Articles

ecoGenesis Allows RF Welding of Green Materials

August 21, 2011

by: Amy Bauer

A proprietary radio frequency (RF) welding technology from Genesis Plastics Welding is expanding the capabilities of traditional RF welding machines, allowing them to bond a wider array of materials, including many considered more “green,” or ecologically friendly.

The technology, called ecoGenesis™, has been in development for more than 20 years, according to Tom Ryder, Genesis president and chief executive officer. Today, the company applies ecoGenesis to products produced in its contract welding facility in Fortville, IN, and licenses the technology to other plastics manufacturing companies.

ecoGenesis is a system that “bolts on” to existing RF welding machinery and, using standard settings and no additives to the materials being welded, provides a strong bond between materials that previously weren’t candidates for RF welding, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyester, nylon and bioplastic. These phthalate-free materials are options to polyvinylchloride (PVC), which has become the subject of concern among consumer and health groups.

RF Then and Now

Traditional RF welding works by passing radio frequency waves through materials, exciting the molecules so that they heat up and meld together from the inside out; thus, creating a strong bond. Ryder described it as similar to a potato heating in a microwave, cooking from the inside out. While RF welding has been used extensively with PVC and polyurethane (PU), Ryder said one of the biggest downsides to RF welding has been its limitation primarily to such polar materials – those with molecules that because of their positive and negative poles attract or repel one another. Nonpolar materials are made up of molecules without positive and negative poles. Those materials like polyethylene, polypropylene, polyester, nylon and bioplastic – are candidates for ecoGenesis RF welding.

As described in a white paper paid for by Genesis Plastics Welding and The Dow Chemical Company, “Prior RF welding art allowed for only a few polymer films – like polyvinylchloride (PVC) and polyurethane (PU) – as candidates for a good RF weld.” Technical consultant OmniTech International was hired to evaluate ecoGenesis and “confirmed that films, copolymer films and fabrics with low dielectric factors (DLF) can efficiently and effectively be RF welded with ecoGenesis – without the aid of coatings, adhesives or other costly treatments.”

Other methods for bonding nonpolar materials include using heat sealing, impulse welding, adhesives or materials with polar additives, such as EVA, said Ryder, noting that each has its own drawbacks, whether limited dimensions to the weld or added materials costs. “There are other methods, they’re just not as efficient or cost-effective as ecoGenesis,” he said. By eliminating the need for expensive heat seal additives and allowing the substitution of lower-cost raw materials, ecoGenesis helps to keep costs down, the white paper notes.

Proving the Technology

While the company declines to disclose many specifics of the ecoGenesis technology, or how many companies currently are licensing it, Ryder says seeing has been believing for Genesis Plastics Welding customers. “The real gurus of radio frequency welding are very skeptical,” he said. “Because it’s proprietary technology and we’re not able to disclose or just hand over the technology to anybody without a license, to be honest with you, they don’t believe us.”

He says one of the best ways to convince those considering the technology has been by taking materials a company has tried unsuccessfully to RF weld, creating the weld using the ecoGenesis technology and sending the finished product back to them. If companies still express disbelief, Genesis offers a visit to the company’s facility for a nonconfidential demonstration. “We’ll have the technology hidden, and they come in, they see it’s a standard RF machine and none of the settings are changed,” he described. “And when they witness us welding it, they become believers.”

Technical Specifications

Ryder said the ecoGenesis technology can be added to any standard RF machine, large or small, as easily as a tool can be changed, allowing a shop to switch from welding PVC and polyurethane in the morning to welding nonpolar materials like polyethylene and polypropylene in the afternoon. Because it is an addition to existing machinery, Ryder said, companies are saved a large investment in capital expenses.

“The technology lasts for tens of thousands of cycles. It doesn’t leave any residues. It doesn’t require any additives in the materials that you’re welding. And it can be taken on and off the machines,” Ryder described.

Operating ecoGenesis doesn’t require an extensive amount of training, he said. Genesis coaches a company’s setup technicians. “If a company has technicians that are very familiar with using RF welding, they’ll actually find it very simple to use,” Ryder said. Those operating the machine in many cases may not even realize it’s there. “It changes nothing with the day-to-day pushing the buttons and making the product,” he said.

Because Genesis Plastics Welding operates its own contract welding facility, which includes the ecoGenesis process among 24 different RF systems, it has been able to develop products for some companies or do pilot runs, testing and analysis before licensing ecoGenesis to them.

Demand Grows for PVC-free

The push toward PVC and polyurethane alternatives is being driven in large part by public concerns about adverse health effects of phthalate plasticizers in some PVCs, which increase the material’s flexibility but also may leach out. Burning of PVC also releases harmful toxins, so disposal is a concern.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) limits the amount of phthalates allowed in children’s products, and California’s Proposition 65 requires warnings on consumer products containing any of hundreds of chemicals that the state lists as known cancer- or birth-defect-causing agents. PVC-free and phthalate-free labels are becoming selling points for consumer products.

Ryder said large retailers are moving to reduce or eliminate PVC in their inventories. “Right now, companies like Staples, for example, are putting out press that says they want to be PVC-free in 2012 and 2013,” he said. “Wal-Mart’s giving better grades for PVC-free product. Target’s doing the same. Companies on the retail end are pushing that with their suppliers,” he said, noting that businesses are looking for solutions now rather than waiting to see if more regulations will follow.

In the case of loose leaf binders, buyers may increasingly be looking for phthalate-free binder covers and sleeves and sheet protectors, while still expecting a traditional binder look and feel. “And from a packaging standpoint, if you have a cloth product that’s not PVC and you add PVC packaging to it, you’re bringing your opportunity down with those retailers,” Ryder said.

Cooperative Marketing

In addition to the growing “green” buzz in the marketplace, Genesis Plastics Welding is incorporating a push strategy in rolling out ecoGenesis by working with materials suppliers looking for ways to use and market their materials to manufacturers. The Dow Chemical Company, which helped pay for the white paper on ecoGenesis, is one example. Another is a company called PolyOne GLS Thermoplastic Elastomers, with which Genesis recently partnered in welding phthalate-free medical devices and marketing the achievement.

“We’ve done a lot of networking with materials suppliers, because they’re the ones trying to push their materials to the manufacturers,” Ryder described, “and they’ve helped us in that sales process.”

Future of ecoGenesis

While the applications of ecoGenesis will continue to grow as new materials emerge, Ryder said he doesn’t see traditional RF-welded materials disappearing. “PVC is a good material. I don’t think it will totally go away,” he said. But he noted that the potential of some materials, such as bioplastics, has barely been tapped. “There’s new materials coming out every day,” he said. “And being able to switch from one to the other I think is a good opportunity because there may not always be a better advantage with polar materials every time.”

“ecoGenesis just provides people more opportunities and more options to choose from. It’s taking the RF technology and advancing its opportunities. It’s creating options. It’s not taking it away, it’s just making it better.”

To read the full white paper and learn more about ecoGenesis, visit http://genesisplasticswelding.com/ecogenesisplasticswelding/weldablepolymers.

Perfect Binding for Digital Print

August 21, 2011

by: Steven Calov, Heidelberg USA

In the finishing realm, perfect binding plays an important role in promoting efficient operations and fast turnarounds as the market moves toward digital print. As print becomes more prominent as a marketing piece, short-run perfect binding is becoming more desirable, compared to stitched products.

Speaking of digital print, its suitability for short and ultra-short runs and smaller formats is a given; however, there is more to the story, based on changes in the marketplace that have revised traditional thinking about short-run approaches to the finishing of digitally printed output.

The market dictates the pace of change, moving toward shorter print runs and faster delivery times, as well as a leveling of the playing field between the finishing of conventionally and digitally printed products in the smaller (20″) formats that are currently digital’s sweet spot. In this new environment, printed materials arrive ready for finishing off a variety of output devices, while finishing requirements are being met with a variety of in-, off- and near-line solutions, depending on volume and whether the aim is to print one or 1,001.

Digital Dollars

Like digital printing, digital finishing is driven by performance, quality and cost. Some digital printing devices are equipped with finishing units capable of performing binding and finishing functions – including perfect binding – in-line. This makes the process of printing a complete book more efficient because it eliminates a material handling step from the workflow, sparing time and expense, but it also can limit an application’s variety and production speed. However, the need to provide fast, inexpensive finishing of digital work using traditional equipment built for offset calls for results-oriented solutions that will add quality and value to the printed piece, bring cost efficiency to bear on the finishing process and keep profit margins high.

Perfect or adhesive binding is a method of binding single sheets – as opposed to signatures – into a book. Many digital books are printed as stacks of single sheets. One of the most easily automated of finishing processes, perfect binding’s low cost makes it a popular choice for binding a variety of printed matter, wherein single sheets are gathered, stacked and the binding edge covered with glue. A cover is attached to the book and is held in place by the glued spine. Then, the entire product is three-side trimmed on a dedicated trimmer or guillotine cutter.

Professionally perfect-bound books have square backs, smooth spines and adequate adhesive strength to prevent the pages from being pulled from the binding. The only way to accomplish this used to be with large off-line production machines, which required lengthy makereadies and resulted in expensive short-run applications. The larger off-line perfect binders were better suited to longer print runs. In recent years, however, a combination of factors has prompted printers to seek out small-format standalone perfect binders to accomplish low-volume, short, ultra-short and one-off run digital work in-house. These factors begin with the rise of specialty print products, such as digital photobooks, and extend to commercial printers offering custom and on-demand services to their customers. Rising transportation and delivery costs also have played a role in the shift to in-house production.

Designed for Digital

An alternative to large off-line binding devices are smaller, economical, off-line perfect binders, which are compatible with or specifically designed for small digital print applications and have the capability to produce perfect bindings that are of nearly the same quality as the bindings produced with the larger machines. The overhead cost is much less than the larger machines and makeready times are greatly reduced.

Solutions answering these needs are modular, flexible, integrated, run at speeds as fast or faster than the output device and offer multiple opportunities for reductions in labor, including quality verification. They are easy to operate and quick to set-up for new jobs, and, last but not least, feature connectivity and JDF. They are machines that can handle books from digital printers and offset presses and perfect bind books of one or 1,000 quickly, efficiently and profitably.

A Sticky Wicket

Are there challenges presented by the perfect binding of digital print? Yes. Among the biggest are failure to form a durable adhesive bond on digitally qualified papers, as well as the potential cracking of inks and coatings. In particular, the presence of fuser oil left on digital sheets can have a severe impact on the pull-strength of a digitally printed, perfect-bound book when hot-melt adhesives are used. Toner can have the same effect if the printing bleeds into the spine of the book.

For these reasons, the perfect binding of toner-based color sheets using conventional hot-melt adhesive has been largely supplanted by the use of polyurethane-reactive or PUR adhesives on fast-makeready binders such as Heidelberg’s entry-level Eurobind 600 PUR. This machine features Heidelberg’s unique nozzle application system, which takes the convenience of PUR glues for adhesive binding of digitally printed materials one step further by minimizing (expensive) PUR glue exposure, giving a more consistent glue line on the cover of the book, and saving time and money over open tank systems. While PUR is more expensive than traditional hot-melt adhesives, it also lasts longer, weathers extreme temperatures, looks good and holds difficult plastic or coated stocks reliably. PUR technology ensures reliably high adhesion to the sheet edges so finished products can be opened flat without problem, even with difficult materials such as heavily coated papers and digital print products.

But don’t count hot-melt down and out just yet. While PUR provides an added measure of safety that the job will not be rejected, it also adds significant cost. Given the recent migration to inkjet and oil-less fusing of toner based products, however, hot-melt glues can provide a more cost effective solution as long as the spine preparation is sufficient to result in good book adhesion (good pull results). At least one perfect binding operation in a digital print environment we know of has spent effort to prepare the spine very well in combination with hot-melt glue to produce excellent results. It will be interesting to see whether PUR or hot-melt “wins” in the coming years, or whether both will share this space.

A Trimming Dilemma

We also should mention trimming. Trimming is accomplished with either a dedicated three-knife trimmer or a guillotine paper cutter. The issue with three-knife trimming is that the capital cost for the machines is most often above $100,000 US, while the quality of trimming delivered by machines currently on the market often is not up to market expectations, due to spine knicking. A cost-effective alternative is to use a guillotine cutter instead, even though it adds another material-handling step to the process. Heidelberg has studied the problem and found that at quanitities up to 1,000 books per hour, the cost and productivity of guillotine trimming can be advantageous. Over the very short run, the challenge is to reduce the makeready of the cutter from book to book size, so equipment suppliers are exploring ways to add automation to the cutting process. By sending the cutting parameters to the guillotine at the point of prepress, or by using a bar code on the book to load the cutting parameters, the cutting process can be sped up substantially while reducing re-runs and waste.

Seize the Day

Short-run perfect binding today denotes not just shrinking order quantities, but also foreshortened turnarounds and product flexibility demanded by customers who now have the option to produce low-cost books in the quantities – as small as one – they need. Manufacturers of finishing equipment are seizing the opportunity to fine-tune their equipment to handle the requirements of digital output. As mentioned above, today’s high-speed automated perfect binding machines can execute digitally printed, perfect-bound books in in-line, off-line and near-line configurations (useful in cases where the binder runs faster than the output device). Lift-type deliveries are designed to ensure superior glue stabilization and gentle transport of the book block in different production environments.

Automated components are designed to facilitate the adjustment of clamp opening widths; integrated pressing, scoring and spine preparation; gluing length control and more. Meanwhile, the addition of exchangeable hot-melt and PUR glue tanks, variable clamps, self-calibrating missing sheet detectors and graphical touchscreen controls for shorter set-ups, lower waste and faster turnarounds mean that top-quality, digitally printed, adhesive-bound products can be produced quickly and economically on traditional perfect binding equipment from offset or digital streams, with disparate jobs ganged together for maximum efficiency.

Advances in finishing automation are being driven by the rise in digital printing, characterized by declining run lengths, quick turn requirements and the need to train workers quickly. As run lengths get shorter, set-up time becomes a bigger percentage of the total job time, driving up the labor cost per unit produced. Because traditional equipment built for offset printing typically requires more makereadies for digital work, regardless of run length, the reduction, elimination and/or automation of costly extra steps is an operational imperative. The goal? The ability to finish digitally printed output at high speeds, in real time, with no waiting, at the highest quality.

Steve Calov is postpress product manager for Heidelberg USA. A leading solution provider for the print media industry, Heidelberg manufactures precision printing presses, platesetters, postpress equipment and software for integrating all printshop processes. For more information, visit www.us.heidelberg.com or call 770.419.6500.

Sacred Cows in an Economic Downturn

August 21, 2011

by Ed Rigsbee

What better time to grind sacred cows into hamburger than during an economic downturn? The sacred cow protectors in your organization experience lowered resistance when times are not so good. It is much more difficult for them to defend the pet projects, products and services that have reached their sunset when placed under the tight economic microscope.

If You are a Sacred Cow Defender

Upper level decision makers pay especially close attention to questionable activities in an economic downturn, organizational restructuring or during a merger. If you have even a faint indication that you might be a sacred cow protector, this is the time to realize that everyone will be attacking your pet sacred cow. Ask yourself if this cow is worth your career. Might it be time to let go?

To help you work through the process of either defending or letting go, consider the following:

Why should this cow continue?
Who cares most about this cow? Why do I protect it?
Which market or stakeholder segments does the cow still serve? Is this cow still profitable?
Is this cow worth the organizational resources necessary to sustain it? Has this cow reached its sunset?

If You are a Cow Grinder

This is the moment you’ve been waiting for – it is time to rid your organization of that outdated, resource-sucking albatross that has, in your opinion, been dragging everyone down. While this is a good time to bring out the meat grinder, you’d better be smart about your actions. This is not the time to pretend you are a bull in a china shop, but rather take a methodical approach to getting that cow into the grinder.

First, you must remain aware of the fact that most sacred cow protectors have their identify and self-worth complexly entwined with the cow that they protect so ferociously, much like a momma bear protecting her cub. And you do not want to get between them!

How do you help an iron-clad mind to open up? Perhaps oil and leverage will do the trick.

The oil relates to the idea of slipperiness verses friction. The iron-clad mind is the friction and you become the oil that helps movement. Your job is to help the protector see that there might be new or better ideas, products and services that might possibly… maybe perhaps serve the market or stakeholders better than the currently protected cow.

Leverage relates to an outside object or force that allows ease of movement for heavy or stuck objects. Needless to say, the stuck or heavy object is the cow protector. The outside force could be higher authority or replacement product/service. Higher authority needs no explanation. Replacement, however, is a formidable subject. Where or what could the cow protector use as an alternate crutch for channeling their passion?

Grinding Cows

We’ve always done it, our customers expect it and so we should continue to do it. This is an area that can be overcome by numbers, metrics or measurements. It is difficult for a person or department to defend something that can be proven to no longer be performing.

The “not invented here” attitude can be a challenge when offering alternatives to the cow you want to grind. Leading the cow protectors to their own discovery of a replacement generally works well. The price that you, the cow grinder, must be willing to pay is to relinquish an ego boost and the credit for being the cow grinder.

For most things there is a season. Even sacred cows that are only approaching their sunset must be examined closely. The challenge is in letting too many old cows run the pasture. If in your organization there are a number of cows that are nearing their end of usefulness, all your organizations resources are being allotted to refreshing and keeping alive old cows rather than allowing innovation and discovery of new and profitable, non-commodity products and services to take their place. You can swim with the sharks in highly competitive regions or head for the open waters of innovation and creativity.

So what’s a reasonable person to do? If you are a cow protector, be certain it is worth protecting. If you are a cow grinder, be sure that cow’s sunset has arrived. Grinding cows simply for pleasure or self-adulation is not an acceptable reason to flick the switch and start the grinder. The magic for your organization is for the leaders to have the wisdom in understanding and recognizing the difference.

As a nationally recognized speaker on partnering, Ed Rigsbee has helped organizations of all sizes to build successful internal and external collaborative relationships. He has authored three books and over 1,500 articles helping organizations to take full advantage of their potential. Contact Rigsbee, find additional (no charge) resources and sign up for his complimentary weekly Effective Executive eLetter at www.Rigsbee.com. Copyright © 2010 Ed Rigsbee

Eckhart & Company: Diverse Services Under One Roof

May 1, 2011

by Amy Bauer, The Binding Edge

Bookbinding and custom information packaging require different skill sets, different equipment and therefore different cultures, but Eckhart & Company, Inc., of Indianapolis, IN, has successfully merged the two to create a business that has expanded its market base beyond traditional boundaries.

“We’re really in the business of providing solutions to information packaging and information management,” said President Chris Eckhart, describing the company’s core competencies. “Having the two allows us to provide more solutions.”

Clients from the Midwest and throughout the country seek out Eckhart & Company’s mechanical binding, case binding and perfect binding services, as well as its custom manufactured and decorated ring binders, CD and DVD packaging and turned-edge materials such as slant/slip cases, among other products. Its central location in Indianapolis, often called the ‘crossroads of America,’ has helped Eckhart & Company serve a geographically diverse client base. “We have a large reach with a local touch,” Eckhart explained.

The Beginnings

Eckhart’s grandfather, William (Bill) Eckhart, founded the company in downtown Indianapolis in 1918. Its earliest services were manufacturing ledger books and repairing damaged books for the local library. Eckhart & Company later moved into a graphic arts building in the city. These publishing hubs housed multiple printers and binders sharing a common building and loading dock.

Son William (Bill) Eckhart Jr. took over the business and the company continued to grow as a traditional trade bindery, serving local printers and specializing in cutting, folding and stitching. In the mid-1960s, Eckhart & Company built a 35,000-square-foot plant in an Indianapolis industrial park.

“As cutting, folding and stitching equipment became more affordable and easier to operate, more printers began bringing those capabilities in-house,” Chris Eckhart described. “So we focused our attention on adding services that printers really craved but were loath to try themselves.”

This led to the company’s focus on mechanical binding. Also in the mid-1960s, to expand the company’s market base, Eckhart’s father added the loose leaf manufacturing segment, which today falls under the company’s information packaging banner. As the company grew, additional space was rented in a separate facility. Working from two locations made labor efficiencies difficult, so about 10 years ago the company consolidated operations in a 60,000-square-foot plant in an industrial area of northwest Indianapolis.

Chris Eckhart grew up in the business and began working there full time in 1987, a year after his graduation from Indiana University. In 1994, he and his brother, Brent, bought their father’s shares of the company. And in 2006, Chris Eckhart bought out his brother’s shares. Today, his 24-year-old stepdaughter, Taylor Stauffer, works in quality assurance for Eckhart & Company, representing the fourth generation of the family business.

Core Offerings

While Eckhart & Company offers all of the traditional bookbinding services, it is closely focused on mechanical binding, including Wire-O, spiral binding and plastic coil. Among highlights of Eckhart & Company’s mechanical binding capabilities, Chris Eckhart said, are its two Bielomatik automated binding lines, which can punch and bind in a single pass with high production speeds of 1,500 books an hour or more. It also operates, among others, a Kolbus Casemaker and Kolbus casing-in machine and a Gateway Bookbinding Systems plastic binding machine that forms its own coil from filament. Mechanically bound jobs cover a wide range, from calendars, planners and journals to cookbooks and instruction manuals.

“Mechanical binding is unique because it is based on work with single sheets rather than signatures,” Eckhart explained. Differences in how those sheets are handled throughout the plant are important. Stacks that slide can quickly turn to disordered pages and ruined jobs. “Because mechanical binding is a focus for us, we understand that. We’ve worked hard to acclimate our employees to the differences.”

In its other core area, information packaging, Eckhart & Company considers itself a complete manufacturer. Its capabilities include taking projects from raw materials through preparation, decoration (it has in-house screenprinting and foil stamping capabilities) and conversion into a finished product. It offers vinyl binders, turned-edge binders and polyethylene or polypropylene binders; slip cases; boxes and index tabs.

Addressing Challenges

Eckhart notes that one of the company’s challenges is effectively managing its two core areas of focus. “In the bindery we are providing a service, whereas with the information packaging we are actually manufacturing a product,” he said. “Adding to the differences is the fact that the bindery is very labor-intensive, whereas the information packaging is very material-intensive.” The bindery operations require quick reactions to meet deadlines imposed from outside, while Eckhart & Company has more control on the information packaging side as it takes projects from start to finish.

Despite those differences, the company has found efficiencies and success in cross-training its employees so that they are capable of multiple jobs throughout the plant. The company is composed of about 65 employees and runs two shifts. Since work in each area may ebb and flow, this allows the company to respond more efficiently and shift employees to different projects and areas as needed. In the past, workers were dedicated to specific areas. “Having one common labor pool that can go where the peaks and valleys are is critical,” Eckhart said.

In-house training has been essential because few workers come to the company with experience in both mechanical or other binding methods and binder manufacturing, not to mention the decorating processes. “There’s a true art to screenprinting, for example,” Eckhart notes, “just as there is a true art to running a folding machine. We have to go out of our way to work with them for the cross-training.”

Another challenge to the information packaging segment of the business is a decline in demand as more information is digitized. “The information packaging is becoming, year after year, a smaller component of our overall business,” Eckhart said. He described printed pieces, such as the product catalogs that furniture manufacturers send to distributors, which in the past were perfect fits for the binder application, but today may no longer even exist in printed form. He said the company is focusing on cultivating customers for higher-end binder products that will continue to exist in the print realm – for example, the financial services literature that brokers or sales representatives share with clients that must reflect the prestige of their product.

Marketing Talents

Beyond the challenges, having these diverse capabilities under one roof also has been a boon to Eckhart & Company. It is finding opportunities to combine the binding work and custom packaging for clients. For example, Eckhart said, a recent job involved manufacturing a vinyl binder and also gathering, trimming and drilling the text, wrapping the text and inserting that package inside of the binder. “Our ability to handle that complete project under one roof was very comforting to our customer,” Eckhart described. He said his strategy involves marketing the synergies between binding and information packaging to potential clients, perhaps helping them to give a printed piece even more functionality than they had originally envisioned.

Other ways the company markets its services are through its sales representatives, who call on printers and other clients and are dedicated either to the binding operations or to information packaging. By focusing on their particular areas of expertise, they can better help clients with the intricacies of the finishing processes, Eckhart explained. “Truly realizing what our core competencies are and then setting up the business so that we can be resources in each one of those areas has been a really positive sales and marketing concept for us,” he said.

One way this sales focus has paid off is in the company’s growing relationships with local printers in the past few years, Eckhart said. While the company traditionally has been closely aligned with medium- to large-size web printers and book manufacturers, it also has shown its ability to process the shorter runs involving sheet-fed printers and the local graphic arts companies. The company also has used monthly email newsletters to highlight its services, choosing a particular product or binding style to feature each time.

Networking is another way that Eckhart stays abreast of customers’ needs and challenges. He is a member of the boards of the Binding Industries Association and the regional Printing Industries of Indiana and Illinois.

Another selling point for some clients is Eckhart & Company’s line of environmentally friendly binders, made of 100 percent biodegradable materials, aside from the metal ring. They boast materials that are free of acid, carbon black, lignin and elemental chlorine, and Eckhart & Company also can custom decorate these. Eckhart said that this product hasn’t overtaken the company’s conventional binder offerings, but it represents an important offering for some clients.

Sales Orientation

Eckhart said the shift to a sales orientation has been a challenge, noting that in the past the work just naturally flowed and many companies in the industry didn’t have to work very hard to bring in business. For many years, Eckhart & Company had been able to rely solely on its reputation of quality work to sustain incoming business.

“There was very much a mentality of being order-takers versus being strong marketing- and sales-driven companies,” he said. “There was enough business that it kept everybody happy, it worked fairly well and there wasn’t a need to invest heavily in the sales and marketing process. But those days have certainly changed.

“It takes a very conscious commitment and effort to switch from being an order-taker to creating a culture of going out and being a sales- and marketing-driven company,” he continued. “Kind of a tough hurdle for a lot of companies in our industry to come across, us included.”

Facing the Future

At a time when the print world is rapidly changing, Eckhart sees both challenges and opportunities. “I believe that we are operating in a mature industry, but I don’t believe that that is a death sentence,” he said. “I think that print is going to decline; however, I think there also are going to be fewer printing companies and fewer companies serving printers.”

For those that remain, he anticipates there will be plenty of work to be profitable. By focusing on the challenges and synergies of its two core offerings under one roof, and continuing to look toward the future, Eckhart & Company is positioning itself to adapt in these changing times and be a binding and finishing for future generations. Eckhart predicts that surviving companies will be those that look toward more technology and automation, as he sees currently happening in Europe.

“We’ve worked hard to be financially responsible and to be in a position where the options are available to us as to how we navigate forward,” Eckhart said.

Specialty Folding Finds its Groove

May 1, 2011

by: Trish Witkowski, foldfactory.com

It’s no secret that the business of print has changed. Though the commoditization of print has been disappointing, something very interesting has been happening to a sizeable piece of the printing pie. A surge in interest in specialty print projects, such as unique folding configurations, dimensional solutions and innovative direct mail is in essence de-commoditizing print, due to the level of skill, preparation, creativity and equipment required to execute on these types of projects.

Printers have taken on specialty projects with enthusiasm or dread – iron cross folds, unique shapes and sizes or unusual formats – but it can be hard to accommodate all of the possible scenarios for specialty work, so many printers outsource the finishing to trade or specialty binderies. Binderies take on what a normally-equipped finishing operation cannot do effectively, due to a limitation of equipment, knowledge or capacity. I asked Jack Rickard of Rickard Bindery, a specialty bindery in Chicago, what makes a job “specialty”. His reply included the following:

Size: large or small format
Paper weight: very light or very heavy
Quantity: large quantity in a very short time frame
Quality: quality of product or procedural requirements (ex: pharmaceutical procedures)
Complexity: number and configuration of folds or multiple finishing technologies

It’s fairly subjective, but I would argue that these days, specialty also includes highly critical in-line finishing processes that eliminate the need for multiple passes through offline equipment (I believe this would fall under Rickard’s “complexity” bullet above). Specialized formats for direct mail and dimensional and proprietary folded solutions, in my opinion, also would fall under this category.

The Influence of Technology

Technology has had the greatest effect on the surge in interest in specialty folding. First, there has been a sea change in direct mail philosophy with regard to refining and managing mailing lists. This leads to printing smaller batches of targeted direct mail communications. People are starting to realize the value of their data, and they’re using software and services that can effectively leverage this valuable asset. The money saved by printing fewer pieces can be applied to producing a smaller amount of high quality, eye-catching print materials. “The cost of the product is irrelevant,” says Norm Beange, president of Specialties Graphic Finishers, a specialty bindery in Toronto, Canada. “The question is how many lawnmowers is it going to sell? A well-designed, unique piece will be remembered, and sometimes that means reducing your quantity to fit your budget. In my experience, it’s better to send 15,000 wows, rather than 100,000 yawns.”

The ability to merge different technologies with a print piece, such as complex variable data and images, personalized URLs, QR codes and more, now gives the sender multiple opportunities to create touchpoints, initiating a two-way conversation with the audience. These technologies also increase the sender’s confidence in the chance of a response, which can influence the sender’s willingness to spend more on that special piece.

The other technology-related influencer of this surge in interest in specialty pieces is the incredibly dramatic advancements in folding and finishing equipment, as well as in-line finishing for digital print. Recently, Hunkeler Innovation Days in Lucerne, Switzerland drew a record crowd of over 5,000 people anxious to see the latest in digital print finishing. Automation of complex processes has brought the unusual and unique within reach for customers who may not previously have been able to afford the cost of specialty projects, and has given printers and finishers the ability to sell this work and execute it in-house without sacrificing profitability. “It used to be cost-prohibitive to set-up a manual folder for complex, short-run jobs,” says Mark Hunt, director of marketing for Standard Finishing Systems. “It was too expensive to amortize a 90-minute (or more) set-up time on a run-length of 50 units or fewer. Today, Standard Horizon automated folders can perform that changeover in under 10 minutes, so you can be cost effective on ultra-short run lengths. Personalized, variable-data products are now inbounds too, because these folders have virtually no set-up waste.”

In addition to complex automated folding, demand for additional in-line finishing processes has really raised the bar, while increasing margins. “Some of the trends we are seeing include customization of folding machines to perform more folding and gluing applications that add value to the customer and create greater margins per piece than traditional folding,” states Mark Pellman, director of sales and marketing for Baumfolder. “BAUM has incorporated the capability on both our tabletop and floor model folders to adapt various gluing applications to meet these needs.”

When Automation is Not an Option

Automated specialty finishing is ideal, if it can be done skillfully and efficiently, but many companies choose to finish by hand because it’s not worth the time and setup to try to automate the job – a decision that makes sense. But, what happens when the quantity and/or the complexity of the job warrants a massive hand assembly effort?

Structural Graphics in Essex, Connecticut is a full-service integrated marketing services company, but because of its niche specialty in high-impact dimensional marketing formats, the company owns and operates its own hand assembly, lettershop and fulfillment operation in Piedras Negras, Mexico. The facility operates with an average of 500 skilled hand assembly workers, but the operation is scalable to accommodate larger projects. Ethan Goller, president of Structural Graphics, provided me with a few things to think about when considering offshore large-volume hand assembly work (including Mexico):

As a rough guideline, if there is less than 200 hours of handwork, you should consider doing the assembly locally (e.g. U.S. domestic in your local market).
If you dont have a big enough project, the freight costs of moving the materials to Mexico can be greater than the cost savings of doing the assembly work there. This is especially true if the units being assembled dont drop into the USPS, because typically the assembled piece takes up more space than flat press sheets. If the quantity is significant, you may be moving a lot of air.
Quantity isn’t the only factor … “complexity” also must be taken into consideration. Goller recalled one project that was only 1,600 units, but the job was so complex that it required nearly 4,000 hours of handwork.
Bottom line, the more hours of handwork, the greater potential for cost savings by doing that work offshore.

Selling Specialty

Specialty folding and finishing offer a world of opportunity from a selling standpoint, but it’s a different beast than conventional print work. Specialty projects often require extra lead time, and it can be very difficult to convince clients that they can’t push the envelope on the delivery date like they might be able to do on a standard print job. “The biggest issue we have is with timelines,” says Beange. “Customers are always talking about delivery date, but their date doesn’t matter. It takes what it takes to create a high-quality specialty product. We’ve actually re-engineered our quoting system, and it’s getting a lot of attention. We give a price for a normal production schedule, and then we count backwards, adding overtime, so that our customers understand that if they want to push the limits of the schedule, this is the absolute maximum that they can push it, and here’s what that will cost them. It can be a real eye-opener for people, and once in a while it’s even a deal breaker when they realize they can’t get a complex three-week job done in four days.”

Although there are great opportunities in specialty, printers, binders and finishers are finding that they not only need to consult on the production process, but also educate designers about the creative possibilities. “Perhaps the greatest challenge is the (arguable) paradigm shift that our industry has gone through,” states David Bailey, Jr., president of Lithographics in Nashville, TN. “Historically, it seems as though ad agencies and the like were solely charged with the responsibility of bringing these new, creative ideas to life. With the influx of freelance designers, there has been, to some degree, a loss of knowledge – as far as what is and isn’t doable from a print and finishing perspective – and an overall stigma that every print project must be done as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible. This translates into ‘anything fancy or unique must be expensive so I won’t even investigate it.'”

Kevin Ness, sales executive with Innovative Technologies in Print in Elizabethtown, PA, has had a lot of experience in selling specialty projects over the years. He offers this list of sales tips for success with selling “the unusual”:

As a print service provider, let your customers know of your capabilities in this area. They may not currently view you as a provider of creative finishing ideas or services.
Drop off samples of unique specialty projects once in a while to “plant the seed” and to start the conversation. Designers are visual; sometimes they have to see and experience the piece to understand the potential.
Express your willingness to help explore options.
Offer to attend preliminary meetings to discuss thoughts, ideas and solutions for the project.
Outline a plan for production to include file preparation, paper selection and “testing as necessary.”

The Power of “Special”

Specialty folding and finishing create impact, and I can tell you that the most highly trafficked section on my foldfactory website is the specialty/exotic section. The most popular folds featured on my “Fold of the Week” video series are the specialty folds, and we’re seeing demand for more resources, tools and information on the topic. Designers want to do exciting things, but they don’t know their options. They need your help to see the true possibilities that are within their reach.

Trish Witkowski is chief folding fanatic at foldfactory.com. An educator, author, speaker and award-winning designer, Witkowski has a specialized expertise in folding. She is the creator of the FOLDRite™ system and host of the weekly e-video, “60-second Super-cool FOLD of the WEEK.” Also available as a source for more folding ideas is the Fold Picker, produced by foldfactory.com and Sappi Fine Paper. This 2-sided fanbook offers 30 low-to moderate-budget “frugal” folding options in one direction, and with a simple flip, offers 30 high-budget “fabulous” folding splurges in the other direction. All of the folding styles featured in the picker have coordinating videos posted on foldfactory. Visit foldfactory.com/shop to order. Contact Witkowski at trish@foldfactory.com.

Travel & Tourism Industry Incorporates Intricate Folding

May 1, 2011

by: Melissa DeDonder

According to the U.S. Travel Association, tourism is a $704.4 billion industry. While leisure travelers and meeting planners benefit from having so many destinations to choose from, Convention & Visitors Bureaus (CVBs) face fierce competition as they try to earn those elusive travel dollars. CVBs are constantly searching for creative ways to showcase their destination so that it stands out in a sea of competition. Recently, Visit Denver and the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau used intricate folding to create eye-catching, memorable direct mail brochures that produced high-impact results for their cities.

Visit Denver – One City, Seven Reasons

Visit Denver’s “One City, Seven Reasons” meeting planner brochure highlighted seven reasons meeting planners should choose Denver as the host city for their meeting or convention. Denver’s brochure featured six intricate folds, each opening to reveal a panel highlighting one of the seven reasons.

To flawlessly conquer those six intricate folds, Sprint Press worked closely with KarshHagan, Visit Denver’s advertising agency and designer of the piece. “Collaborative concepts must be thought through from inception to finished product,” said Tamera Rice Ehrman, sales consultant at Sprint Press. “If you think about each process – from prepress, to press, to bindery – then you can foresee any challenges in the production process before they happen. This is what we did to produce such a precise end result,” said Ehrman.

To achieve the difficult crossovers in this piece, Sprint Press collaborated with Karsh/Hagan to determine the best weight and sheet to use to get optimum results. An initial mock-up was created using 80# White Opus 30 percent PCW Dull Cover. A die-line was created for Karsh to drop its files into, and a black plate was used on the press to determine the crossover position needed to create the die. A die was then completed based on the position of the black plate.

The flat size for this piece was 26 5/8″x5 3/8″, so it ran on a 40″ Komori press 6-out work & turn, using a 4-color process with 100 percent Satin Aqueous Coating on both sides. It was placed on a Bobst diecutter to score and trim, and then hand-folded to its final size of 10×5 3/8″. Because Visit Denver is environmentally conscious, a recycled sheet and soy-based inks were used to produce this piece.

The size of this piece was predetermined so that Visit Denver could obtain optimal postage rates. A 12 1/2″x12 1/2″ outer envelope was created that was printed 6-out sheetwise 4CP/0 on 70# White Pacesetter, 30 percent PCW Offset. A die was created for the die cut and conversion to its final size of 10 1/2″x 5 5/8″. After the brochure was hand-folded and inserted into the outer envelope, Sprint Press processed Visit Denver’s mailing lists and mailed it Standard A Presort to Visit Denver’s meeting planner database.

“We are very happy with the ‘One City, Seven Reasons’ meeting planner brochure. We constantly receive feedback from our meeting planner clients that our campaign materials stand out head and shoulders above other U.S. cities engaged in similar efforts,” said Justin Bresler, Visit Denver’s vice president of marketing and business development.

Visit Denver’s “One City, Seven Reasons” meeting planner brochure was part of a larger marketing campaign that included print ads, online ads, direct mail pieces and more. The campaign was developed by KarshHagan advertising agency.

Sprint Press performs print, digital press, binding, finishing and mailing services for its clients. Contact Tamera Rice Ehrman at trehrman@sprintdenver.com or 303.371.0566, ext. 127.

San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau – Meetings Have it All

Believe it or not, even San Diego must work hard for elusive group travel dollars. Market research revealed that meeting planners often regarded San Diego as a highly desirable, but pricey destination for meetings and conventions. In addition, the recent economic downturn created new challenges for San Diego as heightened sensitivities towards destinations that were perceived to be “costly” or “excessive” for corporate business travel threatened to drive down convention and meeting business.

The San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau sought a new marketing approach to better align itself with the practicality and flexibility of competing destinations. They hired the Miriello Grafico agency to create a marketing campaign focusing on the small- to mid-sized companies that often believed San Diego was out of their price range.

San Diego needed to stand out amongst a sea of similar tourism industry messaging, so Miriello Grafico turned to Americhip, the paper engineering experts who specialize in transforming paper into intricate works of art that pop up, move, twist, flip and soar from the printed page. Americhip’s patented Flippit™ motion graphic design was used to create San Diego’s “Have it All” meeting planner brochure.

“The ‘pull-down’ feature on the cover of the brochure gave us the creative edge that we needed to grab and hold the attention of meeting planners. We needed to inspire them to learn more and to reconsider San Diego as an option for small- to mid-sized meetings,” said Matthew Bachmann, vice president of Miriello Grafico.”

As the meeting planner pulls down on the large tab at the bottom of the page, multiple panels pop open – one at a time – to reveal the top reasons to choose San Diego as destination for meetings and conventions. The interior of this colorful brochure features several panels that expand upon the value points highlighted in the pull-down tab on the cover. The brochure text emphasizes core messages of affordability and availability, and the fact that the San Diego CVB can provide additional tools and assistance.

To create this vibrant, interactive brochure, Americhip and Miriello Grafico worked together as collaborative partners. “The design process was a mutual, two-way creative process,” said Edward Castillo, Americhip’s new business development manager. “The CVB knew what they wanted – to expand upon our original Flippit design, making it larger to include more panels to accommodate its information and photos,” said Castillo.

Americhip’s in-house team of designers and print production experts flawlessly integrated artistry, technology, dielines and glue points on an 8 pt. dull coated stock using a 4-color process and Satin Varnish to produce the finished product. The unfolded full size, nested 1-up in three sections, is 33×25.’ The folded size is 10×8.” The BRC card is 4 ¼x6.”

San Diego’s “Have It All” meeting planner brochure won a bronze Adrian Award from the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International in 2010. It was part of a larger campaign that included additional direct mail and email marketing initiatives. The San Diego CVB used various tracking methods to monitor the campaign and reports that it has produced a successful return on investment.

Americhip combines print with digital media, including video and audio technologies. The full-service printer can make paper talk, light up, move, whistle, sing and interact with your laptop. To learn more about Americhip, contact Edward Castillo at ecastillo@americhip.com or 310.323.3697, ext 262.

Cloth Covers All the Rage…Again

May 1, 2011

by: Dianna Brodine

In 1903, Paul Adam wrote and published “Practical Bookbinding.” The how-to manual for the early 20th century was considered a definitive work, covering all aspects of bookbinding from paper type to backing boards to cover materials. In “Practical Bookbinding,” Adam said, “The real protection against outward injury to the book lies in the cover.” Indeed, the cover of a book protects its contents from stains, tears and other injuries to the delicate pages. Book covers also are decorative, providing the first glimpse into the subject and personality of a bound book. In the early 1900s, although commonly used, cloth wasn’t the only option for bookbinders. When discussing cover materials, Adam had this to say:

“Cloth is more durable than paper, calico being mostly used. This is made in all colors and designs, and was formerly imported from England; but today German manufacturers produce a really good article. Plain linen cloth, black, green or grey; sail cloth; buckram; moleskin and beaver are used in the making of account books.” Today velvet is still used in the bindery, chiefly as a covering for portfolios, albums and addresses, and except for metal clasps remains without ornamentation. The bookbinder’s best material, to which is given the choicest, most expensive and most painstaking decoration, is leather in its various kinds. Sheep skin, undyed or split and dyed, serves for school books and other cheap work. Goat skin and morocco are better kinds, the latter being preferable both as regards price and quality.

Although it’s doubtful that many binderies are currently using beaver on the shop floor, cloth is still in demand for book covers. In fact, it may be seeing a resurgence with customers looking for a high-end, eco-friendly appearance. “The on demand market has created a new demand for special printable coatings for covers and less demand for many core products,” explained Jack McLoraine, vice president of sales at Gane Brothers. This demand for one-of-a-kind covers, combined with the trend toward sustainability, has created a renewed interest in cloth covers. Gane is a distributor for Holliston LLC, which produces HP Indigo-friendly cloth products. “Impressions ‘F’ grade cloth and Pinnacle ‘B’ grade cloth passed rigid testing from Hewlett Packard and the Rochester Institute of Technology,” said Wagenaar. “This product affords the opportunity to produce one image at a time using a high-quality cloth product.”

A product offered through LBS, Des Moines, IA, was featured on the autographed versions of the presidential autobiographies of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The books are covered in Verona Natural-finish rayon cloth with tissue backing. “Verona is a luxurious natural cloth woven from rayon fibers and backed with lightweight paper to support the fabric and prevent adhesive from seeping through the weave during production,” explained Rob Mauritz, vice president of sales for LBS.” Rayon is a popular choice because of its distinctive texture and palette of brightly saturated colors. It also decorates beautifully with foil stamping, blind embossing, screenprinting and litho printing.

Both presidential autobiographies were foil stamped, one in gold and the other in silver on Verona cloth. Midnight 570 was chosen for the Clinton book, while the Bush tome was covered in Coal Black 599. Foil stamping on rayon cloth, or even natural cloth, often has a learning curve. “Many of our customers routinely stamp tightly woven cottons coated in aqueous acrylic,” said Mauritz. “The coating fills in the gaps between the woven fibers and makes the surface smooth and fairly uniform. These qualities make the cloth very forgiving during the stamping process. However, the rayon used in Verona isn’t spun or woven as tightly as the coated cotton cloth. This relaxed weave gives Verona its appealing texture, but also offers less surface area for foil adhesion.”

In the case of the Bush and Clinton autobiographies, the challenge was overcome by using a foil type with a release that conforms to the rough texture of the cloth well enough to hold the design. “We suggest film with backing from Great Western,” Mauritz stated. “This foil often is used in library binderies and has a good balance of adhesion and strength – perfect for working with open-weave cloth.” Mauritz also suggested double-hitting the design to crush the fibers, creating a more uniform stamping surface. In all cases, each bindery should consider testing the cover material on its own equipment. LBS provides materials for setup and technical consultation for that purpose.

Gary Sweeney, vice president, marketing and sales for Holliston, Church Hill, TN, discussed a cloth cover featured in The Band, a collection of music from the years 1968 to 1975 (5-disc CD set), housed in a hardbound book. Covered in Linen-Set®, a cotton-based B grade book cloth, the cover shows detailed print work that was offset-printed with conventional inks and finished with a UV topcoat. “The end user was interested in a product that would be sustainable, durable and offered a unique look,” said Sweeney. “The texture and durability of cloth cover material are well known, but what is not commonly known is that many types of cloth make excellent substrates for printing.” With the natural fibers of a woven cloth comes the difficulty of printing a textured surface. Enhanced pressure and additional drying time are generally required to achieve maximum ink coverage and preparation prior to the UV top coat application.

It seems that in bookbinding, what’s old is new again. Cloth covers are seeing use in hardcover books, menus, photo albums and packaging applications. As a result, cover material suppliers are stepping up to serve the market with cloth that is printable, stampable and appealing.

Sales Tips: Fundamentals Beat Flash

May 1, 2011

by: Dave Fellman

The guys I play basketball with call me “Old School.” I think that has more to do with my age than my playing style, but I consider it a compliment nonetheless. And the fact of the matter is that my game is a lot more fundamentals than flash.

An attendee at a recent seminar called me a dinosaur. “I came here looking to find some new ideas,” he said. “You didn’t teach me anything about selling comprehensive solutions at the C-Level in the digital arena, just the same old ‘prospect-and-follow-up-and-ask-good-questions’ crap I’ve been hearing from my boss. Dinosaurs are extinct, man, and you’re not helping me any by telling me to sell like one.”

In case you’re interested, this guy was sent to my seminar because he’s at 60 percent of the sales level he’s supposed to be at after a year and a half on the job. Personally, I think he’s a whole lot closer to being extinct than I am.

Ask Good Questions

I went out on a first appointment sales call with a young salesperson last week, and the salesperson made his standard presentation – his ‘spiel’ as he referred to it – and then we pretty much left. “How did I do?” he asked me as we walked out of the building.

“Well, that depends on what you were trying to accomplish,” I told him. “Were you hoping to educate your prospect or trying to educate yourself?”

“Why would I need to educate myself?” he asked. “I know what we do.”

“Sure,” I said, “but do you know what he needs? Or more importantly, what he wants from a supplier and might not be getting from the one he’s buying from now?”

I’m a very strong believer in a three-part definition of a “fully qualified” prospect. The first part is that they buy, want or need what you sell. The second part is that they buy, want or need enough of it to make them worth pursuing. The third part – and ultimately the most important part – is that they have some interest in buying from you. Don’t ever forget that every significant prospect is probably someone else’s customer right now.

If all you’re doing is making a “spiel,” you’re talking but not qualifying. And I don’t care how much flash you put in your presentation, it’ll be worthless if they don’t actually buy, want or need what you sell, and even more worthless if you can’t give them a good reason to stop buying from the other guys and start buying from you. “We do X, Y and Z” is not a good reason to change suppliers or to start doing things a different way. “Thanks for answering my questions, telling me about those problems you’ve been having and giving me the opportunity to tell you about a possible solution” is a much better strategy.

And while I’m on the subject of “making a spiel,” I always want to smack any salesperson who uses that word. It’s a derogatory term for what should be a highly professional endeavor. It’s bad enough that most of the general public holds the sales profession in such low regard. I hate it when salespeople perpetuate the stereotype with words, actions or attitudes.

No Jargonauts Need Apply

Another fundamentals vs. flash issue is salespeople who speak fluent jargon, or who seek to impress potential clients with big words – often misused – when smaller words would make for more effective communication. Last month I made four sales calls with a printing salesperson who used the word “facilitate” so many times during the first call that I consciously counted the number of times he used it on the next three – 16 times! At one point, he said: “I want to facilitate a dynamic process of making it productive for you to order all of your image-dependent printing from me.”

Here’s what I think he meant: “I think I can make your life a little easier – at least the part where you’re involved with printing and printers – and I hope that will earn me a large share of your business’ especially the jobs that have to be done right the first time!”

Which one of those statements makes the most sense – or has the most appeal – to you? Do you sometimes wonder what the salespeople who call on you are actually trying to say? How many times in the last six months have you heard some variation of: “Our (digital workflow/document handling/paper ordering/production tracking/employee benefits) solution will foster an improved business model and enable greater profitability.” Does that make you want to buy it or call for help?

Bottom Line

The bottom line to this discussion is that fundamentals beat flash in selling far more often than the other way around. The salesperson who asks the best questions is most likely to find real opportunity, and in turn most likely to present the best solutions to whatever problems his/her prospect may be having. I’ll grant you that many things have changed dramatically over the last 5, 10, 20 or even 50 years, but the fundamentals of selling have not changed a bit. I vote for more “old school” and less jargon, more prospecting and better questions and more professionalism and less emphasis on finding new sales paradigms and other non-existent shortcuts. And less excuses, while we’re at it but that’s a topic for another day.

Dave Fellman is the president of David Fellman & Associates, a sales and marketing consulting firm serving numerous segments of the graphic arts industry. He’s a popular speaker who has delivered seminars and keynotes at industry events across the United States, Canada, England, Ireland and Australia. He also is the author of “Sell More Printing!” (2009) and “Listen to the Dinosaur” (2010), which Selling Power magazine listed as one of its “10 Best Books to Read in 2010.” For more information, visit www.davefellman.com.

Moving Past the Great Recession: Print’s Recovery Path for 2011–2012 and Beyond

February 1, 2011

by: Dr. Ronnie H. Davis and Ed Gleeson

An excerpt from the report from Dr. Ronnie H. Davis, vice president and chief economist, and Ed Gleeson, manager, economic and market research, Printing Industries of America Economic and Market Research Department

The Economy: Recession and Recovery

The Great Recession of 2007-2009 was a dramatic departure from the relatively mild recessions of the past two decades. The departure is true in both intensity and duration when compared to the last two recessions of 1990-1991 and 2001-2002. Indeed, even when compared to the last recession approaching this level of severity, The Great Recession scores high in creating economic damage and havoc.

The good news is that after lasting an official eighteen months, the recession has been declared over as of June 2009. However, while the recession may be over, the recovery appears stalled as the economy has taken to moving in an essentially sideways direction. Since peaking in the fourth quarter of last year, the growth rate of economic activity has declined with a very weak 1.6 rate in the second quarter this year and 2.0 percent in the third quarter.

Typically, the steeper the economic decline, the stronger the recovery. However, this is definitely not true of this recession. In fact, the recovery gap between this recession and the last similar magnitude recession (1981-1982) is large and has increased significantly through the past six months.

Where will the economy go from here? A look at the full recovery paths of the past four recessions should provide some guidance. While there is considerable variation in the recovery paths among the last four recessions, the average first year and second year increases in inflation-adjusted GDP are 4.6 percent and 4.2 percent respectively – healthy gains (Figure 1).

As we look forward to the path of the economy in 2011 and 2012, much uncertainty remains even after the November election results. However, based on a number of factors, including the election, the likely outlook has improved. At this time, the most likely trajectory of the economy over the next two years is a somewhat stronger rebound with inflation-adjusted growth of 3.3 percent in 2011 and 3.5 percent in 2012. While this is not a robust recovery, at least it is improved from just a couple months ago.

Other less likely scenarios include a sluggish recovery and a return to recession (the dreaded double dip). While these are less likely scenarios, we present them as alternatives for your own planning purposes if conditions change over the next few months.

Using these same three scenarios, we can focus further on the quarterly pattern of economic activity over the next twelve months. In the forecasted most-likely rebound scenario, the economy bounces up to 2.7 percent growth the first quarter and picks up speed in each of the next four quarters (Figure 2).

Whatever path the recovery ultimately takes, labor markets will remain in an over-supply situation for a while. A standard rule of thumb is that the economy has to grow at around five percent for a full year to lower the unemployment rate by a full percentage point, so it will take considerable time to soak up the large pool of unemployed and discouraged workers that have accumulated over the last three years. Further, the time it takes to return to job creation and a resulting reduction in unemployment has been increasing over the last few recessions.

Even with the growth rate forecast in the likely rebound, the unemployment rate will range over nine percent for most of 2011 and more than eight percent for 2012. The most likely path of the unemployment rate is a range of 9.0-9.5 percent next year and 8.5-9.5 in 2012.

If unemployment behaved like it did in past recessions, by 2011 the unemployment rate would be 6.5 percent, while if it was consistent with recent recessions it would fall to 9 percent by 2011. Based on current trends, we do not expect the unemployment rate to drop below 9 percent until 2014, the government forecast is more optimistic; they expect unemployment to drop to 7.9 percent by 2012. Price changes should remain in check for the next couple of years given the slack in the economy. However, inflation risk may start rising with the incessant bond buying and money creation over the past couple of years, as well as the purchases at the end of 2010 and early 2011 already announced by the Federal Reserve.

Inflation for the full-year 2010 is expected to be around 1.2 percent, which is just about the minimum level targeted by the Federal Reserve as a “healthy” rate of price change. The outlook for inflation in 2011 is for a slightly higher rate of about 1.7 percent as the economy recovers. Expectations for 2012 are more uncertain, but at this time, a rate of around 2 percent is a reasonable forecast.

Assessing the Damage: Print and the Great Recession

According to Printing Industries of America’s print market tracking model, the Great Recession shrunk print’s economic footprint by historic proportions last year. The number of U.S. printing plants declined to 33,565 – down from 36,508 or 8 percent in 2008. Total shipments in 2009 (not adjusted for price changes) were $140.7 billion – down from $166.6 or 15.6 percent industry wide. Employment declined by 6.9 percent from 976,400 to 909,200.

In total, 2009 print markets declined by 2,943 plants, $25.9 billion in total shipments and more than 67,000 employees. After adjusting for declines in printing prices, real or inflation-adjusted printing shipments decreased by about 9.1 percent. Even after the declines, print’s economic footprint is still substantial compared to other U.S. industries and remains a major American industry.

This report presents PIA’s annual review of the economy and print markets during the past year, plus our economic and print market outlook for the next twelve to twenty-four months. Additionally, we offer an assessment of longer-term competitive issues for printers. The objective of this report is to serve as a resource to plan the year ahead for your firm. Also, since it provides alternate scenarios in many instances, it also can be used to make mid-course corrections as the year unfolds. To purchase the full report, contact PIA at 412.259.1770 or visit www.printing.org/store.

Production Digital Print: Changing the Feeding & Finishing Market

February 1, 2011

by: Jim Hamilton, InfoTrends

There are some basic advantages of digital print that sometimes are overlooked. I’m not talking about economic short runs, quick turnaround or the ability to personalize documents. Those are well known and broadly acknowledged. No, I’m talking about capabilities such as electronic collation, automatic duplexing, the ability to mix multiple paper stocks in a document, having one operator run multiple machines and access to a range of finishing capabilities in-line. These capabilities are part of what makes digital print attractive, at least in theory anyway.

In practice, of course, customer demands and the nature of the printed piece will determine which type of print and finishing process to use, whether it’s offset, digital, some hybrid combination or another printing process entirely. Decisions about what process to use are made every day by print service providers. In regard to finishing, commercial printers have tended to use off-line finishing methods because of the wide variety of work they accept. Those who focus on a particular application such as books, catalogs, direct mail, magazines, newspapers or packaging are much more likely to have dedicated finishing capability that they depend on, and which may operate in-line. When digital print comes into the mix, it often happens that print service providers continue with off-line finishing methods because those assets are already in place and effective, even if they are not particularly well suited to the short runs and quick turnaround of digital print. Digital print processes with in-line finishing tend to be employed when users have a lot of one print application. In cut-sheet digital print environments, the most common in-line finishing is for stapled sets, booklets, folded brochures and bound documents. In-line coating and diecutting are in place in a small number of cut-sheet systems. Requirements for roll-fed systems are a bit different. Slitting, cutting, stacking and binding are common for publishing environments while folding and insertion are typical in transaction and mail environments.

Digital print’s biggest weakness to date has been that it becomes less cost effective as run lengths increase. Offset and other types of traditional printing presses, as you all know, are very effective at manufacturing large quantities of static printed matter but they lack the ability to personalize. In production environments, digital print often has been seen as not having the fire power to meet the demands of high-volume printing. A number of trends are conspiring to change this:

Run length requirements are dropping and so are expected turnaround times as the pace of our mobile society has accelerated.
Content creators are rebelling against the old mode of “warehouse and distribute” and instead are moving to virtual warehousing via electronic distribution of documents and selected printing of constantly updated materials.
Digital print engines are becoming faster and more robust, and also are adding capabilities beyond process color (CMYK) such as spot color, spot and flood gloss, white, MICR and UV security features.
In-line finishing for digital is expanding its range of capabilities and at the same time, vendors are standardizing finishing interfaces and using the same finishing devices across multiple product lines; it’s not unusual today for the same in-line finisher to be an option for black and white and color product lines.
In-line devices for cut-sheet production digital print are becoming more compact and productive, in part because of more flexible consumables for functions such as mechanical binding (case in point: GBC’s eBinder and Ellipse consumable).
All types of finishing equipment (in-line, near-line and off-line) are becoming easier to set up and adjust, often automatically.
Automated job ticketing and JDF workflows allow in-line and near-line finishing devices to pick up job information and set up easily for the next job.
Digital print processes are capable of hands-off, lights-out production that takes place with a minimum of human intervention.
New high-speed inkjet technologies are pushing the barriers of cost, speed and productivity.

Many of the items I mention above have been on an evolutionary path over the past two decades. These will continue to impact the market. It’s the last item – high-speed inkjet technologies – that is potentially market changing because the speed and economics of these devices are so impressive. At the same time, though, they create new requirements for next generation finishing systems.

One immediate challenge is supporting the finishing needs of wider web widths. Production digital print devices typically support a paper web width of between 18 and 21 inches. A number of new high-speed color inkjet printers (such as HP’s Inkjet Web Press T350, Kodak’s Prosper 5000XL, Océ’s JetStream 3300, Ricoh’s InfoPrint 5000VP and Screen’s TruePress Jet 520ZZ) all have expanded web widths, with some as wide as 30 inches. The speed, productivity and web width of these devices present challenges to existing in-line finishing equipment. These challenges are being overcome, but it’s also one reason why some users prefer to stick with the narrower format offerings, simply because they raise fewer issues in finishing.

You’d think that a trade show would be one of the best places to see some of the exciting new developments around roll-fed finishing products, and in fact, if you were at IPEX (last May in Birmingham, England) or have plans to attend drupa 2012 (next May in Dusseldorf, Germany), both of those events provide a great showcase. Most recent, however, was a special event that Hunkeler (a Swiss manufacturer of roll-fed oriented feeding and finishing equipment) has run at its headquarters over the past few years. A lot of people call it the Hunkeler open house, but its official name is “Hunkeler Innovation Days.” It took place from February 14th to 17th in Lucerne, Switzerland, and attendees were be able to see a range of equipment from vendors active in roll-fed print such as HP, Kern, Kodak, Océ, Pitney Bowes, Ricoh/InfoPrint, Xeikon, Xerox and – of course – Hunkeler, among many others. Closer to home, the ON DEMAND show (March 22-24 in Washington, DC) is a great place to catch up on trends in cut-sheet finishing for production digital print (in-line or otherwise).

The extent to which automation in finishing has advanced is demonstrated by what Pitney Bowes presented at Graph Expo last fall in Chicago. There, high-speed color inkjet output from an IntelliJet 30 was slit, cut and inserted into blank envelopes. An intelligent tracking system identified each envelope and, based on the number of sheets contained within, adjusted the height of the imaging platform so that the correct address, personalized information and marketing message could be added in full color to the already sealed envelope. Of course, this kind of high-volume intelligent production system represents a significant financial investment, but there are other examples that demonstrate that feeding and finishing innovation is not just taking place on the high end. For example, the Kirk-Rudy envelope feeder that RISO showed in conjunction with a 150-ppm ComColor 9050 solves a simple, but important, issue. How do you print effectively on all kinds of envelopes, including windowed ones which may have trouble passing successfully through the hot temperatures of the fuser rollers of toner-based systems? Inkjet systems such as RISOs ComColor have a solution, but only when used in combination with an effective and productive envelope feeder. In time, we expect to see more cost effective folding and insertion technologies that bring this finishing capability within reach of smaller print service providers.

We’re also seeing how inkjet technology is being used for spot and gloss coating. MGI’s JETvarnish uses inkjet heads to apply a UV coating on sheets up to 20 by 40 inches. At IPEX, an Israeli company called Scodix showed a digital embossing product it calls the 1200. The 1200 uses inkjet heads to apply a thick UV coating on sheets as large as B2 format (19.7 by 27.8 inches). We expect this to be an active area that is driven by innovative usage of inkjet heads.

Workflows that take advantage of digital print and in-line or near-line finishing are part of a larger trend toward optimization, automation and lean manufacturing. Printing has lessened in importance as it has become one weapon in an arsenal that includes other media. We no longer live in a print centric world and yet print continues to play an important role because it’s physical, lasting and doesnt require electricity to read. Digital print, in particular, is key, because it forces us to revisit the basic value of print in an electronic world. How we answer the following questions will in large part determine the success of print in the future.

How do you most effectively automate print and finishing processes?
How do you use digital print devices as virtual document warehouses?
How do you leverage digital print in conjunction with document delivery via e-mail, mobile or other electronic delivery methods?
How do you differentiate print and add overall value?

Finishing will certainly play an important role in how we address these questions.

In conclusion, it’s short-sighted in light of the changing marketplace to continue to view production digital print as a short-run technology. The market is expanding, and it’s only able to do so as finishing technologies provide a key component to help accomplish this revolution.

Jim Hamilton is a Group Director at InfoTrends (www.infotrends.com). You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jrhinfotrends and read his blog at http://blog.infotrends.com/.

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