Performance Companies

TOKYO—Following 17 years of research and development, Elcorsy announced it has sold the first production model of its ELCO 400 press, based on Elcography technology. This "electrocoagulation" process is said to turn liquid ink into gel with electric fields generated by small wires located across from the imaging cylinder. The press was installed by Toyo Ink, a technology partner of Elcorsy, and reportedly will be used to print instant newspapers at popular music shows and international sporting events, as well as personalized color schoolbooks. (www.elcorsy.com) RESTON, VA—The Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards (CGATS) has defined an open, variable-data exchange standard, called

Sara Lindsey is the new marketing coordinator for Visual Systems, Milwaukee. Loretta Nichols has been named chairwomen of Printing Industries Association of the Heartland. Nichols is president and owner of L&J Sharpgraphics, Kansas City, MO. She is the first woman to lead the association in its 114-year history. Other individuals elected to officer positions include: Eddy Watkins, owner of Watkins Lithographic, as vice chairman; Rick Seymour, general manager of Nationwide Papers, as treasurer; and Bill Carroll, owner of ArtCraft Printing, as secretary. Michael S. Wurst, president of Henry Wurst Inc., is immediate past chairman. Those elected to serve a three-year term on the board of

BY CAROLINE MILLER Performance Printing Vice President and Sales Manager Debbie Moore reaches for the bottle of aspirin less and less these days. Instead of chasing down faxes, responding to customer job queries and shuffling paper work, she is spending more time selling to new clients and building better relationships with her existing clients. Moore is one of a few commercial printers who are enabling their clients to track jobs over the Internet. A Collabria user for the past 18 months, Moore's clients—which primarily purchase collateral materials—are able to track their print jobs via a desktop Web browser. "It frees our time up.

If you know the name of a printing company that you think appears on the Printing Impressions 400 list, but you're not sure of its ranking, here's an easy way to locate that firm. Simply find the company in the alphabetical listings on this page. In addition to each company's name and headquarters location, a corresponding number appears indicating that firm's ranking on the Printing Impressions 400. ABS Graphics (Addison, IL) 400 Action Printing (Fond du Lac, WI) 353 Adams Business Forms (Topeka, KS) 96 AdPlex Inc. (Houston, TX) 102 Advance Business Graphics (Mira Loma, CA) 153 AFL Web Printing (Voorhees, NJ)

Editor's note: Company rankings for the current and previous years are based on figures reported in 2000. Therefore, companies that revised their 1999 revenues may have changed their '99 ranking as compared with the ranking that appeared in last year's Printing Impressions 500. Similarly, the percentage change in sales is calculated on the most recent information provided.2000 Ranking:Previous Year's Ranking:Company:Total Sales (millions):Previous Year's (millions):Change (%):Principal Officer:Employees:Primary Specialties:Web Offset Units:Sheetfed Offset Units:Other:Ownership:Plants:251236Color Arts, Racine, WI$26.70$26.00+3James O'Donnell235COM 100%009Private 1  2000 Ranking:Previous Year's Ranking:Company:Total Sales (millions):Previous Year's (millions):Change (%):Principal Officer:Employees:Primary Specialties:Web Offset Units:Sheetfed Offset Units:Other:Ownership:Plants:252189Sinclair Printing, Los Angeles, CA$26.60$33.06-20Robert J. Sinclair152COM 100%20160Private 1  2000 Ranking:Previous Year's Ranking:Company:Total

DALLAS—R&D at Performance Printing, a $20 million supplier of point-of-purchase (POP) and promotional marketing materials based here, indicated that lenticular printing would be a promising and profitable route to business expansion. So, when Pinnacle Trading Card Co. went "belly-up" last year and was forced to put its renown lenticular printing division on the market, the acquisition of Grand Prairie, TX-based Optigraphics seemed to be just what the Performance R&D "doctors" had ordered. Having printed various jobs for Optigraphics in the past, and knowing its reputation for innovation and technical leadership in dimensional and special-effects imaging, Performance Printing enthusiastically put in a bid for