EFI, Jetrion Industrial Inkjet Systems

Some of the latest wide-format printers from Agfa, Epson, Canon, EFI, Screen USA, HP, Mimaki, Mutoh and Fujifilm.

Not long ago, the CEO, COO and CFO of HealthSouth—one of the nation's leading providers of physical rehabilitation—visited the organization's Print Solutions facility, located 15 miles from its Birmingham, Ala., headquarters. The occasion was to celebrate the shop's acquisition of an HP Indigo 7600 digital press and an EFI Rastek wide-format printer.

The SGIA 2013 Expo wraps up today in Orlando. So far this week, several new wide-format printing technologies have made their debut.

With traditional offset exhibitors like Heidelberg giving the Chicago trade show a pass, the digital print vendors were the new kings. Xerox, Canon, Konica Minolta and Fujifilm led the pack in booth size, and each of them had new inkjet production presses to proclaim.

The quality of a print will only be as good as the quality of the digital file provided. A webinar next Tuesday will offer in-plants tips on how to identify the six most common issues with digital files designed using Adobe Creative Suite, and automate the detection of these issues with Fiery tools.

One day before PRINT 13 opened, the National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL) inducted 15 industry leaders into the Soderstrom Society, named for the late Walter E. Soderstrom, one of the founders of NAPL. The Soderstrom award recognizes the contributions of industry leaders, including printing firm owners, equipment manufacturers, consultants, and educators.

A popular choice by in-plants seeking print management information systems (MIS), Toronto-based Avanti Computer Systems has long stood out as one of the few remaining print MIS vendors not acquired by EFI. With EFI’s May acquisition of privately held printLEADER, the company now controls about 70 percent of the Print MIS market, according to EFI’s own data.

You can't avoid chocolate in Hershey, Pa. Even the streetlights are shaped like Hershey's Kisses in this erstwhile company town about 14 miles east of Harrisburg. Named for local hero Milton S. Hershey, who opened his chocolate factory there in 1904, the town grew up around chocolate, flourishing thanks to Milton Hershey's passionate investment in the community.

Here's a look at some of the new printing and binding equipment and software that will be shown at PRINT 13, taking place in Chicago, September 8-12.

To service its customers in the industrial and manufacturing sector, Allied Reliability Group depends on its in-plant to provide hundreds of thousands of training manuals, training certificates, course catalogs, brochures, posters and other materials each year. The company's network of 200+ employees turns to Production Specialist Cindy Ley, the in-plant's sole employee, for these products, and she, in turn, relies on her shop's Ricoh Pro C901 digital color press.