Heidelberg

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.

Two years ago, University of Iowa Printing and Mailing Services jumped into short-run digital color with a new HP Indigo 5000. Now the 44-employee in-plant is moving into four-color offset as well.  The Iowa City-based shop just installed a four-color Komori Spica 29P perfector press. Since it went in, the press has been busy printing brochures, posters, newsletters and lots of perfecting work, says Steve Wilson, printing manager.

THE PRIMARY PRO of purchasing a pre-owned offset press is, indisputably, price. Savings can be tremendous, “half or more compared to the cost of a new press,” according to NAPL’s Ray Prince. Sometimes pre-owned is the only option, especially for an in-plant with limited financial resources.

The print and mail operation for California’s Contra Costa County is making it easier for county employees to order their printing. The 23-employee in-plant recently acquired Presstek’s PathWay Web-to-print solution. Though still officially in pilot mode, the system is already available to more than 1,000 county employees.

Two-color printing used to be fashionable, remarks Bob Tippins, manager of Graphic Services at Carleton University."But now everyone wants four-color,” he says. For an in-plant with a two-color press, however, this presented a small problem. The 23-employee, Ottawa, Ontario-based in-plant did some four-color work on its 25-year-old two-color Heidelbeg MOZP, but it was, Tippins admits, “very inefficient.

As many as 2,500 Heidelberg workers from around the world could lose their job as the parent company expects a “significant downturn in sales.” The move is part of an accelerated plan to save 200 million euros, or $261 million, as the company expects a marked reduction in operating results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009.

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY—11/06/2008—In the first six months of financial year 2008/2009 (April 1, 2008 to September 30, 2008), Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) matched the previous year’s incoming orders thanks to the industry trade show drupa in May 2008. Looking at the second quarter (July to September 2008) in isolation, incoming orders fell sharply by around 23 percent due to the continuing financial crisis and the resultant global economic uncertainties. Incoming orders for the Heidelberg Group in the period under review totaled 1.872 billion Euro (previous year: 1.866 billion Euro), 721 million Euro of this in the second quarter (previous year: 932 million Euro). Sales by

When Otter Tail Power Co. decided to put its in-plant’s basement facility to a different use, Scott Nelson jumped at the chance to move his 12-employee operation to new quarters. And because the in-plant has a thriving insourcing business that brings in good revenue for the Fergus Falls, Minn.-based power company, Otter Tail didn’t hesitate to fund the move. In September, the in-plant began operating out of its new 7,200-square-foot facility, just a half block from its old location. Nelson says the new plant is better in many ways. “It’s more of a storefront operation,” he says. Customers used to have to go into

GRAPH EXPO took over Chicago for four days last month, bringing the best of Drupa to U.S. soil. Thousands of printers turned out to see what the 600+ vendors had to show. They saw several striking changes from years past. For one thing, offset presses were not a dominant sight. Wide-open floor space typified the booths of many offset vendors. Even Heidelberg had just one press on hand, focusing instead on using Prinect to fully integrate a print shop. manroland showed no presses, but highlighted its service contract portfolios. This contrasted sharply with the booths of digital press manufacturers, which crammed as many

For 33 years, Winona State University’s Print Shop had been using the same 30˝ power cutter. But when the shop upgraded its prepress and press operations last summer, Supervisor Greg Johnson decided that a new cutter was the next logical step. “With a constant turnover of student employees, we not only needed a dependable machine, but one that was safe and easy to operate,” says Johnson. So in January the Winona, Minn.-based shop installed a new Heidelberg POLAR 78X cutter. The staff was using it within days of delivery. “The old cutter...did not have all the safety features that the POLAR has,” Johnson says.