Printing Shop Talk   

How can printing firms drive results in today's down economy? Do what Xerox does: First and foremost, "stay close to your customers—especially now," advises Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, speaking at a luncheon held yesterday in Chicago. Statistics show that most companies that are able to retain 5% of their customers show a 25% bottom-line profit, she says. By contrast, the costs involved with finding and securing new customers are five times more.

Mulcahy points out that wise firms focus on cash flow and don'...Read More

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On Friday, I was one of more than 100 people "braving" 75-degree temperatures (above zero!) to attend the grand opening ceremonies of 4over, Inc.'s 50,000-sq.ft. plant in Arlington, TX, near Dallas—the $80-million trade printer's sixth manufacturing site. Some 25 employees have been hired there, with about 25 more to go. Its two new Komori Lithrone presses are up and running approximately 1,500 jobs daily already.

During a lunch of zesty Texas barbecue, I sat at a table with a handful of local small printers and brokers—all 4over customers. They told me how their businesses have been booming (especially direct mail advertisin...Read More

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If you're a short-run printer who didn't make it to Chicago for Graph Expo last month, consider heading north to Toronto next week for North America's fourth largest print industry trade show. Print World, running at the Direct Energy Centre November 22-24, bills itself as the only show in North America with an exclusive focus on shorter run printing—including large-format and variable applications.

The leading suppliers for this market all have a large presenc...Read More

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Home mortgages underwater--what's that got to do with printing? Something, I would suspect, for the small businesses that predominate in our industry. Houses are pledged, or at the very least, personal finances are assessed, when loans and leases are given. 
There are 7.2 million mortgage holders in the U.S. who owe more than their homes are worth; there are 2 million more on the verge of joining them. This is almost 25% of the total 42 million mortgages outstanding. Statistically printing firm owners would likely be found among this group. Suddenly, the line of credit gets frozen, or new credit is unavailable. That means no funding for work in progress, or the paper inventory that constitutes 40% of the typical printing job. 
Likewise, there is no capital available even for somewhat modest investments of $20,000 to $500,000 to add d...Read More

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One of the hottest (and most yummy) giveaways at the Graph Expo show last week was a buttery shortbread cookie iced with the October front-cover image from Graphic Arts Monthly magazine. Basically, the baked dough is a rigid substrate that, well, crumbles a bit. Inkjet printheads move over the tasty novelties produced at Freedom Bakery & Confections (FB&C) in California.

Paul Liu, the bakery's owner, says he had three problems with the digital inkjet printer he was using to print on cooki...Read More

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A working paper authored by three economists for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis reports that four claims about the nation’s current finanical crisis appear to be myths. The findings of the research paper, based on data up until Oct. 15, report:
•Bank lending to corporate America and individuals has not declined.
•Lending between banks has not dried up.
•Commercial paper issued by financial institutions has declined, but paper issued by nonfinancial institutions is unchanged. 
•Banks do not, as popularly believed, play a large role in channeling money from savers to borrowers. 
...Read More

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Only five days after Graph Expo, the team from GFI Innovations packed up its bus and headed west to visit printers in Iowa yesterday—first, the Quad Cities and Des Moines, then it's on to Omaha, Wichita and Kansas City, pushing westward to the Pacific Coast. (The colorful RV, shown above, made a stop at Graphic Arts Online's offices in suburban Chicago on its way out of town.)

Meanwhile, a second "Spot Color at Your Fingertips" bus is in New York and heading south, doing the East Coast leg of a national tour that started last s...Read More

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As the Graph Expo countdown continues, there is less than a week left until the print industry's big North American tradeshow gets under way in Chicago. In the past month, the editorial staff of Graphic Arts Monthly and Graphic Arts Online has been inundated with e-mail and phone calls inviting us to attend the myriad press conferences, luncheon meetings, booth tours and one-on-one interviews with exhibiting firms.

We have received U.S. mail, too, related to Graph Expo events. One of the mo...Read More

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Ricoh will launch its 90-ppm Pro C900 color digital press for production printing environments at GraphExpo. The device uses pulverized toner for what Ricoh believes will provide a wider color gamut and improved fusibility, and outputs at 1200-dpi resolution on thick paper (up to 300 gsm) and even coated stock, supporting 12.6×17.7´´ images on sheets up 13×19´´. Showing it is serious about quality, Ricoh added an inline spectrophotometer to keep color on track.
The C900 joins three other black-and-white production devices.
At its annual dealer meeting this week, the company announced it would launch eight new color systems all capable of producing 50 ppm. During the event, the company introduced the Aficio MP C2800/ C3300 and MP C4000/C5000 Series.
Ricoh also said it was working on a new open platform for its devices named "Cosmos". Stay tuned.

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Bill Shippee of  Shawnee (KS) Copy Center, Inc., a concerned printer and reader, e-mailed GAM's publisher last Friday regarding an ad insert in the September issue. The subject line of the correspondence reads 'Stooped So Low:' Says Bill:

When I received my recent copy of Graphic Arts Monthly, I noticed an insert for Next Day Flyers. Maybe they have inserted before but I never noticed. I called them to discuss having them print some of our business cards. Afterwards, I got on their website and discovered a difference in pricing, called them and found out they not only print for printers but also for the end user.

On the front of their insert it says 'Next Day for Trade,' which would indicate they are a 'trade printer.' I thought Graphic Arts Monthly was a magazine for the printing trade—[so] this...Read More

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Yesterday, I received 5.5x8.5" full-color postcard promoting digital print at next month's Graph Expo show. The personalized mailer's bold text addresses me by first name, and an image of a race car has my company name on the hood. While it's a nice touch, it's really no big deal these days.
The cool part is how the printed piece is integrated with an offer for a free gasoline card via personalized URL (PURL)—my very own web landing page: www.GraphExpoFreeGas.com/[Insert name/code&n...Read More

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Danbury, CT—Despite a recessionary economy and more severe weather threatening the Eastern seaboard, the number of customers and prospects doubled earlier this week at Pitney Bowes' fifth annual open house. Only about 150 showed up last year, but 300 people—about 55 of them from commercial printiing and lettershop companies—came to the 2008 two-day event , themed 'Production Intelligence… Live!' and held at the firm's production mail world headquarters here in Connecticut.
During tours of the 300,000-sq.ft. facility (of which 95,000 sq.ft. represents manufacturing), visitors got a preview of the high-speed mailstream 26 finishing system. Inserting up to 26,000 mail pieces per hour—that's eight ...Read More

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