Printing World articles from December 2004

Printing World archives from December 2004

Scanlon in deal for another print firm.
December 2, 2004... A company director involved in the purchase of Wace Corporate Print last week has bought another failed company from the same administrator. Print and direct mail specialist GWC in Swindon was put into the hands of UHY Hacker Young on...

Peladeau tightens grip.(Pierre Karl Peladeau, Quebecor Inc.)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Pierre Karl Peladeau has tightened his grip on Quebecor World's North American operations. The president and chief executive officer has abolished the position of ceo North America, currently held by David Boles. The heads of the...

Chromoworks escape.(Polestar Chromoworks)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Polestar narrowly escaped a brush with receivers when furniture giant Courts went into administration on Tuesday. Polestar Chromoworks was due to start an 8 million print run of Courts' brochures on Monday night. Polestar, which has 340...

Windows graphics for McDonald's.( Store Decor Company. )(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... A Vutek PressVu 180/600 has been used to print wallpaper and windows graphics for McDonald's. The Store Decor Company in the US used the PressVu to print pictures of brightly coloured cartoon characters onto 37.7m2 vinyl coated commercial...

Ricoh award.(Ricoh Corporation, Buyer's Laboratory Pick of the Year award)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Ricoh Corporation has won a Buyer's Laboratory Pick of the Year award for its AP400N desktop printer. It is the third consecutive annual win for Ricoh, whose AP400N prints at speeds of up to 26 pages a minute. Each product considered for the...

New inks at Flexo 2005.(ANI Printing Inks)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... ANI Printing Inks is demonstrating several new inks at Flexo 2005, including the opaque Flexocure Ivory and uv Flexocure designed to increase productivity. ANI Printing Ink's CombiWhite ink with easy overprint and HolographInk, a speciality...

Intelligent Register system.(Gidue)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Gidue has launched the Intelligent Register system for its E-Combat press. The system is an extension of the company's automatic register control (ARC) and incorporates two additional features: a final sensor and new software. The system allows...

Magazines look beyond A4 says PPA.(Periodical Publishers Association )(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Magazine publishers are increasingly looking for formats other than A4, PPA chairman Nicholas Coleridge told last week's production conference in London. As the keynote speaker he said that A4 had been the preferred format for retailers....

KBA Compactas are central to NJP future.(New Jarrold Printing)
December 2, 2004... KBA will provide the two 64pp heatset webs forming the centrepiece of the #25m 21st century printing plant planned by New Jarrold Printing. The first press will be delivered in mid-2006 to a new site which is almost certain to be in...

ViP survey warns of threat from European fringe nations.(Vision in Print International productivity survey)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Competition from the fringe countries of Europe is a growing factor for all sectors of the printing industry, printers were warned at the seminar to launch the Vision in Print International productivity survey. This makes the report...

Cost of advertising.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Media agency Initiative has warned that print advertising could be killed off by its own rising prices. The agency has predicted that the cost of advertising space in newspapers and magazines will increase by 9.2% in the coming year, in spite...

Konica Minolta award.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Konica Minolta's Bizhub C350 colour document imaging system has won the 2004 Business Equipment Digest excellence award for the colour imaging category. The prize was awarded based on BED readers' votes. This is the third award of the year for...

Colour Confidence webstore.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Colour Confidence, the colour management arm of Typemaker, has extended its webstore to serve Germany following the success of Photokina. The huge digital photography interest of German visitors at the leading event for the photographic sector...

Low temperature adhesive.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Adhesive manufacturer Emerson & Cuming has developed a low temperature adhesive that may make the production of tags cheaper. The XCE 3112 adhesive reduces the need for cure ovens as it snap cures in seconds and can be used in conjunction with...

Six printers awarded English Heritage work.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... English Heritage has awarded three-year contracts to a final shortlist of six print suppliers. The public body, funded partly by the Department for Media, Culture and Sport, will for the first time employ the Wyndeham Press Group for both...

Dats signs four-colour press deal.(Dats Print Services)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Nationwide stationery printer Dats Print Services, Irthlingborough, has bought a four-colour press after it went to Heidelberg's Tamworth open house to sign a deal on a third guillotine. A Speedmaster 52 will be delivered in the New Year to...

Luton BC digitises.(Luton Borough Council )(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Luton Borough Council has expanded its reprographics department with the addition of digital printing equipment from Imagistics. The authority is taking delivery of two IM8130s black and white machines and an IM8031c colour printer this...

Print Solutions appointment.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Romec's commercial printing division, Print Solutions, has appointed Darren Knapp as sales executive. Mr Knapp, who has worked in both the studio and sales within the industry for the past 12 years, will aid the Swindon company in its expansion...

Ziegler competition.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Paper company Ziegler awarded two special prizes to UK companies at its first Ziegler Best Art & Print Work competition. Team (Impression) and Brahm, both based in Leeds, were commended for their respective production and design of A Guide to...

New document processing site.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Business outsourcing company Williams Lea has officially opened Lomond View, its new document processing site at Craigforth, Stirling. The centre was purpose built on the back of Prudential's award of a #140m outsourcing contract to allow...

FSC certification.(Forest Stewardship Council)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Denmaur Papers, Sittingbourne, has achieved the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain of Custody certification. As a result, Denmaur can apply one of three FSC 100%, mixed sources or recycled labels to certified products to show that they have...

Libra Gravure calls a meeting of creditors.(services)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... The announcement that Libra Gravure Cylinders (Plastics Division) of Manchester has called for a meeting of creditors could herald the end of one of the UK's most innovative developers of new technology for the gravure industry. LGC has...

Macro Art's giant adverts.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Macro Art has printed the first graphics for Agripa's new Fleet Media advertising option. The first City Trailer advertising campaign has begun on 80 panels bought by Ubisoft to advertise its Prince of Persia II video game. Macro Art...

Delta invests.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... The Delta Group, Walthamstow, has invested #400,000 in a facility to accommodate its expanding operation with the launch of a `spin out' design agency from its existing in-house design function. The company says the unit will further...

Embassy improves quality of its work.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Embassy Press, London, has installed Fuji Open Workflow into the prepress department of its Sussex factory. The company says it has enabled it to print a predictable true-to-life proof and reduce printing errors, as well as improve the...

Product of the year.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Coated substrate manufacturer Intelicoat's GFPhoto inkjet paper has been named product of the year by the Digital Printing and Imaging Association (DPI) at its conference at the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) trade fair....

Papers for professional photographers.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Encad, a Kodak subsidiary, has expanded its wide format inkjet product portfolio with a range of media. The company has introduced Kodak Premium Rapid Dry Photographic 260g and 190g Glossy/Satin papers designed for professional photographers,...

Sign Expo.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... More than 80% of stand space for next year's Sign Expo has been booked by companies including Hewlett Packard, B&P Lightbrigade and Spandex. Sign UK 2005 will take place on April 12-14 at Birmingham's NEC alongside Digital Expo, Screenprint and...

Colourgen offer.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Colourgen is offering customers a 25% discount on Proseal 25 and 44 desktop laminators to customers also buying any Epson Stylus Pro wide format printer. Suitable for signage and display markets, the Proseal laminators are available at the...

Stralfors continues its NBS partnership.(National Blood Service)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Stralfors, the specialist print and information transfer company in Cornwall, has again won the contract to provide mailing and fulfilment services to the National Blood Service. The NBS has used the company since 1998 to print and mail...

Copyprint places order with Duplo.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Copyprint is already seeing the benefit of its investment in Duplo finishing equipment after the modular system clocked up 100,000 booklets in its first week of operation. The three-station DC10/60 vacuum collator and DBM500 bookletmaker...

Domino to offer Datalase.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Sherwood Technology, Widnes, has teamed up with international laser- marking technology manufacturer Domino to supply its Datalase technology to a worldwide market. The two companies have already worked together to supply their coding and...

BBC in Indian deal.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... The Indian government has approved the move by the BBC's non-news publishing arm to buy a 50% share in Worldwide Media. BBC Worldwide, the arm of the BBC that publishes magazines, journals and books, has bought the stake for Rs 389.5m...

Finland's paper employers to negotiate wages.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Finland's key paper industry employers are set to negotiate wages directly with trade unions after the Finnish Forest Industries Federation backed out of discussions, stating that employers would not commit to tackling the problems, resulting...

Marketing literature study.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Direct mail specialist Lloyd James Group has found that linking database segmentation with digital print technology to introduce personalised variable imagery into marketing literature can result in a 33.4% increase in responses. The study...

British Franchise Exhibition.(MinuteMan Press)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... MinuteMan Press, Fastsigns and Lasertech UK are among more than 80 companies exhibiting at the British Franchise Exhibition at Manchester's GMex next January. The exhibition is aimed at those wishing to start their own franchised businesses and...

Accurate levelling.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... SKF, Bedfordshire, has released a new system for the accurate levelling and vertical alignment of machine beds. With a typical resolution of 0.02mm/m, the system uses a self-levelling scanning laser transmitter and one or more receivers to...

Benchtop proofer.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... A new version of RK Print Coat Instruments' Flexiproof 100 benchtop proofer will be shown at Flexo 2005. The scaled down version of a flexographic press, suitable for inks, adhesives, substrates and anilox or doctor blade producers, as well as...

MAN Roland returns to size eight presses.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... MAN Roland had two specific goals when it held a series of open days last week at its Roland 900 manufacturing facility in Meinhausen, near Frankfurt. Murray Lock, marketing director MAN Roland GB, explains: "We wanted to signal very...

CSL installs MIS.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... CSL Digital Print, Basingstoke, has bought an Optimus 2020 MIS as part of a development programme to install an online print procurement service. Print services manager David Hayward says the online system, which will be up and running by...

Nuffield pile turner.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Nuffield Press, Abingdon, has replaced its ten-year-old Thando B1 pile turner with a new Thando B1 and B2 105P machine from Encore Machinery. In June, the company installed a Heidelberg SM74 five-colour B2 press, which took operators 15-20...

City Print chooses Autobond.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Family run commercial printer City Print, Cork, has installed an Autobond Compact 74T laminator to keep up with growing demand. The company has seen a significant increase in productivity and quality since replacing its existing laminator,...

Tesco guidelines.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Magazines may have to be wrapped in foil covers to be sold in Tesco. The supermarket giant sent out guidelines to publishers saying complaints had been received from customers with children about racy men's magazine covers. A spokesman for the...

Survey of homeworkers.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Printer manufacturer Lexmark has found that people are largely dissatisfied with office space within their homes. The company surveyed 1,000 homeworkers and found that only 44% were happy with their office space and the remainder were having to...

Scotsman ABC figures.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... The Scotsman's circulation figures have continued to decline, despite the newspaper being relaunched as a compact publication. The latest ABC figures do, however, show that the move has slowed the rate of decline, with a drop of 0.82%...

Tangerine contract.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Laddingford print, design and new media agency Tangerine has printed building society Kent Reliance's annual report, members news and financial statement summary. Tangerine has also recently won the contract to produce the General Dental...

Scapa website.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Technical tape supplier Scapa has launched a European website with information on more than 200 technical tapes and datasheets for customers and distributors to download at www.scapaeurope.com. Copyright: CMP Information Ltd.

Sanderson to raise cash on AIM.(Alternative Investment Market )(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... MIS supplier Sanderson is to float on London's Alternative Investment Market later this month to raise capital for potential acquisitions. The software company says it has outperformed a weak market in recent years and that a flotation...

Essex printroom to extend Oce contract.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Essex County Council has extended its contract with Oce to include four new digital presses in a bid to take on more public sector work. The county council's printroom in Chelmsford has acquired new VarioPrint 2110 and 2090 monochrome...

Blp increases workforce.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Blp, a print management company in Tyneside, has increased its workforce by more than 10% this year due to renewed contracts and new clients. The company says it is part of its on-going strategy to maintain a stable platform to support its...

BT goes more green.(British Telecommunications PLC)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... M-real has signed a deal to provide BT with partly recycled office paper in the communications company's drive to become greener. M-real's EP4 paper contains at least 70% recycled content. M-real Office Papers' marketing executive Jude...

Xerox opens up Premier.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Xerox has gone public with its Premier Partners network of 350 digital printers with Internet access through the newly launched Xerox Graphic Arts Public Portal. Premier Partners was established four years ago to promote and exchange...

Parchment upgrades ahead of shift at top.(Product enhancement)
December 2, 2004... Parchment, Oxford, has completely upgraded its bindery and invested in two large format presses and a ctp system in preparation for a shift in management next year. In addition to Horizon finishing machines, Parchment has installed a Mutoh...

Cooling dates for London.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... A conference highlighting breakthroughs in alternative cooling technologies, along with heat pump developments is to be held in London at the beginning of next February. The conference looks set to discuss a number of developments that will be...

Express gets Hamada.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Ex-professional footballer, Jamie Patterson, who bought Print Express in November last year, has recently invested in a Hamada 452A-I four- colour press with a DPM 2508 ctp system from AB Dick. The company, a quick print operation on the...

COMMENT: Quality should rule over price.
December 2, 2004... English Heritage has just placed some large printing contracts, set to run for the next three years. These deals have been placed by a public body funded with government money and the tendering process would have been scrupulously fair and...

Letter: The title that tells it like it is.(Letter to the Editor)
December 2, 2004... Thank God for a little objective reporting. Having initially read PrintWeek I sent someone out to get a good luck card to send to the new management at Wace. No matter how sorry one feels for those staff that remain, for the time being at...

Kadant restructuring.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Kadant, a manufacturer of products for papermaking and recycling, is to make 136 people redundant at its French subsidiary Kadant Lamort in Vitry-le-Francois over the next six months in an effort to make the factory more competitive. The...

FTSE's companies exposed to currency fluctuations.(Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... UK companies with a strong presence in the US are preparing for a reduction in profits as sterling reached a nine-month high against the dollar last week. Packaging group Bunzl and publisher Reed Elsevier are included in the FTSE's top ten...

Graphic Imaging survey.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Research conducted by the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association in the US shows that the average sales volume improved in 2003/2004 to $5,235m for each company, an increase from $4,967m in 2001/2002. The survey is based on responses from...

Shares in Novar lifted higher.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Shares in Novar were lifted higher on heavy volume trading last week as a result of confidence that a rival bid would be launched to the 145p offer already tabled by investment vehicle Melrose. The rejected offer is expected to be improved upon...

More positive economic conditions.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Company profitability has increased for the first time in five years, according to research from Experian. The company found that the average return on capital employed among UK companies increased from 4.7% in the 12 months to December 2003 to...

Punch aims to float graphics division.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Punch International is to raise working capital by floating its graphics division, comprising Xeikon, Basysprint and Strobbe Graphics, on London's AIM exchange next year. The company says the move will provide the necessary funding to...

Nipson's cost cutting bears fruit.(Nipson Digital Printing Systems )(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Nipson Digital Printing Systems moved into profit in the third quarter as the 2003 cost reduction programme begins to bear fruit. For the three months to September the manufacturer of digital monochrome presses reported an operating profit...

Small firms call for reduced tax burdens.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... The government has been warned that the number of business failures in the UK is set to increase dramatically if it does not alleviate the administrative red tape and tax burdens the small firms are currently facing. The caution, from...

Cello takes AIM with three parts.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Print management company Target Direct Print has been incorporated into a new marketing group, which is set to launch on the AIM investment index. The #23m group, named Cello, comprises Target's parent company Target Direct Marketing as...

Xerox reduces revenue outlook.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Xerox has deflated its revenue growth outlook for 2005 from 5% to 3%, but says that profits will be stronger following demand for new products. At its annual investor conference on November 22, the company revealed that sales grew 7%...

Compulsory winding up.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... The following case is due to be heard at Leeds District Registry, 1 Oxford Row, Leeds LS1 3BG * Seven Corners Press Ltd Karran House, Woodbridge Meadows, Guildford, Surrey GU1 1BA on December 2 at 10.30am. Petition by Pressure System...

Appointment of liquidators.(Printing industry)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... * Polestar Creative Ltd Design and marketing consultants. Liquidator: M Rimmer, Rimmer Higson, 22 Ribblesdale Place, Preston PR1 3NA * Cotswold Printing Company Ltd Printers, Cotswold Print Sales Ltd Previous company names Web Colour Print...

Meetings of creditors.
December 2, 2004... * Freds Dads Publishing Company Ltd at 12 Signet Court, Swann's Road, Cambridge CB5 8LA on November 29 * Viking Press Northern Ltd at Bridgestones, 125-127 Union Street, Oldham OL1 1TE on December 2 at 11am * Libra Gravure Cylinders...

Final meetings.(Calendar)
December 2, 2004... * Surrey Print Finishers Ltd at Langley House, Park Road, East Finchley, London N2 8EX on December 17 at 10.30am for members and at 10.45am for creditors * Ranson Graphics Ltd at SPW Poppleton & Appleby, Gable House, 239 Regents Park Road,...

Stora profits up.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Operating profits almost tripled at Stora Enso in the third quarter and the paper manufacturer says strong demand means results will continue to see improvement. Operating profit increased to E131.6m from E58.5m in Q2, although it was...

Quebecor extends.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Quebecor World has reorganised its borrowings to extend a $1bn revolving credit facility. This facility will mature in November 2007. It is in addition to the US trade receivables lending which extends a $510m facility until the end of...

Internet sales grow up quickly.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... * British companies more than doubled their Internet sales in 2003 compared with 2002 * The value increased from #19bn to #39.5bn * Manufacturing companies almost trebled online sales from #5.5bn to #14.6bn * The figures are...

How the figures stack up in Japan's printing market.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... The printing industry in Japan represents 4.5% of the manufacturing sector as a whole. It is ranked as the seventh largest of the 22 categories of Japanese industry, making it proportionally smaller than its UK equivalent. The latest...

Inkjet popularity aids media growth.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... A total of 80 million inkjet devices were sold across the US during last year, making it the dominant technology within the desktop printer market. The inkjet units produced approximately 116 billion prints on paper- based media of which a...

Billions to be saved by small businesses.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... The Royal Bank of Scotland says that small businesses in Britain could save as much as #12.8bn through the simple measure of offsetting current and savings account balances against their personal mortgages. On average the Royal Bank of...

Variable data gives the spur to increase in digital uptake.(advertising agencies)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... Nearly half of all the advertising agencies which were surveyed by TrendWatch Graphic Arts during the summer period said they had been involved in working on targeted print jobs over the past 12 months that featured the application of either...

ENVIRONMENT CAMPAIGN: Printing partners come clean.
December 2, 2004... Print management companies are adopting environmentally sound purchasing policies as their customers insist on corporate responsibility By Gareth Ward The country's leading buyers of print are committing themselves to environmental...

How to avoid wasteful direct mail.
December 2, 2004... Right at the forefront of action to eliminate wasteful and therefore environmentally damaging print, is the direct mail industry. Wasteful mailings are a regular cause of consumer aggravation thanks to unwanted junk mail, which it has been...

Westdale has it all for Good For Nothing debut.(Westdale Press)
December 2, 2004... The Westdale Press, Cardiff, is to print London's new lifestyle magazine set to "raise the bar on the free magazine market," says publishing editor Neil Boorman. Good For Nothing has emerged from the ashes of the style magazine market...

Q&A How to look after the environment.
December 2, 2004... Harry Carson of Carson Technical looks at the steps printers should take to become more environmentally friendly Why should printers be concerned about the environment? The environment has become a major consideration for the UK...

Getting there: Chris Scully.(Brief Article)(Biography)
December 2, 2004... Biography Chris Scully, area sales manager for the south-west region for KBA UK, was previously national sales manager for Creo UK What was your first job in the industry, and where? As a machine operator (RS30/90) at SWP Bristol...

Bottcher compounds suit all press needs.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2004... A number of printers in the UK now print on presses using both conventional inks and those that are cured using uv light. The business model for doing this is strong, but there can be a reduction in flexibility in work moving through production...