Heidelberg

Heidelberg has restructured its business, resulting in head of sales Jurgen Rautert leaving the company after nearly two decades. Overall sales responsibility has been handed over to chief executive Bernhard Schreier.

Take a quick tour of the PRINT 09 show floor with IPG Editor Bob Neubauer.

In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung published last Friday, manroland AG Chairman of the Board Gerd Finkbeiner discussed the company’s debt position, industry consolidation and technology. Addressing the marketplace for graphic arts capital equipment, Finkbeiner said manroland and its investors were well-prepared ahead of the industry’s downturn.

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.

THOUGH PRINT 09 may have gotten off to a slow start, the crowds eventually showed up. And when they did, many of them headed right for the bindery equipment. Nowhere was that more true than at the Standard Finishing Systems exhibit, which was bustling with activity on the third day of the show, even as other booths appeared to be on siesta. Mark Hunt, director of marketing for Standard, thought he knew why.

Like many in-plants, the Printing and Mailing Services department at the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, Minn., is in the midst of a digital transition. In fact, just a few short weeks ago the 24-employee shop made the decision to get rid of its one remaining offset press—an ABDick 9850 duplicator with a T-head that was being used exclusively for envelopes.

CHERYL BUXTON is pretty up-front about the fact that some of the equipment in her Topeka, Kan., in-plant is older than the employees who run it. In June, the director of the Division of Printing and Surplus Property for the state of Kansas replaced a 30-year-old stitcher with a state-of-the-art Muller Martini Bravo-Plus saddle stitcher with AMRYS (automatic makeready system).

CHEMISTRY DEFINITELY has its place: in science fairs, laboratories and love. However, more and more in-plants are displacing chemistry in favor of greener, cleaner workflows. Platemaking is one of the areas getting the enviro-overhaul. Here, five in-plants recount their transitions to chemistry-free computer-to-plate (CTP). And despite our best efforts to document the bad along with the good, these in-plants claim to have had very few reservations—and even fewer regrets.

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.

Steve Schmuger, graphic services manager for Miami-Dade County’s General Services Administration, can summarize one of his most important job responsibilities into three words: feeding the organism. Schmuger envisions the shop’s workflow as a dynamic, vital entity. “It can do more and more things for you, but you must keep feeding it—that is, investing in technology and adding more components,” he asserts.