Heidelberg

THE AFRICAN Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) Sunday School Union has been in continuous operation for 127 years, making it one of the oldest continuously operating black publishing companies in America. Located in Nashville, Tenn., it publishes a range of items to support more than 3,000 AME churches across the United States.

JUDGING BY the number of in-plant managers walking the Graph Expo show floor last month, there are quite a few in-plants itching to leave the recession behind and get busy adding equipment. The show gave them plenty to ogle, too, particularly in the inkjet arena.

Graph Expo was noticeably more busy this year, due in part to a surge in attendance by in-plant managers. These videos will give you a sense of what it was like.

IPG checked out some of the most innovative products at Graph Expo 2011. Here, Editor Bob Neubauer chats with Jim Mauro about the features of Heidelberg's Prinect Image Control spectrophotometric measurement and control system.

WHEN GORDON Ryan joined the 77,000-member New York State Bar Association about 12 months ago as print production manager, the organization had already decided to upgrade its in-house printing capabilities. To date, that upgrade has included a relocation to a 20,000-square-foot off-site facility custom-fitted to suit NYSBA's printing and warehousing workflow requirements, as well as a significant upgrade in equipment.

After putting up with aging equipment for years, Printing Services at California State University at San Bernadino recently replaced its Challenge cutter with a Perfecta 76 HTVC, installed a new James Burn Lhermite DocuPunch to replace an old GBC Streampunch and added a new Standard Horizon system, including an SPF-200A stitcher/folder, an FC 200 face trimmer and a 10-bin air-fed VAC-100A collator.

One of the more exciting acquisitions for the Print Solutions department at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee in 2011 was a new four-color Presstek 75DI digital offset press with an aqueous coater. It joined the Print Solutions family in May.

Brigham Young University last won the In-Print Best of Show award in 1995. Since then, Doug Maxwell, director of BYU's Print & Mail Production Center, has watched dozens of his in-plant's excellent pieces fall just short of the grand prize.

When Graph Expo 2011 kicks off in Chicago on September 11, in-plant managers who walk the floor at McCormick Place will notice one big difference from last year: the resurgence of offset printing. True, there were presses at last year's show, most notably in Presstek's booth. But three offset giants—Heidelberg USA, Komori America and Mitsubishi Lithographic Presses—all chose to sit that show out.

Heidelberg USA issued a new white paper focusing on security issues unique to modern printing facilities. Entitled, “24 Ways A Printer Can Avoid Being Hacked,” the white paper views security not as an unnecessary added cost, but as a real competitive advantage printers overlook at their peril.