Agfa Graphics

Custom-built Presses For Package Printer AUSTRIA—At the Alfred Wall package printing plant in Graz, and its sister plant in Oland at Bydgoszzcz, Poland, special versions of KBA Rapida 130 and 105 multi-color sheetfed offset presses with double coaters are now in operation. The plant in Austria received a seven-color Rapida 130 and a six-color Rapida 105; the facility in Poland has installed an identical six-color Rapida 105. All machines also have dryers. Alfred Wall prints cartons and flexible packaging for large export markets stretching mainly in Eastern Europe and the Near East. Sheetfed offset, as well as rotogravure printing and in-line rotary and

With the help of her husband, Audrey Yeats offers new technology and high-end customer service to her clients. BY CAROLINE MILLER In 1956, Audrey Yeats not only fell in love with her husband Richard Yeats, she also fell in love with printing. "When I met my husband, he had just opened up a little print shop. We used to have our dates in the print shop," Yeats remembers with a smile. Their "work dates," as Audrey refers to them, were also a time for her to learn the graphic arts trade. "Together, the two of us built the business. Slowly, we began to add one employee

BY MARK SMITH Just "to" it. With all due apologies to Nike, this play on its famous slogan seems to similarly capture the mood in the printing industry. Computer-to-plate (CTP) has become the hip, happening thing in the market. All the attention being paid to the technology makes it hard not to get the impression that everybody is to-ing it. The hoopla also makes it easy to understand why film users can sound a bit defensive when asked about their decision to stick with the tried-and-true workflow. For this community, an equally apt anti-slogan could be derived from those paternal words of wisdom, "If

BY MARK SMITH Since the early days of desktop publishing, the term "workflow" for the most part has been associated with the processing of files within prepress operations. The focus of the discussion—and product development—now is being extended forward to the customer's operation and back through the pressroom and into the bindery. Prepress and printing operations have to navigate a web of sometimes-sensitive issues when they touch on their customers' internal processes. Concerns about control, internal politics and resistance to change can present barriers to a better way of doing things. Tanagraphics Inc. in New York City strives to deepen its relationship with clients by being a

BIRMINGHAM, UK—In times like these, it's hard to look beyond day-to-day events and challenges in running a business. But, American printers would be well advised to pause a moment and consider a spring trip to the U.K. for IPEX 2002: the global technology event for print, publishing and media. The event, which only comes around once every four years, is scheduled to take place at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) from April 9-17, 2002. In terms of scope and ancillary benefits, national trade shows can't provide the same experience of a major international event. Based on commitments made to date, IPEX 2002 is

BY MARK SMITH A first-time buyer recently posted a message on the CTP Production forum seeking recommendations for "CTP systems" to investigate. The quote marks are important because the term itself sparked a divergent thread in which the question of what CTP means was explored. This discussion started with a response suggesting the buyer consider the Rampage solution, since it produces plate-ready files. A rebuff quickly followed, asserting that Rampage was not a "system," meaning a piece of hardware capable of writing an image to a digital plate. That, in turn, led to a series of exchanges about whether CTP refers to any

The show must go on. The spirit behind that old saying resonated through the halls of McCormick Place during the later days of PRINT 01. The show remained open for its entire scheduled run, even though the level of activity did drop significantly after Tuesday morning. The mood and topics of conversation though, understandably, turned away from graphic arts industry issues to the horror of the terrorist attacks. "Prior to September 11th, in spite of the weak economy, PRINT 01 was attracting good attendance, and exhibitors reported steady and serious buying activity across all product types and sizes," reported Regis J. Delmontagne, president of

Setting the Toner ROCHESTER, NY—This town might seem an unlikely place to be ground zero in the next big battle for dominance of the color digital printing market. That is, until one takes into account the city is the corporate hometown of NexPress Solutions LLC and Xerox Corp. PRINT 01 brought a temporary shift in the battlefield to Chicago, setting up a head-to-head bid for attention between the NexPress 2100 and FutureColor digital presses. (For its part, Xerox contends that its DocuColor 2000 Series is the true competitor to the NexPress.) In preparation, both companies decided to launch advance campaigns by inviting members of

BY MARK SMITH Adopting a computer-to-plate (CTP) workflow is as much about buying into a technology and process as it is purchasing products. Visible laser systems can lay claim to having created the product segment. However, it really took the introduction of thermal technology for CTP to gain mainstream acceptance, at least in the North American market. Now violet systems are causing a stir and generating a bit of controversy. More on that later. While product offerings continue to grow, key decisions made by CTP buyers early on still can dictate their subsequent product options. Typically this process begins with the selection of

BY MARK SMITH The basic concept has been given many names. Digital Smart Factory. CIM—computer integrated manufacturing. CIP4—International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress. Or, you can simply call it "process automation." Welcome to system integration in the digital age. The terminology alone is confusing enough. System integration used to be a fairly straightforward problem in the graphic arts arena, even if productive solutions were sometimes hard to come by. The challenge was to get different pieces of electronic prepress equipment to communicate and work together efficiently in a unified workflow. While the digital revolution was redefining the front