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Read as it appears online at PrintAction Oct. 13, 2005

Article prepared by C. Clint Bolte, C. Clint Bolte & Associates, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. For additional information please call 717-263-5768, fax 717-263-8945, or e-mail to clint@clintbolte.com.

Executive Outlook Conference 2005

Full Automation from Bidding to Bindery

Executive Outlook was originally conceived to be a fast paced day of print technology tutorials coupled with a juried glimpse of the leading, and often, newly introduced products, couched as Must See 'ems and Worth a Looks. These were to be seen the next day at the opening of North America's largest annual printing equipment trade show at McCormick Place in Chicago. This leading continental venue, called Graph Expo, gets supplanted every fourth year by the world's leading trade show. In this case September 9-15 was Print '05 and Converting '05. The "Converting" ties in the equipment of the packaging industry, which is complimentary and supplementary to the printing industry. This eighth Executive Outlook, sponsored by NPES and organized by Bill Lamparter of PrintCom Consultants, drew a near record 243 attendees with a full 20% visiting from foreign countries.

NPES Vice President William K. "Kip" Smythe gave a kickoff of the challenges and critical economic trends confronting print in 2006. While there are a number of highly respected economists concentrating on this industry, their projections occasionally may appear to the layman to be in conflict. Smythe's reconciliation of these diverse opinions was quite insightful. For example, the Institute for Supply Managers reported the overall economy growing for the 45^th consecutive month with the exception of the printing and publishing which was among seven industries reporting declining growth. And yet the two national printing trade associations, NAPL and PIA, both report growth. U.S. Printing Ink has shown a year over year decline each of the last four years when measured in pounds of ink sold. These ink figures do not include toner and inkjet volumes being consumed by the wide format and digital printing units being embraced by printers that are diversifying. This dichotomy continues, as the Magazine Advertising trends show steady increases in dollars while count of actual Magazine Advertising Pages are flat.

Further reconciliation is explained in the structural changes in the printing industry where value-added, non-print services are being offered by printers are providing the bulk of actual growth as the changing print buyer model is increasingly using alternate communications media, which is often linked to the Internet.

Additionally offshore printing contributed to a decline of $75 million or 38% in the Printing Industry surplus in the first half of 2004. The Far East and their cheap labor originally concentrated on producing the "coffee table" books, which had elongated production schedules. As more US manufacturing has moved offshore, the packaging and label printing to hold these products has also moved out. Plus since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1993, the Canadian Printing Industry reports as much as 40% of their revenues being exported into the United States due to their more favorable currency exchange rate.

These ancillary value added services have been reported to be less than 8% of the printing industry's gross revenues in 2003, up a point in 2004 and expectations by NAPL's economist, Andrew Paparozzi, of growing to 16.7% by 2010. The trend is clear. Printers are seeking to get a larger share of their client's graphic communications spend by diversifying into complimentary services both creative and prepress all the way through mailing, fulfillment and distribution management.

Bob Kutschke, General Manager of Kodak's Business Workflow Products Group, discussed the new role of MIS as being both an internal and external focus with four objectives: first, linking CRM (client relationship management) across core business applications; second, optimizing not just automating processes such as intelligent estimating, production planning and dynamic scheduling; third, providing pro-active monitoring like real-time dashboards showing metrics when processes exceed acceptable ranges; and finally, using JDF connectivity and web-based portals to integrate customers, plant operations and suppliers. Kutschke introduced Kodak's EMS (Enterprise Management Solution) package intended to fill these management information system objectives. EMS will be comprised of leading edge third party programs and is expected to be available for beta site selection in 2006.

The printing industry has treated the IT function as an after thought. Big and small printers alike have traditionally looked at business management information systems, as opposed to application production software, as overhead rather than a strategic resource. Lamparter reflected on studies conducted by PrintCom Consulting Group that concluded there are fewer than 2,000 North American printers who had a single MIS system installed that was running on the latest software version available from the supplier and was utilizing the full compliment of software modules available. Don Goldman, Senior Project Manager for MIS supplier PRISM and moderator of this MIS panel, concluded, "If you don't make a MIS (strategic) commitment to drive your company, your company will be out of business."

IPA's President Steve Bonoff in speaking on prepress and proofing trends indicated the three primary change drivers being "shorter product life cycles driving the need for integrated marketing campaigns, promotion spending driven by ROI and globalization driving the need for more effective brand asset management." Monitor or virtual proofing is a clear trend for large magazine and catalog publishers. With dedicated proven packages costing less $2,000 soft proofing appears posed for general acceptance except for the lack of standards. Standards efforts are being compiled around ICC technology, which is at the heart of color management. Manufacturers still want to differentiate their own product offerings, which slows this standards process somewhat. Printtools.org is the one stop web site for a free monthly newsletter and the latest info specifications, standards and digital calibration tools.

Back in the early days of GATF's TechAlert Conferences, the Foundation initiated a highly successful annual digital proof comparison among most all proofing choices available. Utilizing their standard digital targets suppliers returned digital proofs that were spectrophotometrically measured against actual press proofs and, at the outset, analog contract proofs. This truly was the only way to achieve an apples-to-apples comparison of what was available. Suppliers readily cooperated despite the obvious possibility and even probability that their earlier attempts would not "grade" as well against the more mature offerings. The net result was a credible venue, which allowed the supplier community one of the fastest R&D learning curves to improving their product(s).

IPA picked up on the need for an on-going comparison by hosting an Annual Color Proofing Roundup. The objectives continued to be the same as initiated by PIA/GATF that of a systematic and accurate method to compare color proofing systems, a comprehensive independent quantitative evaluation and the best means to provide informed buying decisions. Next summer at the 4^th Roundup the suppliers will receive the digital file the morning of the conference to assure no advance tweaking.

The debate over the screening conundrum continues. Stochastic or frequency modulated screening seemed to correct the moiré effects created in certain textile images, for example, by the conventional and long standing AM screening methodology. The resulting smaller dot sizes of the initial FM efforts made proofing difficult and inconsistent as film often lost the smaller dots plus print results have frequently appeared grainy. The use of CTP brought this technology main stream though did not totally eliminate the press problems. The latest technology generation, called concentric screening, is offering greater press latitudes by keeping the proven AM modulation in the midtones and using the FM algorithms in the finicky highlights and shadow areas. This has resulted in increased fidelity and easier press performance, even on web presses as the 255 lpi screens still deliver 28-31 micron dot sizes to the squeeze-happy web presses.

CTP is a mature proven technology with only the last remnants of the smaller volume plate users to come on board. If you believe that myth, you would have been sobered by British Consultant Andrew Tribute's assessment of the dynamism of CTP developments. In fact the latest generation of processless plates coupled with the ever cheaper violet diode lasers has spurred on the next generation CTP devices and the resulting replacement market surge. The leading 8-up devices at the turn of the millennium were putting out a very acceptable 8 plates and hour. The current generation is at least 20 plates an hour with leaders reporting 40 plates an hour.

In addition to the chemistry cost savings of the processless plates, the basic CTP market for plates has brought those prices down and near par with the old conventional analog plates. In fact the price war on plates being created by CREO was one of the motivating forces behind Kodak's purchase of that flagging enterprise this past year.

Many of the processless thermal plates can be imaged in the first generation CTP devices but the increased heat and intensity required results in a 25-40% slow down factor in throughput. The next generation processless violet plate can also be imaged in many of the earlier models but with no degradation of speed.

The Fulfillment & Mailing State of the Art was presented by Graphic Communications Weekly Editor Gail Nickel-Kailing. She suggested that the CMO magazine (cmomagazine.com) has frequent articles on trends in marketing expenditures, which would benefit both of these ancillary services.

Article prepared by C. Clint Bolte, C. Clint Bolte & Associates, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. For additional information please call 717-263-5768, fax 717-263-8945, or e-mail to clint@clintbolte.com.

Print 05 Executive Outlook - a featured SEYBOLD BULLETIN article
Read as it appears online at Seybold Bulletin Vol. 10, No. 50 | September 21, 2005