Heidelberg

FOR THE second year in a row, ConocoPhillips Creative Services has won Best of Show in the In-Print contest. This time, however, the honor carries much more meaning for the 18-employee, Bartlesville, Okla.-based in-plant. “Last year’s project, it was all printed in-house, but the design was all handled by an outside agency,” notes Mike Cranor, senior printing specialist. The perfect binding was also done outside. This year, though, the winning magazine was done completely in-house, from the writing, photography and design, to the prepress, printing and binding. “So [being] able to bring it all in...that’s just real special to us,” says Cranor.

MANY INDUSTRY pundits were quick to label Drupa 2008 “The Digital Ink-jet Drupa,” given the technology previews shown by Kodak, HP, Océ, Screen and Fujifilm. Nonetheless, traditional sheetfed and web offset press manufacturers were just as diligent in showcasing their visions of the future. The massive German trade show could just as easily have been called “The Large-format Press Drupa”; or “The Short-run, Fast Makeready Offset Press Drupa”; or even “The Value-added Press Drupa.” These themes were very apparent from Heidelberg, which filled two entire halls, networked with its JDF-based Prinect workflow management system. Among Heidelberg’s several press debuts and upgrades, the centerpiece

THOUGH MOST of the press conferences and “big news” at Drupa centered on digital printing, innovations in bindery and finishing were no less prevalent. In fact, many of them sprang from the very digital printing trends that overshadowed them. As digital printing speeds have increased, bindery equipment has also gotten faster, with vastly improved automation and simplified touch-screen controls to make them even easier to set up. JDF compatibility is becoming more common in bindery equipment, allowing devices to be preset using production data. Demands for higher-quality printed products have led bindery vendors to improve their paper-handling techniques. Folds look better on the latest

Last month’s ACUP conference in Clearwater, Fla., was a great opportunity for in-plant managers to share their stories. Most of them have been very busy back home and had a lot to talk about. IPG Editor Bob Neubauer spoke with as many attendees as he could corner, to find out what’s been happening in their in-plants. Here’s what a few of them have been up to: • The University of Tennessee is replacing its four-color Heidelberg with a new four-color, 40˝ Heidelberg XL-105 with in-line coating and an image control system. The shop also purchased a pile turner for press stock preparation. • California

I’M GETTING ready to leave Germany as I write this, having just completed a grueling four days at Drupa, the international print show held every four years in Düsseldorf. It was a hot time—and I mean that literally. Thanks to the mugginess, and a somewhat different interpretation of air conditioning in Germany, I spent most of my time sweating and fruitlessly fanning the air with whatever press literature I picked up. It didn’t help that each day was filled with extremely long walks—miles of back and forth trudges between the hot meeting rooms where press conferences were held and the 19 exhibit halls.

ONE OF THE smartest things an in-plant can do to reduce production time and environmental impact is to go computer-to-plate (CTP), eliminating the entire film imaging and developing stage and all of the toxic waste issues involved. The quality, speed and efficiency improvements of CTP make it an excellent business decision for almost any shop. Many have already done just that, and are now ready for the next step up: low-process/chemistry-free or no-process plates. Going green has been a big story in the print business for the past decade, and chemistry-free plates are the next wave. “Non-process plate technology will improve to meet

The State of Ohio Printing and Mail Services held a ribbon cutting ceremony last month to officially open its new 9,000-square-foot printing center. The new center is in the heart of downtown Columbus, near the majority of state agency customers. In addition to moving into this new facility, Ohio’s printing operation recently added two new Heidelberg Printmaster QM-46 presses, a Konica Minolta C6500 color imaging system, a Halm Super Jet Plus XL envelope press and two additional Canon imageRUNNER Pro 7110s. “We are making great strides in centralizing print production for Ohio’s government,” says Joe Tucker, state printing administrator, “and in doing so

University of Oklahoma Printing Services has gone where no in-plant has gone before. The 75-employee in-plant has installed an eight-color sheetfed press in its Norman, Okla., plant. The press, which started running live jobs in mid March, is a 28x40˝ Heidelberg Speedmaster 102 perfector. The in-plant needed the press “because of the vast amount of four-color work we’re doing—and it’s almost all four-over-four,” said John Sarantakos, administrator of Printing and Mailing Services, in an interview with IPG. This color work includes magazines, brochures and posters. “We’ve got a big niche, and this is just going to open up new markets,” Sarantakos added. This is

Heidelberg Suprasetter 145, Suprasetter 162 and Suprasetter 190: Heidelberg is adding large-format models to its Suprasetter range to coincide with Drupa 2008. The new systems are used in conjunction with the Speedmaster XL 145 and XL 162, and the Suprasetter 190 can also supply plates for other presses, up to a sheet width of 74.8˝. The platesetters are available with throughput speeds of up to 35 plates per hour (pph), with a resolution of either 2,540 or 2,400 dots per inch (dpi) as required. The six cassettes of the plate loading unit enable up to 600 plates in as many as six different formats

JOHN SARANTAKOS is not shy about revealing his intentions. “I want to print everything,” declares Sarantakos, administrator of Printing & Mailing Services at the University of Oklahoma (OU). “Obviously that’s not feasible, but that’s always been the goal.” To bring his award-winning in-plant closer to this lofty ambition, he and his staff recently made a move virtually unheard of in the in-plant sector. They installed an eight-color sheetfed offset press in their Norman, Okla., facility. Adding the rebuilt 28x40? Heidelberg Speedmaster 102 perfector had become something of a necessity, Sarantakos contends, “because of the vast amount of four-color work we’re doing—and it’s almost