Agfa Graphics

After putting up with some very old and slow cutting machines for several decades, Texas Health and Human Services (HHS) Printing Services recently upgraded to a new Heidelberg POLAR 92 XT guillotine cutter with a jogging unit, scale and lifts.

MONITOR SOFT proofing allows many benefits in terms of time and convenience. With the current economic challenges, all printers must look at ways to increase efficiencies. Soft proofing and online collaboration were obvious solutions even before the current financial meltdown, and now the case for soft proofing is even more compelling.

AFTER STARTING up an extensive digital in-plant almost three years ago, the Church of Scientology has decided to replicate this success with an even more ambitious in-house printing operation. Just a few months from now the church plans to open a new offset printing plant in Commerce, Calif., 15 minutes from downtown Los Angeles.

TO BE FAIR, the sorry state of the economy made it almost impossible for PRINT 09 to be a rousing success. Show floor traffic was so slow on the opening day (Friday), it was speculated that someone forgot to flip the sign in the front window at McCormick Place from "closed" to "open for business." And one had to question the logic of conducting a long, weekend-wraparound show on the first week of pro football season, when no one (it was presumed) would be coming to Chicago, let alone spending.

WHEN BRIGGS & Stratton Graphic Services accepted a complex catalog job from a local non-profit, Pressroom Supervisor Brian Patterson had an inkling it might turn out to be a prize winner. When he saw the quality of the finished product, he felt even more confident.

According to IPG data, almost 22 percent of in-plants have an imagesetter. Until last month, one of them was the University of Mississippi, which has been churning out film with a Screen Katana for years. The main reason the shop stuck with it? “It was paid for,” laughs Tony Seaman, director of Printing and Graphic Services at the Oxford, Miss., shop. 

“OUR PRIMARY focus really is color,” declares Dallas Johnson, from his office at the University of California-Riverside. “We’ve moved away from black and white. We saw that as sort of a dying market…still see it that way.” With 35 years of printing experience to guide him, Johnson thinks he has a pretty good idea where the industry is headed. So when the director of Service Enterprises decided to move his in-plant away from the “dying” monochrome market and into the more promising world of color printing, he did it in a big way.

REDUCING GLOBAL poverty is an ambitious goal, but the World Bank has made great progress since it was created in 1944 by providing financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. To support its activities, the World Bank maintains one of the largest, most advanced in-plants in the country. With 70 employees, the Bank’s Washington, D.C.-based Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit not only utilizes the latest digital presses—including two Kodak NexPresses, an Océ ColorStream 10000 and a Presstek 52 DI press—it has begun using JDF data to preset its equipment. Plus, it recently upgraded its Avanti shop management system to add Web ordering.

The terrorist attacks last week in Mumbai, India, have forced the postponement of a major graphic arts show. The FESPA Digital India 2008 show, scheduled to take place there December 14-16, has been delayed until February.

The show focuses largely on wide-format digital printing equipment and features such vendors as Agfa, EFI, Epson and HP.

NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies has awarded its Harold W. Gegenheimer Individual and Corporate Awards for Industry Service to Dr. Juergen J. Stolt and Burgess Industries, respectively.