Specialist Cultivates Canadian Market

While some people in the United States consider Canada to simply be an extension of our borders, Canadians will tell a different story. Beyond character, livelihood, and a different form of government, even the printing market differs.

Take, for example, the web offset market. In the U.S., there are more full-web printers that cater to segmented regional markets than in Canada, where the population is smaller and more widely spread about the country.

"Canada is different," says Doug Andres, vice president of manufacturing for Toronto-based PLM Web, part of the large Canadian PLM Group, which encompasses sheetfed printing, direct mail, media asset management, and packaging printing. PLM Web started out with eight-page (sometimes called "half-web") presses.

Andres adds, "If you're looking for a full-size web printer in Canada, there aren't a lot of choices. Our two biggest full-web printers are Quebecor and Transcontinental, which maintain 70% of the market share. The reason is that, since our population is so much smaller, many web print orders are on a national level because regional splits just aren't big enough for web offset. You have quite a few full-web plants in the U.S. because the regional print orders are big enough; in other words, one web printer can produce a long run for a single region in the U.S. No so here in Canada."

When PLM Web opened for business in 1994, its four founders joined forces with the president of PLM Group. The new division installed an eight-page MAN Roland Octoman web in 1995 and added a second Octoman in 1996.

The half-web business proved to be so financially rewarding and growth moved so quickly that PLM Web added a full-size 16-page Rotoman 22 3/4x38" web from MAN Roland and added a second Rotoman a year later.

"We understood the eight-page web business very well," says Andres. "We knew exactly which type of page size and insert size fit that press. But we realized that our half-size web market is much wider in scope than the full-web market because we print many different products, such as direct mail and freestanding inserts, and in different smaller quantities. We print a lot of digest-type books as well as small, unusual-size books such as a 4x6" book for a liquor company."

The half-size web market grew so quickly for PLM Web that adding full-web capacity was a natural progression.

However, quick growth prompted the firm to put the narrow webs and the full-size webs in different facilities: the Octoman machines are in a 63,000-square-foot plant while the Rotoman presses are in a 50,000-square-foot facility.

This summer, PLM plans to consolidate its plants into a single building with 225,000 square feet of space. "We're looking forward to having all of our presses in one site," says Andres.

Once PLM installed its first 16-page web, it filled the press to capacity in six months. After adding the second Rotoman, booking orders to fill its capacity took just two months.

"People welcomed us with open arms," recalls Andres, "because we gave them a new full-web printer option. We're known as a relationship-oriented printer in which service is our priority. We like to say that it's the difference between homecooking and fast food."

Having both half-webs and full webs did not deter the firm's growth. "At first, we were concerned that we'd erode some of the work from the eight-page presses," says Andres, "and as things turned out, some of that happened because some jobs were more efficiently produced on the 16-page webs. Still, the production gaps on the half-size webs gave us a chance to sell more work. Today, we run the Octoman webs 24 hours a day, five days a week; during our three busiest months, they operate seven days a week."

Contributing to PLM Web's high quality is its complete use of a Cymbolic Sciences computer-to-plate (CTP) system. About 70% of its clients send in digital files, while the rest still send film. PLM Web also offers an asset-based database for its clients.

Speed and efficiency have become a hallmark of PLM Web's success. "For a large financial institution, we just produced a 348-page mutual fund report in four colors with lots of graphs and charts," says Andres. "The job was so large that it was split among three printers; we printed 500,000 copies on our Rotoman press. The client gave us the disk on Thursday at 4 p.m. and we had the book completely imaged and proofed in 19 hours."

Founded in 1987 and now one of the fastest-growing commercial printers in North America, PLM Group is composed of five operating units:

–PLM Graphics, its sheetfed division;

–PLM Web, its commercial printing unit;

–PLM Imaging, which provides digital imaging technology and media asset management;

–PLM 1:1, which combines project management from experts in direct marketing and state-of-the-art technology to produce direct-mail products not available anywhere else; and

–PLM Packaging and Fulfillment, which specializes in these two areas.

PLM Web is one of seven or eight half-web printers in Canada, says Andres. "We all take the same approach, billing between $30 million and $40 million in sales, mainly located in Ontario, with a few in western Canada. At the moment, very few eight-page webs are being installed in our market, perhaps one or two new ones."

Today, says Andres, the half-size web market is much smaller than the full-web market since it caters to a particular niche. He explains, "We have competition from sheetfed printers moving into the half-web market and printers equipped with automated full-size webs, which allow them to produce some jobs usually associated with half-webs. Our own Rotoman can have a plate change in 11 to 12 minutes."

He continues, "We run our big webs six to seven days a week, much more than our eight-page webs. We've seen a general slowdown in the half-size business in the past four or five years; it's been especially difficult for half-web printers that installed their equipment in the 1970s and 1980s. The cost of an eight-page web is substantial, almost as much as a 16-page web."

However, PLM Web has been able to maintain its market share. "Operating full-size equipment has actually helped our half-web business and vice versa," concludes Andres. "We've gained access to new customers that have half-web work and we've increased our current customer base."