Heidelberg

by chris bauer Read all about it: The latest generation of newspaper presses are more than black-and-white machines churning out The Daily Rag. Color is here to stay—and newspaper press manufacturers are providing a column's worth of features and automated functions to advance newspaper printing beyond its traditional role. "Ever increasing color expansion is an ongoing trend in the American and global newspaper market," says David Stamp, global director of marketing for Goss International. "This drives four-high tower addition projects to existing installed presses—a very topical subject in the United States in 2003." Stamp sees many of his customers investing in press enhancements to

BY MARK SMITH Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) may still be a new concept in print production, but it's a long established practice in other business sectors. The term itself actually is starting to get a little dated. The notion of a computer, per se, being at the heart of it all seems limiting. What's really being integrated is the information generated and acted upon by various systems involved in the print production process. Embedded controllers, touchscreen displays and Web browsers are as likely to produce and consume job data as is a traditional computer. The beginning point—as well as middle and end points—for all this

Safeguard Acquired by NEBS DALLAS—New England Business Service (NEBS) plans to acquire Safeguard Business Systems in a $72.5 million all-cash transaction. The cash proceeds will be used to acquire all company stock, as well as to retire revolving loans and term loans with Safeguard's financial institutions. Safeguard will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary. This is a strategic move for both companies, allowing each to create competitive advantages in the marketplace. The company employs approximately 850 people, primarily in Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Milwaukee Paper Gets KBA Press MILWAUKEE—The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has installed three new Commander presses by KBA North America. The presses

System Enables Printers to be Self-Calibrating WEBSTER, NY—Printed colors have been one of the toughest things to get consistently right because there are so many variables in the production process, whether it is digital or traditional offset. Scientists at Xerox Corp.'s Webster research center now claim to have invented and patented an ultra-fast, low-cost spectrophotometer that they expect to streamline and simplify color printing. The spectrophotometer is said to cost less than one-sixth the price of current models. It can be embedded inside a digital printer to take color measurements on each passing page in a few milliseconds. As the paper moves at

By Erik Cagle Chevy Cavalier? That's it? No Dodge Intrepid? How about a Chrysler Sebring? "The Cavalier has a CD player," noted Sarah, the Enterprise rental rep, as I finalized travel plans for the trip to RIT for the Heidelberg Web Press Lab dedication. That was all she needed to say. Seven hours in a car, at the mercy of radio stations adorning northeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York, would be wholly intolerable. When the only discernable tune is "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias, road rage kicks into high gear and you end up sitting in a fetal position in a field somewhere around Homer,

Arizona PHOENIX—In celebration of its recent 30th anniversary, Cereus Graphics held an open house in March. Drawing a crowd of more than 250 designers and marketing communications professionals, the event provided the company with the opportunity to demonstrate its new six-color Komori Lithrone S40 sheetfed press and its new seven-color HP Indigo digital press. Upon arriving, guests were asked to sign an electronic "guest book." This data was fed directly into the HP Indigo press. Five minutes later, guests were presented a set of four personalized poster calendars, each with different imagery and colors. california AUBURN—A new five-color Komori Lithrone 28 has been

By Bob Neubauer and Mike Llewellyn NEW YORK—Approximately 27,200 attendees criss-crossed the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center recently to see the latest digital printing equipment at the 10th annual On Demand Digital Printing & Publishing Conference. The exhibit hall seemed much larger this year, due in part to On Demand's co-location with the AIIM Conference & Exposition. As a result, there were 438 exhibitors, compared with 150+ at last year's show. Two of the show's largest exhibitors, Xerox and Heidelberg, had adjoining booths, with the Xerox iGen3 sitting directly across the aisle from Heidelberg's NexPress 2100. Other large exhibit areas were hosted by Canon

BY MARK SMITH To those outside the graphic arts, the end product of printing probably hasn't seemed to change all that much since the days of Gutenberg. It's still text and images reproduced on paper. The industry generally hasn't been thought of as a hotbed of innovation, at least not until lately. From the mid 1980s and carrying into the '90s, digital technology was said to be revolutionizing printing. But as Printing Impressions magazine marks its 45th year of tracking the industry, a look back over the decades shows an industry in a constant state of change. Some big, some small. It also reveals

BY MARK SMITH Rarely does the first generation of a "revolutionary" new technology live up to expectations. In software circles, for example, painful experience has taught many users to wait for version 2.0 of any new release. The saying, "Once bitten, twice shy," definitely applies. The greater the degree of disappointment, the longer the road will be to convincing potential adopters that a technology is now "real." Both stochastic/frequency-modulated (FM) screening and high-fidelity/extended gamut color separation technologies first made a lot of noise in the market during the mid '90s. Versions of each achieved some success, but both have been seen as failed technologies

SACRAMENTO, CA—Nearly 150 area printers, graphic artists and print buyers attended Heidelberg's first 2003 Digital Roadshow here recently to learn about variable data applications and on-demand printing. "The success of our road shows, this year and last, demonstrate the increasing demand for variable data printing and the growing importance of the digital printing community," explains Vahaaj Khan, director of digital product management. Digital Logistix, whose services include the production and distribution of technical publications, training manuals and direct mail programs, is one of those growing Heidelberg customers. The company has two Heidelberg NexPress color digital presses and seven Digimaster black-and-white digital presses running three