Sir Speedy

VERNON HILLS, IL—Scheduling flexibility is what sets Aim Business Printers apart from other printers, asserts Richard Sussman, vice president and general manager. To support production of run lengths that vary from 500 to 1 million sheets, the shop installed a PlateRite 4000II thermal plate recorder and Trueflow PDF workflow from Screen (USA). It also implemented Screen's Spekta hybrid AM/FM screening technology. (www.screenusa.com) NORFOLK, VA—The Virginian-Pilot (daily circulation of 200,000 copies) has purchased two Polaris X violet-laser computer-to-plate platesetters from Autologic, an Agfa Co. (www.pilotonline.com/www.agfa.com) HOUSTON—Champagne Fine Printing is adding an HP Indigo digital printing press to assist clients in

Jim Heck has joined Copresco, Carol Stream, IL, as a production coordinator. Previously, he worked for Camera-Ready Copies. Michelle Baltazar has joined the staff of Seaside Printing, Long Beach, CA, as a corporate sales representative. She has more than 10 years of printing experience at a local Sir Speedy. Chris Feagans has been promoted to the position of executive vice president, production and operating services, at Keller Crescent, Evansville, IN. Most recently, he served the company as executive vice president, administration. In other company news, Mark Smythe has been promoted to executive vice president, client services. Smythe previously served as the company's vice president/account supervisor

STERLING, VA—Copy General, a chain of independent print shops in the Washington, DC, area, has purchased a Xerox DocuColor iGen3 digital production press. Management says the intent is to grow the organization's color production business from about 10 percent of total revenue today to 50 percent in 2004. (www.xerox.com/ www.copygeneral.com) ROCHESTER, NY—Presstek Inc. and Xerox Corp. announced the latter will no longer sell the DocuColor 233 DI-4, DocuColor 400 DI-4 and DocuColor 400 DI-5 presses and related consumables, all of which had been sourced through Presstek. Order taking for the products will cease immediately, but Presstek will continue to provide

NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies elected three new directors at its annual meeting in October. The new directors, elected to three-year terms expiring at the 2005 annual meeting, are: H.A. Brandtjen III, president, Brandtjen & Kluge, St. Croix Falls, WI; John Hamm, vice president of marketing, Xerox Corp., Worldwide Graphic Arts Business, McLean, VA; and Juergen Stolt, executive vice president, sales and marketing, Pantone Inc., Carlstadt, NJ. In addition, Edward McLoughlin, president of Oxy-Dry Corp., and Prime UV Systems received the 2002 Harold W. Gegenheimer Awards for Industry Service at the NPES conference. Enovation Graphic Systems has named Paul

Williamson Institute Proves Its Value Once Again DALLAS—Williamson Printing hosted the third Williamson Institute in February. The educational seminar provided printing knowledge to college students to help enhance their education within the graphic communications industry. Fifty students representing Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University, the University of North Texas and Baylor University attended the seminar. CALIFORNIA ANAHEIM—Pacific West Litho has installed a new six-color, 40˝ Komori Lithrone press equipped with a ColorCommand temperature control/cooling system from TriService. AZUSA—A Steinemann Topspot 102 blanket coater has replaced two silk screen UV coaters at Classic Coating & Laminating. COMMERCE—The transition to a computer-to-plate workflow is complete

Digital printing is finally well beyond concept acceptance, as On Demand proved last month. New moves in on-press imaging and color server technologies—and the Internet—are delivering on the promise of digital printing. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Given the impossible-to-ignore high velocity of the Internet as it targets multiple areas of the print production process lately, it is no surprise that the Internet is also targeting the time-sensitive profit center that is on-demand digital printing. True to current form, the dotcom emphasis at On Demand in New York was staggering, but not surprising—new online solutions for on-demand document fulfillment, new Internet tools for