we developed the HP Indigo 100K, in order to ensure it addresses market needs for high automation and

volume to deliver personalised products.”

The order comes after exten-sive testing of the 100K’s resilience and automation during the seasonal peak at the end of last year.

In terms of a return to growth, Cimpress has reported a 10% increase in Vistaprint’s business in Australia where lockdown restrictions have eased in Q3, while in the same three months at the start of this year, EU sales fell 7% compared to a year ago, before many of the restrictions were imposed. In all Vistaprint’s revenues were 5% down year on year, with US business not as badly affected as Europe. It hopes to expand Vistaprint sales through development of new products and a revamp of the company’s websites.

Packaging Packaging opportunity opportunity grows in grows in GermanyGermany THERE IS AN INCREASE in online sites specialising in packaging in the German speaking markets. The country had led the way in online print and looks to repeat this with online purchase of labels and packaging.

Among them is packaging-warehouse.com, a site which sources all types of packaging from suppliers around Europe covering labels to corrugated, bags to cartons. It has been set up by brothers Nils and Lasse Harder.

Another, Sourc-e, has won investment support from digital agency Nexum. It too uses technology to select the most

appropriate supplier from a range of different converters based on suitability, location and price.

Sheetfeeder for Sheetfeeder for short runs at short runs at SolopressSolopress

SOLOPRESS HAS ADDED a Horizon digital sheet feeder to cope with volume of booklet work produced on its HP PageWide T250 inkjet presS.

The promise of the inkjet press was always about faster turnaround on litho quality work with finishing located alongside the press as well as further round the Southend industrial estate in a separate building for finishing.

The reels from the HP press, printed using the Brilliant Inks

for printing on coated as well as uncoated papers, are fed to a Hunkeler line for sheeting and stacking. These can now be fed via the HOF400 feeder into the booklet making line.

Head of operations Jack Clifford says: “We wanted something that would help us stitch the short runs from the new HP PageWide T250. We easily manage the long runs with our existing machinery. For short runs we were spending more time setting up the stitcher than running it.

The HOF400 allows us to manage these shorter runs more efficiently by loading collated sets with many different titles.

“It also gives us the flexibility to either complete jobs using the HOF or the hoppers. If there is a run with a high page count it makes more production sense to use the hoppers. If it is a small

pagination then it is best to run it through the HOF400.”

Event Event rescheduledrescheduledTHE ONLINE PRINT Sympo-sium, the leading conference for the online print sector, has been postponed from June until September.

The event in Munich will be the ninth staging of the two day event. This year the event will include a number of Insight Pitches where start up and early stage companies can present their business cases.

While the event has a strong German focus, it has included presentations from the UK. This year the conference takes place in the Design Offices Munich Atlas building on 14-15 September. n

HP Indigo has long been a mainstay of production at Cimpress subsidiary Pixart.


INFORMATION/TECHNOLOGY SUSTAINABILITY

BPIF appointment boosts BPIF appointment boosts environmental effortsenvironmental effortsANTHONY ROWELL HAS been named chair of the BPIF’s revived environmental forum. And the development direc-tor of Tradeprint says he is delighted.

“I’m super excited to be the chairman of the BPIF environ-mental forum” he says. “I was involved the first time around, recruited then by Dale Wallis when the push was led by David Shorto, Clare Taylor and Richard Osborne at Pureprint.” The last two are still involved.

“There’s definitely some momentum to this, inspired by people thinking differently as we come out of lockdown, environ-

mental issues and sustainability are to the fore.”

The idea to reinvigorate the BPIF’s forum on sustainability gained pace last year leading to the decision to create a steering group covering consultants like Taylor and Matthew Peacock, suppliers and printers across the sector. The aim is to high-light and promote best practice, identify areas for specific improvements and to position print as best in class for environ-ment and sustainability.

Those participating will be able to show that their organisation is involved in managing environmental and

sustainability issues, is involved in educating the supply chain while also identifying industry specific environmental issues.

Rowell has previously worked at Polar Print and Pureprint where the legacy of environ-mental leader Beacon Press continues. At Tradeprint he is part of Cimpress, the mass customisation giant that is aiming to be carbon neutral across its entire business of 60 locations worldwide by 2040.

While not trained in envi-ronmental science, Rowell has a library of books on the subject and is passionate about the issues. “I believe people

and businesses will reprioritise their approach to these topics,” he says. “It is crucial that we embrace and drive positive change through active collabo-ration in our industry.”

Participation will not be limited to BPIF members. Contact has already been made with the IPIA, Rowell says. One of the priorities will be to build a road map for a simplified pathway to improved environ-mental performance without this becoming over complicated. “It has to be administration light,” he explains. “And we want members from a broad section of the industry.”

MacroArt makes MacroArt makes large print large print pledgepledgeMACROART HAS PLEDGED to reduce environmental impact across all aspects of its busi-ness after commissioning Green Circle Solutions to carry out a ‘top to bottom’ review of the display print company’s envi-ronmental credentials.

This will ensure that the recommendations and actions to reduce its impact will have real teeth rather than an unsubstantiated statement of intent. These result in quantifi-able targets that the company is publishing as Macro Eco.

“It’s only by using third-party objectivity that you can be clear on your real starting point and therefore your destination,” says managing director Michael Green.

“So many businesses have misconceptions of just how green they are, but we wanted to know the truth so we could plan for effective change and know

the impact each implementation would have.”

Macro Eco includes a commitment to be able to assess the true environmental impact of the materials that it uses, including the growing number on PVC substitute products that can sometimes come with “difficult to substantiate green credentials”.

Starting point for the St Neots business is a 2019 base-line figure of 2kg of CO2e per square metre of printed media. It anticipates reaching a peak emission of greenhouses gases in 2022 through organic growth in the business after which volumes will diminish in line with the targets it has set.

It has already pledged to offset the level of emissions through carbon capture schemes as well as working with customers tow ensure that sustainability does not end at the factory door. The commitment has become central to the way the business operates. Says Green: “Sustainability is not an option for companies in this day and age – it’s a must do.

CarbonCo on CarbonCo on balance targetbalance targetCARBONCO IS CONFIDENT that it will hit a target of having 50 carbon balanced printers in the UK by the end of the year.

Currently 24 UK print-ers have this status through CarbonCo, says its sales director Greg Selfe. “We fully expect to have 50 by the end of the year. And we only had 12 in Novem-ber last year. The interest has gone pretty crazy in the last couple of months.”

Avery Dennison Avery Dennison makes zero makes zero promisepromise

AVERY DENNISON has set a net zero carbon emission target by 2050 for itself. It has also set a range of targets for 2030, including the expanded use of recycled or renewable content in its label materials. Self adhesive substrates have proved troublesome to date. By

2030 Avery Dennison pledges to deliver innovations to advance the circular economy; to reduce environmental impact and make a positive social impact by improving the livelihoods of people and communities. Specifically this means respon-sible paper sourcing, working to enable liner and matrix recycling globally and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 75% compared to 2015. n

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PROFILE COVER STORYINFORMATION/TECHNOLOGY PAPER

Portals expands with Portals expands with Fedrigoni dealFedrigoni dealPORTALS, ONE OF THE UK’s leading paper making businesses, has agreed terms to buy the security products division of Italian papermaker Fedrigoni.

The Verona based group is selling a security foils and threads business operating from Bollate along with its staff and other production machinery, currency and passport papers from Fedrigoni’s Fabriano division.

It brings these elements, crucial to banknote and secu-rity paper production, into Portals’ hands for the first time. CEO Ross Holliday says: “The acquisition of Fedrigoni’s secu-rity thread and foil business

will mark a major step forward in Portals strategy to bring improved innovation to our customers for banknote, pass-port and security papers.”

The deal amounts to two separate but interlinked trans actions. Both should be completed by the end of the year. The purchase of the Bollate foil and thread business is separate to the acquisition of assets from the Fabriano opera-tion, which will come after the first deal is completed.

“This transaction will enable Portals to develop and deliver more quickly and efficiently, the leading security products our customers require,” says Dr Halliday. As a result Portals

will take on responsibility for around 100 employees in Base, a new company created for the purpose.

The acquisition of some machine and assets from the Fabriano factory will not involve employees who remain with Fedrigoni to develop its art and drawing papers business. The Italian company plans to expand this arm of its business.

Portals has investment plans for the business, involving what it calls “an integrated innovation strategy” with expanded capac-ity for the Italian operation.

The Portals paper complex is located at Overton near Andover. The company was the subject of a management

buyout from De La Rue in 2018 backed by private equity group Epiris valuing the business at around £68 million.

Fedrigoni was also acquired by a private equity group, Bain Capital in this case. It has since been reshaping the group into a value added paper producer.

Among these is a new set of papers for HP Indigo presses. This is a collection of 28 papers across coated, uncoated papers and uncoated whites.

A swatch book includes samples printed with HP Indigo additional colours, fluorescents, silver, premium white and more.

The papers are available for all HP Indigo presses including the Indigo 100K B2 press.

Stora plans Stora plans further closuresfurther closuresSTORA ENSO IS TO reduce its paper production by 35% with the closure of two mills, includ-ing the last machine in the group producing coated papers.

It intends to close the Kvarns-veden and Veitsiluoto mills this year, removing 1,355,000tpa of paper production. This decision follows the conversion of the Oulu mill at the end of last year from coated papers to packaging papers at the end of last year.

Kvarnsveden has two paper machines producing 565,000tpa of SC papers, Veitsiluoto runs three machines, two producing woodfree uncoated papers and one for coated papers.

Both have been loss making and with little prospect of an increase in demand across Europe, exacerbated by the pandemic period, the company sees no prospect of improvement.

The decision will leave Stora

with 2.6 million tpa of news-print, SC, book and office papers at seven mills across Europe. The closures are anticipated for Q3 this year and will cut the company’s sales by €600 million.

Mondi covers Mondi covers carbon footprintcarbon footprintMONDI IS OFFERING a range of carbon balanced uncoated papers from its Neus-iedler mill in Austria. The paper maker is offering to offset the carbon generated from any of the papers the mill produces, adding to the Color Copy and Nautilus brands that have been carbon balanced for ten years.

Now Mondi’s premium uncoated grade, Pergraphica, is added to this line up, follow-ing work with Climate Partner. The company reckons that the carbon emissions generated in paper production account for 50-75% of the total emissions in a finished book.

Antalis revamps Antalis revamps OlinOlinANTALIS HAS relaunched its Olin uncoated paper range with a design produced by Dutch agency Design&Practice.

There is a new sample book, redesigned logo and simplified grouping to increase the appeal of the paper to designers.

Thus the regular, rough and

smooth ranges become Olin Design.

The samples book, or inspi-rational tool as Antalis dubs it, shows off the way that the papers can be used with print, foil, embossing and other value added finishing techniques. The range acquires 300gsm, 450gsm and 400gsm boards for some packaging applications, folders, stationery, and book covers. n

Antalis has given a new look to its Olin uncoated paper range while increasing the number of papers offered.

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PEOPLE WHO, WHAT AND WHERE

Daniel Karadza brings Daniel Karadza brings experience to Opus Trustexperience to Opus TrustDANIEL KARADZA has joined Opus Trust Commu-nications as head of customer relationships and development. Karadaza is a former Royal Mail senior manager.

His appointment comes on the back of a £4 million round of investment in the omnichannel communications business which will boost its digital messaging capacity and capability.

Sales and marketing direc-tor Richard Farmer calls the recruit “a great example of the high quality of people that we are attracting. We are committed to ensuring that

each of our clients benefits from the greater efficiencies, cost savings and profitability which can be achieved by utilising our OpusCX communication platform.”

For his part Karadza says: “Having worked across key industry sectors for over a decade, I’ve seen first hand just how valuable an agile and adaptable approach can be, especially when operating in such a fast paced and competi-tive marketplace.

“I am looking forward to calling upon my own exper-tise to strengthen the passion

and commitment Opus Trust already shows to its clients and their customers.

“I strongly believe that collaboration is the key to success, and this will form a key part of my role in helping Opus Trust continue to be the partner of choice in critical communications.”

The Leicester company oper-ates across the services sector, finance, construction, travel and leisure sectors, producing statutory communications as well as transactional documents under conditions of security and confidentiality.

Lakin joins Bobst Lakin joins Bobst for labelsfor labelsSTEVE LAKIN HAS joined Bobst as sales manager for the label market in the UK and Ireland. This covers interests in flexo, digital and combination presses.

He was previously in a similar position for Konica Minolta growing sales of its Accu-rioLabel digital presses. Lakin will report to region business director Craig Moran who says: “Steve is joining us with many years’ experience and knowledge of the label print-ing industry. We see excellent opportunities in the UK & Ireland and Steve’s appointment

represents our commitment to help label converters to optimise their production floor.”

Burdge moves Burdge moves in as Interket in as Interket shakes upshakes upLABEL PRINTER Interket UK has reorganised its management team to prepare for a next phase of growth, with Simon Burdge joining the company as produc-tion manager.

He has experience across the industry in production, opera-tional and technical roles for the likes of Skanem, Sparkprint and most recently at Reflex Labels. His appointment is one of a number of changes: sales and operations director Tim Pattison becomes UK manag-ing director after 25 years at the company; Vince Hughes takes on a product development role as operations manager.

Pattison says: “I am aware of Simon’s industry success in colour management projects delivered across many sites for

Skanem. The ability to manage such a complex challenge did not go unnoticed.”

Pang joins Picon Pang joins Picon CouncilCouncilANDREW PANG, managing director of Koenig & Bauer UK, has joined the 12-strong Picon Council, the body that deter-

mines the strategy for the trade body representing the suppli-ers to the print, packaging and paper industries.

Pang says: “I want to be able to support Picon and the industry moving forward and joining the Council will help me to do that. I would like to see Picon continue to support “new blood” and to promote the printing industry as an excit-

ing and resilient industry. The pandemic has shown just how dependent the world is on our industry.”

The press manufacturer has been a member of Picon for 20 years with Pang representing its interests as a member since 2013.

Potts promoted Potts promoted threesomethreesomePOTTS PRINT (UK) HAS promoted Beck Owen to be deputy director within the corporate service division. She joined the Cramlington business five years ago moving from sales and compliance before achieving promotion to the new position.

Sandy Vassallo becomes head of logistics, again having been with the company for five years. Melissa Couch becomes customer services manager after three years with the business. She already has extensive expe-rience in estimating and account management and will focus on customer retention in her new role. n

Daniel Karadza.

Andrew Pang.

Steve Lakin.

www.paper.co.uk

For more information contact your local Premier branch or email [email protected]

Strong by Name, Strong for Nature

CKB Carrier, the strong multilayer kraft back board is now available in the UK from Premier.

You can rest assured that with CKB Carrier from Premier, your bottles, your brand and the environment are all in safe hands.

Next day delivery on stock items, split pallet service available at no extra charge.

● Increased tear resistance ● High bending sti� ness ● High tensile and burst strength ● FSC® certifi ed ● Carbon Captured from source ● Recyclable with household waste ● Plastic-free

Strong for Nature

CKB Carrier, the strong multilayer kraft back board is

Strong for Nature

CKB Carrier, the strong multilayer kraft back board is

CKB Carrier A4 ad 3-21 alt.indd 1CKB Carrier A4 ad 3-21 alt.indd 1 13/05/2021 10:2613/05/2021 10:26

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itted to the print industry and doubling dow

n on digital technology. O

ur focus is on m

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