manroland Inc.

IN GENERAL, when a best-seller hits the market, it directly or indirectly benefits the entire book manufacturing industry. The long runs clog up capacity for those fortunate enough to garner the job, and creates overflow that needs to be spread through the ranks. Take Courier Corp., of North Chelmsford, MA, for example. The 2006 trade campaign started off slowly, notes Peter Tobin, executive vice president, but developed a head of steam in late summer and early fall, leading up to the holiday push. A degree of the pickup can be attributed to publishers hanging back on reprint orders. But what really lit the fire

Digital Press Strengthens Partnership CEDAR FALLS, IA—The joint purchase of a Kodak NexPress 2100 plus digital color press and Kodak NexGlosser unit has enabled Woolverton Printing and American Color Imaging to reach new customers in the photo services market. Since the installation, John Lynch, owner of commercial printer Woolverton Printing, and Mark Lane, owner of American Color Imaging, a professional photo lab, report they have strengthened their partnership and grown their businesses. Press Added for Lenticular Work FRESNO, CA—Big3D.com Worldwide has ordered a six-color MAN Roland 500 press with in-line coating and an extended delivery. The privately held company is a leader in lenticular and three-dimensional printing

WESTMONT, IL—November 8, 2006—Wynalda Litho in Rockford, Michigan is growing larger with a six-color ROLAND 900XXL with inline coater and extended delivery. The company has over three decades of experience in commercial printing and packaging for a variety of different industries including pharmaceutical, healthcare, food, cosmetics, software and most prominently, entertainment. “These industries have very high standards for quality and require experience, quick turnarounds, specialized security, certifications and creative solutions,” Wynalda states. The new ROLAND 900 XXL was chosen to help satisfy those demands. About MAN Roland MAN Roland Druckmaschinen AG is the world’s second largest printing systems manufacturer and the world’s market leader in web

FRESNO, CA—11/07/06—Big3D.com Worldwide of has ordered a six-color ROLAND 500 press with inline coating and an extended delivery from MAN Roland Inc. The privately held company is the industry leader in lenticular and three-dimensional printing processes. The versatility of the ROLAND 500, which can handle the widest range of substrates in the industry and stock thicknesses from onionskin to 40 pt board, will be put to good use on lenticular jobs at Big3D.com. The technique involves placing special lenses over a two dimensional print, allowing the eye to simultaneously view alternating sections of multiple images. “Today’s lenticular 3D graphics are a vast improvement over the

Centenarian Printer Continues to Evolve BARBERTON, OH—Davis Printing is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The company was founded in 1906 by John R. Davis., who produced a weekly newspaper and provided printing services to the public. Today, the full-service commercial printer offers sheetfed offset and digital printing, complete bindery, mailing and fulfillment, and Web-based services. Recently, Davis Printing also acquired Merrick Graphics. Steve Merrick was named Davis Printing’s vice president of marketing and president of the new creative division, Merrick Design Group. ALABAMA MONTGOMERY—Wells Printing has installed a Sakurai 675SD sheetfed press with coater. It was purchased through dealer Independent Graphic Services.

New Additions Increase Efficiency APPLETON, WI—JP Graphics is counting on Kodak’s Prinergy workflow and a new Kodak Lotem 800 II Quantum platesetter with a five cassette automated plate loader to keep up with growth and customer demands. The midsize printer has acquired three different printing firms since 1998, including its latest acquisition 18 months ago that doubled its workforce overnight from 25 to 50 employees. CHICAGO—Hi-Liter/Inland and MAN Roland executives meet at Graph Expo to raise their glasses to the printer’s new 4x4 32-page web press destined for its Burlington, WI, facility. Brian SanFillipo has filled the new position of director of digital operations at

ST. PETERSBURG, FL—Cox Target Media is ushering in its new $200 million, 500,000-square-foot facility here with the installation of two eight-color Goss Sunday 4000 web presses with Automatic Transfer (AT) technology to produce its Valpak direct marketing products. The facility is slated to open in 2007. The non-stop print production system does not have to stop for job changeovers, and four-color job changes will be done every 12 minutes, according to Jim Sampey, executive vice president of operations for Cox Target Media. The company hopes to more than double the 20 billion targeted direct mail coupons it produces annually for the national Valpak program. “We plan

WHEN IS a commercial printing firm not a commercial printing firm? VistaPrint, of Lexington, MA, is neither fish nor fowl. Only 33 percent of its revenues are actually spent on print production. More than 34 percent is earmarked toward direct marketing. Another 11 percent is ticketed toward technology advancement. You call this a printer? Where’s the sales staff? VistaPrint doesn’t have one. Heck, it doesn’t even deal with print buyers. Yet, the company posted sales of $152 million for its latest fiscal year, a 67 percent increase over the $90 million it did the previous year. How can this be a printer?

THERE MAY have been fewer large sheetfed presses or standalone web press units on the show floor at last month’s Graph Expo and Converting Expo exhibition—especially in comparison to the PRINT show held last year—but don’t infer that this resulted in disappointing sales activity and lead generation for conventional offset press exhibitors. Quite the contrary. Even with less heavy iron dotting the landscape at Chicago’s McCormick Place South Hall, the general consensus among press manufacturers indicated it was the most productive Graph Expo event they’ve experienced since the late ’90s. Visitor traffic was brisk and serious buying activity persisted. Chalk it up to

A KNOCK frequently made against printers is that many don’t know their true costs and, as a consequence, can’t say if they’ve made money on any given job. Another way of looking at is that they don’t know the dollar value of individual jobs and customers to the bottom line. In order to know that answer, shops need to have the required infrastructure in place and an ingrained discipline throughout the company to capture and analyze the relevant data. It takes a big commitment to implement and religiously use a comprehensive Management Information System (MIS), now also called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP),