SUPPLIER news

Open House Showcases Affordable 4-up Process Color Printing RYE, NY—Mitsubishi Imaging held an open house at its Mitsubishi Center for Education demonstration center to welcome its new four-up Ryobi 780E press, and to show how profitable four-up process color printing can be achieved by small- to mid-size printers when used in combination with Mitsubishi’s DPX 4 Eco platesetter and Silver DigiPlate polyester plates.

At KBA North America, Ulrich Wicke has joined the company’s web press sales team at its new headquarters in Dallas. In other company news, three departments at the KBA sheetfed offset manaufacturing facility in Radebeul, Germany—the customer center, the training center and the test printing plant—have all merged under the responsibility of the sales department. Dirk Winkler has been tapped to head the company’s new print technology department.

Aaron Buch has joined Secap as dealer sales manager responsible for the company’s Western sales territory. He now reports to Marc Mermel, Western region vice president.

Flint Group has restructured from a product line orientation to a market orientation, allowing customers a single sales contact, supported by technical support. Bill Miller, president, Inks Americas, has been named president of Print Media North America; Dennis Wolters, president, Day International, will retire the end of June; and Dr. Dirk Aulbert is now head of the Flint Group’s new global packaging and narrow web inks and coatings division.

Greg Kukla was promoted to Midwest regional sales director at Mitsubishi Lithographic Presses U.S.A.

An agreement has been reached between Pitney Bowes and RISO Inc., wherein Pitney Bowes now offers RISO’s HC5500 color ink-jet printer to customers in the United States.

ServiceAccess is the latest addition to a growing portfolio of services from the Access Group of companies, which includes PressAccess, a supplier of pre-owned printing equipment with a 12 month warranty program; GreenAccess, a mill-direct paper recycling program; and CleanAccess, an ultrasonic cleaning service for blanket washers and anilox rollers.

Manugraph DGM will now represent its products and services through a “factory direct” sales and marketing approach for the United States, thereby eliminating conventional regionalized sales territories. The company has established a new U.S. sales and marketing group at the Elizabethville, PA, factory headquarters.

Two new officers have been elected to the PrintCity Alliance’s Packaging, Commercial and Sheetfed Activity Group. They are chairman, Han Haan, manager of technical marketing and sales at Sappi Fine Paper Europe; and vice chairman, Dr. Gerald Schobesberger, executive vice president of business development, sheetfed printing systems sector, at manroland.

Competitive and flexible financing options are now available from Videojet Technologies, which has selected Direct Capital as its preferred equipment leasing provider.

Printing Industries of America has named Dan Gelbart as its 2008 Robert F. Reed Technology Medal recipient. Gelbart, the co-founder of Creo Products, has often been credited as being the father of modern computer-to-plate technology for the printing industry. The award was presented during the recent 2009 Technical Association for the Graphic Arts (TAGA) annual conference in New Orleans.

INX International Ink’s Charlotte, NC, facility is now certified ISO 14001 compliant. The Charlotte location is the second INX International plant to receive the environmental stewardship designation, in addition to its ISO 9001 certification.

In a collaboration between Muller Martini, SoftSolutions and HIFLEX, printers and binderies now have the ability to integrate their MIS functions and their postpress machines in an open architecture environment utilizing a JDF/JMF digital file workflow.

Heidelberg has donated a Prosetter 102 platesetter to Cincinnati State Community and Technical College’s Graphic Imaging Technology program.

At BCC Software, a BÖWE BELL + HOWELL company, Bob Schimek has been tapped as the new director of commercial mail solutions. He most recently served as director of commercial mail development for SAP Business Objects.

Kevin Cooper has rejoined GPA, Specialty Substrate Solutions, as a territory sales manager responsible for Southern Virginia, North Carolina, and Central and Southern Florida.

Xeikon, a Punch Graphix brand, and Prism have entered into a joint referral partnership program. Through the partnership, the digital press manufacturer will be able to offer Prism’s management information solutions to key vertical markets, including labels and packaging.

Six new dealers have been added to MGI USA’s U.S. network. They include: The Oldham Group, Graphco, Paper Handling Solutions, Guaranteed Service & Supplies (GSS Graphics), Print & Finishing Solutions and Ken Williams Graphic Consulting. The six new MGI dealers cover territories including San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco; Ohio; Kentucky; Western Pennsylvania; Wisconsin; Illinois; Missouri; Georgia; Tennessee; North Carolina; and South Carolina.

Print Industries Market Information and Research Organization (PRIMIR) recently announced its 2009 executive committee. Officers include: chairman, Tamara Pope, director of marketing at Transcontinental Inc.; vice chairman, Andrew Gordon, manager of business intelligence at Océ North America; president, William “Kip” Smythe, vice president of NPES; and secretary, Jacqueline Bland, managing director of PRIMIR. Other members include: Paul Jaynes, marketing manager of Eastman Kodak; Mike McLean, vice president of business development, Day International; Michael Troy, marketing and sales administration manager at Fujifilm Graphic Systems U.S.A.; Colleen Larkin Twomey, director of business development, MacDermid Inc.; and Jennifer Young, catalog/magazine segment manager at Verso Paper.

Tensor Group Chairman Martin Hozjan has also assumed the role of president, following the departure of Don Gustafson, Tensor’s former president.

David Martin has been tapped as the newly appointed newspaper national sales manager for the United States and Canada at Eastman Kodak. PI