C. Clint Bolte & Associates

Coming off a difficult year, many vendors’ booths at Chicago’s McCormack Place were smaller and a few noteworthy suppliers were not displaying. Yet the mood among both manufacturer representatives and attendees was markedly improved over the recent two annual shows. While no earth shaking product or technology announcements were expected, if you were a small to medium sized commercial printer you could not help but be impressed at the number of new products being rolled out that were based upon the proven technology of the larger, big brother models launched in the ‘90s.

The impenetrable theme across aisles and among processes was fully integrated digital infrastructure and workflow leading to the ultimate goal of computer-integrated manufacturing.

An integral part of every Graph Expo is the exhaustive number of seminars available to attendees. One worthy of note was Frank Romano’s Ten Critical Trends. Here are my notes without Frank’s humor. #1. Digital Generation. Communications is expected to be more by the Internet and by watching and listening then by reading for decades to come. #2. Ubiquitous Computing. Because each technology builds on the last, there are expected to be ever more specialty computers with photoconductive inks, like an RFID application, to be applied by a printing press like device. #3. Wireless World. Integrated, multi-functional, portable and even handheld units will proliferate with many applications being free. #4. Multiple Media Marketing. Mass media and segmented media, such as cable, will lose market share to more targeted profiled media. #5. Mail Conundrum. Postage cost has surpassed the printing costs for many products. Electronic banking will drive done postage volume. #6. Stochastic Selling. Response rates will drive the unique databases that allow targeted print mail. #7. What leisure time? Free hours continue to fall. Productivity continues to climb in the U.S. yet we continue to lose jobs overseas. #8. E-everything. The purpose of direct mail will be to drive prospects to the web sites for sales. The state of Wisconsin expects to save $23 billion a year by not printing anything. It will all be on the web! #9. Pixels vs. paper. Paper will be the choice of the receiver, as a receipt for example, not the sender. A new career opportunity exists as a Data Archeologist for retrieving data from arcane storage media. #10. I, printer? Growth in printing will continue to flatten due to the Internet plus the growth of sophisticated desktop systems.

Heidelberg traditionally has the largest and first accessible booth at each McCormick Place print show. So I give them their due with a run down of their introductions. It is not insignificant how many are targeted to the small and emerging medium sized printers, which would include the in plant market. A new Print Master 52 (20” format) will fill the product void between the QuickMaster and the Speedmaster series. It is expected to be 30% less money than the Speedmaster and about 30% more costly than the QM comparably equipped. A SM 52-D with die-cutting in-line will still spill out these specialty products at 15,000 iph! An inline Probinder™ will allow Digimaster 9110 CP to produce double-loop wire comb binding in a single pass. The new Dymatrix 105 CS, formerly Jagenberg, will accurately die-cut and emboss at 9,000 sheets an hour. A unit of the 72” web width Sunday 3000/32 showed the single circumference 2X 8 pages across configuration, which will print a 32-page signature from a single web at speeds up to 100,000 iph.

KBA announced a 30% year over year increase in their sheetfed business. Part of the extraordinary growth for this German press manufacturer must be attributed to its niche applications in the packaging and specialty commercial printing markets. For example, they introduced their waterless Genius 52, available in either 4 or 5 units for a 20” product application. A new sheetfed flexo press with in-line die cutter was introduced for the corrugated market. The range of corrugated substrate is expected to be the micro E-flute up to AC-fluted double wall. The first installation of the 10,000 iph Corrugraph press will be a six-color version of the 66” by 118” machine. It will be shipped this fall to Canadian box maker Central Graphics & Container Group Ltd in Mississauga, Ontario.

A household name as a press manufacturer in the United States for over a century, actually 119 years, AB Dick is coming off six consecutive quarters of profit growth. Their success strategy is conceptually simple but difficult to implement. They want to be the single source supplier to their small printer clients. It’s one thing to provide razors and razor blades; this firm includes the shaving cream and every flavor of after-shave lotion. More than 400,000 purchase transactions averaging barely $300 were delivered out of their nine North American warehouses for overnight delivery this past year. Shop.abdick.com has accounted for 20% of this consumables volume in the 18 months that it has been open. Their revenue streams are equally divided among equipment, consumables, and service. Their dominant client segments are inplants in the federal prison industries, state governments, cruise ships, armed forces, and schools as well as franchise quick printers such as Minuteman Press and Kinkos.