Duplo USA

BY CHRIS BAUER The whole point of on-demand printing is to get the customer his or her print order in a short amount of time. So you have an army of 100+ ppm printing devices and you can churn out short-run, digital documents like there is no tomorrow. That is all well and good, but customers are looking for finished documents—books that are bound, brochures that are folded and marketing materials that are cut, slit and punched. Out of necessity, digital and on-demand printing has become more and more popular in the commercial printing world. According to CAP Ventures' 2000-2005 U.S. Print On Demand market forecast, print

BY CAROLINE MILLER In the world of saddle stitchers and bookletmakers, machinery is king. "The emphasis is on the equipment," reports Ron Bowman, vice president of sales and marketing for Rosback. Ease-of-use, automation, reliability, flexibility, versatility and productivity are just a few of the advances touted by saddle stitcher and bookletmaker manufacturers these days. Many of these innovations have come as a result of the growing industry trend of putting relatively unskilled employees in the bindery, while still demanding that the products they produce be as perfect as possible, reveals Bowman. Rosback offers the Setmaster Stitch/Fold and Trim bookletmaker, an in-line or off-line unit

BY MARK SMITH In this age of computers, flatbed scanners and color desktop printers, it's easy to forget that not every document is readily available as a digital file, nor does every piece have to be printed in four-color to be effective. These are just two of the reasons why color copiers and digital duplicators, respectively, continue to be productive tools in the "print-for-pay" market segment. While they fit slightly different applications, both product categories can be considered entry-level digital printing systems from a price standpoint. Color copiers is the harder category to pin down in terms of target markets and applications. Manufacturers already

BY CHRIS BAUER The anticipation is over. PRINT 01 has come and gone. Printers from around the U.S. have headed home—although, for many, actually getting home after the terrorist attacks wound up being even more eventful than the show—with a full plate of information to digest after spending several days on the show floor in Chicago. But distributors of collating equipment are banking on the PRINT show as being the appetizer that whet the appetite of printers hungry for collating gear. The equipment offered today includes a full menu of features and options to satisfy all of the industry's yearnings. "The hot buttons

BY ERIK CAGLE If it is September, this must be Chicago. Change is in the air, and where else but the Windy City is more apropos for taking a reading of this change? It is a special year for the graphic arts industry, as it seems to be in transition. Layoffs have rocked many of the big printers as a swooning economy has touched all. Manufacturers are crossing their fingers in the hope that PRINT 01 is successful; some have gone as far to call this a "make-or-break" show in light of some poorly attended trade shows this year. Manufacturers, suppliers, printers, trade finishers,

BY ERIK CAGLE You won't see Jim Hopkins' face on the cover of Fortune magazine. His commercial printing company, Hopkins Printing, isn't likely to challenge Quebecor World, R.R. Donnelley or any other top 10-performer as an industry sales heavyweight. Hopkins Printing manages to fly under the radar screen, and chances are you've never heard of the 27-year-old, Columbus, OH-based establishment. Then again, Hopkins Printing has never laid off massive numbers of employees. You won't see any major restructuring because of missed quarterly revenue reports or disappointing stock valuation performances. His upper management team isn't a revolving door. There are no angry shareholders, no elimination

BY ERIK CAGLE The evolution of book publishing has some parallels with that of the computer. Smaller and quicker are the operative words in this comparison. Before the PC became a household fixture, computers were hulking boxes with reel-to-reel tapes and other round objects that made those cute little concentric circles. And they weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, boasting the processing speed of a can opener. Book publishing was also big and scarry—1,000-page megatomes were loaded onto presses to churn out millions of copies. "War and Peace" was followed by hundreds of thousands of 500-page copies of biology books. Obviously, they

BY SCOTT POLK Eighty percent of printing jobs need finishing work, according to Duplo USA Vice President of Marketing Peter Tu. With customers demanding quick turnarounds and quality work, the bindery plays an important role in the overall printing process. This is especially true as commercial printing continues its digital revolution. "Print-on-demand has become increasingly popular among printers today," Tu notes. "It offers many benefits such as waste elimination, versatility and cost savings. It's no secret that the widespread availability of on-demand technology has expanded the capabilities of printing operations. Printers are always looking for ways to keep up with technology while

BY ERIK CAGLE Imagine a superstore that sold all makes and models of commercial printing equipment—from prepress to press and finishing gadgets. Obviously, this store would be rather large, with freight trains taking the place of shopping carts, making it a tad impractical. But that would ruin our story line. Anyway, today is your lucky day. The store is having a CMYK-light special on finishing equipment, and there are collating systems galore to be had at the right price. You take the aisle 1,700 trolley and get off in front of a procession of collating systems looking very nice in their display boxes. Cost

BY ERIK CAGLE Whatever fat existed in the adhesive binding portion of the postpress workflow has long since been trimmed away. The days of the long run are long gone. On-demand environments are everywhere, and inventories are kept as low as possible. Makeready times must make a NASCAR pit crew green with envy, and the machines must be easy to use, as quality help, like substance in this year's presidential election, is nowhere to be found. Through it all, customers are still asking for lower prices—frantically waving table-top machine money while standing in front of the floor- model machines. They can't be blamed;