PRINT 05 & CONVERTING 05 -- Looking Forward to a Big Fall

BY MARK SMITH

Technology Editor

This time of year, even the most dedicated printer is far more likely to be pondering a trip to the beach than the Windy City in the fall. Nonetheless, planning for PRINT 05 & CONVERTING 05 is well under way. Billed as this year's largest industry expo for the international graphic arts community, the event is scheduled to run September 9-15 at the McCormick Place Complex in Chicago.

The Graphic Arts Show Co. (GASC), which puts on the exposition, and a group of industry vendors recently took part in a pre-show media event that highlighted coming attractions. MediaDays 2005 was organized by the Broadford & Maloney public relations firm.

Already having been a companion to Graph Expo for several years, the CONVERTING component is being added to PRINT for the first time in 2005, points out Dave Poulos, GASC's director of communications. The combined event will occupy the South and both North Halls at McCormick Place, as PRINT 01 did, and the final exhibitor list is expected to top out at nearly 800 companies.

Equipment Converges

Poulos says the show company is adopting the "DRUPA" model for this event, which means offset printing and converting equipment will share the same exhibit area, rather than the latter being in a dedicated section of the show floor. This move was driven by convergence in the marketplace, with package printers getting into commercial work and commercial shops producing packaging, he explains.

According to recent market research, 77 percent of all packaging producers expect to buy an offset press, Poulos says.

Among the highlights of the 2005 exposition will be the first RFID (Radio Frequen-cy Identification) technology display at a GASC show, he adds. Also, both the Wide Format Pavilion and Mailing & Fulfillment Center will be largest yet, with the latter exceeding the floor space of the last MailCom exhibition.

Due to the extended schedule of PRINT 05 & CONVERTING 05, the traditional all-day Executive Outlook Conference will fall on a weekday. GASC opted to continue its pattern of holding the event the day before the expo opens, which means it is scheduled for Thursday, September 8. A slate of more than 90 seminars will be offered concurrent with the show.

Along with sponsoring the Executive Outlook Conference, Xerox says it is showing its commitment to PRINT 05 by being among the top exhibitors in terms of floor space—more than 35,000 square feet. It will have a two-story booth for the first time at a U.S. trade show, notes Barb Anselm, vice president of marketing communications for Xerox's production systems group.

Industry veteran Harry Waldman will be conducting literal "overview tours" on a catwalk that will be part of the second level. They are intended to help visitors identify points of interest in the five solution areas below—unified offset and digital production, Web-to-print and print-on-demand, book publishing, personalized communications and a hybrid application Xerox is calling "promotional" transaction.

The company is looking to keep under wraps the new product announcements it has planned for the show. What is public knowledge, though, is that many attendees will be seeing the new Xerox DocuColor 7000 color printing system for the first time in September, even though it was introduced at On Demand 05. This 70 page-per-minute device is said to be built of the DocuColor 8000 platform and is intended to fill the production gap between that device and the DocuColor 6060 (both of which will remain in the product lineup).

Kodak's Graphic Communications Group (GCG) will also be among the top tier of exhibitors in terms of floor space, and may yet jump up a spot or two depending on whether or not Creo Inc. is counted as part of the whole.

In their presentations at MediaDays, it was clear that the representatives on hand were already thinking in terms of Creo being part of the group. They were careful, however, to repeatedly stress that final approval of the acquisition was still pending.

Jim Langley, president of GCG, reports management is moving quickly to integrate all of the acquisitions. Langley says distribution channels are important business drivers, since they currently account for half of the group's total revenues. He envisions implementing a unified sales force built around the account manager concept.

Langley says thermal digital plates are one of the combined organization's "leadership technologies," along with continuous ink-jet, electrophotography, proofing and color management.

Plate Market Moves

Nonetheless, the plans previously announced by Kodak Polychrome Graphics to compete in the violet digital plate arena are still on track, reports Jeff Jacobson, now president of GCG's Graphic Solutions & Services. "It's too big of a market to ignore," he muses.

Jacobson says he believes ink-jet technology ultimately will become the "next generation" of CTP solutions. In the meantime, there will be many more thermal plate platforms to come, including no-process, he adds.

Being able to offer solutions for sheetfed, web and newspaper printing is an important strength of Mitsubishi Lithographic Presses, believes Ken Kodama, vice president of sheetfed sales. The centerpiece of its exhibit area at McCormick Place, though, will be the 40˝ Diamond 3000TP (tandem perfector) sheetfed press. The company's Max-Saver waste reduction software will also be highlighted.

Challenging jobs lend themselves to long perfectors, Kodama asserts, because of the speed, efficiency and market flexibility that comes with single-pass production. Maintaining the same gripper throughout improves front-to-back registration and saves paper, he adds.

K.G. Katayama, president, used part of his time at MediaDays to provide an update on two products Mitsubishi is developing for the web offset market, even though they won't be ready for PRINT 05. The combination of the Diamond 16 Max-V variable cutoff (21.5˝ to 24.6˝) web press and Reusable Plate System (RPS) was introduced at DRUPA 04. Katayama says the press is slated for beta testing at a Japanese printer by the end of 2005, but RPS may require a "few more years" of development beyond that of the variable cutoff press.

Since being spun off from Flint Ink as a wholly owned subsidiary, Jetrion LLC continues to grow as a global provider of industrial ink-jet consumables and, more recently, printing systems, points out Dr. Kenneth Stack, president. The company is targeting four market segments, and will be making announcements for each at PRINT 05 & CONVERTING 05, Stack says.

* Mailing—environmentally friendly continuous ink-jet inks with lower VOCs and new software applications for the Series 3000 printing systems.

* Wide format & billboard—expanded color gamut (Pantone Hexachrome and light color options) and higher efficiency inks.

* Packaging & specialty—a prototype ink-jet metal can printing system.

* Labels—program for developing custom inks for individual customers based on their applications and choice of substrates.

Stack says printing systems are going to become more of a focus for the company going forward, including a super-wide printer that should be introduced sometime after the show. He expects ink-jet systems to become competitive with offset in terms of production speeds, but also to be used in tandem with conventional presses. "We are in the age of integrators because of the number of ink-jet head makers now competing in the market," the company exec adds.

Printable Technologies' roots extend back to the dotcom bubble, but it's a much different company today. Variable data printing (VDP) solutions have become one its core competencies, particularly with its acquisition of the DL Formatter VDP software family last year.

At PRINT 05, the company will be highlighting two new components and an improved user interface for its PrintOne Customer Center, all slated for release in the third quarter. This customer facing, individually branded Web portal is one of three modules in the Printable System for print e-commerce and variable document creation.

New JobExpress will give any commercial print shop a response to the "File, Print FedEx Kinko's" service that enables users to print directly from their desktops to a FedEx Kinko's Office and Print Center, says Coleman Kane, president and CEO. It is designed to be used by customers submitting one time/ad hoc jobs. The system is based on Adobe PrintReady technology to support PDF file creation and job submission using custom job submission forms.

A Team Effort

For the second component, Printable has teamed up with AccuData to add an Online List Purchase option to PrintOne. Coleman says the company has negotiated a sizable break on the setup fees AccuData usually charges new customers and is adding no markup of its own to the list fees.

Shaun Kilfoyle, vice president of Baldwin Technology, kicked off his MediaDays presentation by addressing the company's recent financial difficulties and aborted sale. He says Baldwin is now on a sound financial footing and looking to grow more aggressively—organically and through acquisitions or strategic alliances.

An example of the latter is the deal it signed earlier this year with Hildebrand Systeme in Germany for web cleaning technology, notes the company exec. In high-end catalog and publication production, the drive to reduce costs is putting increased focus on blanket washes, he asserts, since they now account for 30 to 40 percent of waste in a typical run.

Baldwin will highlight spray dampening technology—such as its LithoSpray Maxima system—at PRINT 05, Kilfoyle reveals. The company expects this technology to become more mainstream, partly as a result of web presses getting wider and faster. Next-generation spray systems will offer the same or better uptime performance as continuous dampening systems, he predicts.

Also on display will be the S-18 WebCatcher, which prevents back wrap on the last cylinder in the event of a web break. Kilfoyle suggests printers should think of investing in this device as insurance against potential damage.

In keeping with his appointment as executive director of The Print Council, Marty Maloney donated time during MediaDays for a presentation on the industry initiative to market printing as a communication medium. Maloney characterizes the effort as currently being in fundraising mode. It already has approximately $500,000 on hand in hard dollars, along with soft donations such as pro bono services from an alliance of eight (so far) industry public relations firms.

Among other accomplishments to date is official recognition of the organization as a non-profit, Maloney reports. In addition, the council has two ads ready for placement that target potential print buyers, as well as support membership recruitment with a slight modification, he adds.

Maloney says he hopes to be able to make a short presentation about The Print Council during Executive Outlook 05, and he encourages all PRINT 05 & CONVERTING 05 attendees to stop by the council's booth on the show floor.