Offset Printing - Sheet-Fed

WILLISTON, VT—1/18/07—KBA North America, a leading press manufacturer, is announcing an exclusive distributorship in the U.S. and Canada with Vegra, an international company specializing in the development of high-quality and environmentally-friendly products for the graphic arts industry. The new consumables line, which can be ordered online through http://consumables.kba-usa.com, includes fountain solutions, coatings, washes, and varnishes, and is designed to work with all printing press manufacturers and available to all printers, regardless of their press models. “We are pleased to announce this exclusive distributorship with Vegra,” says Ralf Sammeck, president and CEO of KBA North America. “This furthers our goal of addressing the

WILLISTON, VT—01/16/0—As a result of integrating the North American web and sheetfed business units into one combined entity, KBA North America has announced the following sales staff changes, effective immediately: Heinz Schmid assumes the position of senior vice president, web press sales. Gary Owen has been appointed vice president, sales and communications newspapers – regional. Bruce Richardson and Steve Brown have become sales managers, East and West, respectively. Ralf Sammeck, president and CEO of KBA North America, commented that, “The combined experience of over 100 years of our dedicated newspaper sales staff demonstrates to our customers the serious commitment that we have made to

Al Reijmer is the new general manager of MAN Roland’s Central Region Sheetfed Operations. Reijmer, who worked at Heidelberg for more than a quarter century, replaces George Fisher, who is moving to a corporate position at MAN Druckmaschinen in Germany. In his new role, Reijmer is in charge of all Central Region sales operations for MAN Roland’s sheetfed line of presses. As of today, he will report to Vincent Lapinski, the new chief executive officer of MAN Roland. Before joining MAN Roland in November, Reijmer was president of the TD Global Group, a major supplier of used printing equipment.

More than 50 printers traveled to Kennesaw, Ga., to attend a customer event at Heidelberg’s U.S. headquarters. The topic: “Straight Printing vs. Long Perfecting.” The event focused on helping printers determine which production process, and ultimately which equipment configuration, is best for their business. The event began with an in-depth look at Heidelberg’s Prinect integrated workflow and color management solutions and a virtual demonstration of a job passing through the Prinect workflow. Printers then “followed” the job to the pressroom for a series of live runs of the same job produced on two different presses: on the Speedmaster SM 102 10-color perfecting press in

THE WORLD of the printing press has changed. Color printing once mandated longer runs because the setup time (makeready) was an hour or two. When the first direct imaging (DI) press was introduced in 1991, its makeready was at 20 minutes, and over time it came down to less than 10 minutes. Today older presses are at about 60 minutes for makeready. On newer presses, Komori has a user who was quoted with six-minute makereadies. Heidelberg introduced a press with a seven-minute make­ready—and heading to five minutes. MAN Roland customer Vista­Print boasts three-minute setups. KBA claims to be in the same league. A run

RADEBEUL, GERMANY—12/01/06—In its November session Koenig & Bauer’s supervisory board approved changes at the executive level. On 31 July next year, at his own request, Andreas Mössner (43) will step down from the parent company‘s board of directors, resigning the position he has held since January 1998 as executive vice president for sales at KBA’s sheetfed division in Radebeul (Dresden). He will be replaced on 1 August 2007 by Ralf Sammeck (44), who has guided KBA North America’s sheetfed division to new heights since being appointed president and CEO in October 2002. Mössner has accepted an appointment by the supervisory board of KBA’s Austrian

THE GRAPHIC arts market saw the need for industry standards and understood the growing XML (Extensible Markup Language) development when it supported the decision to create CIP4 (www.cip4.org). This association includes major equipment and software vendors in prepress, digital printing, offset and finishing. CIP4 created the Job Definition Format (JDF) as a standard way to exchange and understand job information. This process can begin to empower creative and production staffs to support an efficient manufacturing process. Tremendous efficiency can result from understanding the interdependence of each department. We largely still depend on paper-based processes that are isolated and disconnected with our current way

Ryobi Graphic Systems, of Hiroshima, Japan, plans to begin construction on a new press manufacturing facility in January 2007. The new facility will be the third at Ryobi’s Hiroshima East central production center. Ryobi also recently reported that its second factory, completed earlier this year, is running at full operation. Ryobi’s newly expanded 215,000-square-foot manufacturing center—known as Hiroshima East Plants 1 and 2—generated a 60 percent increase in production capacity when the second plant became fully operational in late October 2006, according to the company. Ryobi officials said the newest facility, Hiroshima East Plant 3, will be at full-scale operations in September 2007. It

HIROSHIMA, JAPAN/LENEXA, KS—November 21, 2006—Driven by strong U.S. and worldwide demand growth for offset printing presses, Ryobi Graphic Systems of Hiroshima, Japan, said it will begin construction on a new press manufacturing facility in January 2007. The new facility will be the third at Ryobi’s Hiroshima East central production center. Ryobi also recently reported that its second factory, completed earlier this year, is running at full operation. Ryobi is one of the world’s leading producers of multi-color, mid-size offset printing presses. Ryobi’s newly expanded 215,000 square foot manufacturing center—known as Hiroshima East Plants 1 and 2—generated a 60% increase in production capacity when

Incoming orders 13 percent up on previous year Sales six percent up at 1.628 billion Euro Considerable improvement in result of operating activities at 118 million Euro Outlook for full financial year 2006/2007 confirmed HEIDELBERG, GERMANY—11/07/2006—For the first six months of financial year 2006/2007 (April 1 to September 30, 2006), Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) increased its sales and earnings over the previous year. Heidelberg Group sales in the first six months were six percent up on the comparable figure for the previous year at 1.628 billion Euro (previous year: 1.529 billion Euro). Incoming orders in the period climbed 13 percent to 1.996 billion Euro