Ricoh Corp.

Adding an HP Indigo 5000 in 2005 was a great decision for Briggs & Stratton Graphic Services. It moved the 34-employee, Milwaukee-based in-plant into variable data printing and high-quality digital color.  “It was a really, really great starting point for us,” says Manager Debbie Pavletich. “But I think we’re ready for that next step.” So the shop recently replaced its leased HP Indigo press with a new five-color Kodak NexPress S2500. Printing 83.3 pages per minute at 600 dpi, the S2500 boasts an 11,000-sheet capacity and can print on a range of substrates of different sizes and weights. Bundled in with the new lease was a Kodak NexGlosser.

“OUR PRIMARY focus really is color,” declares Dallas Johnson, from his office at the University of California-Riverside. “We’ve moved away from black and white. We saw that as sort of a dying market…still see it that way.” With 35 years of printing experience to guide him, Johnson thinks he has a pretty good idea where the industry is headed. So when the director of Service Enterprises decided to move his in-plant away from the “dying” monochrome market and into the more promising world of color printing, he did it in a big way.

WE’VE ALL seen impressive digital color printing statistics. For example, in 2006, for the first time ever, U.S. companies spent more on production digital color printing than on digital black-and-white, according to Caslon & Company’s 2008 PDP Market Analysis Report for North America. By 2008 the retail value of production digital color printing rose even further to $13.5 billion—65 percent more than digital black-and-white. In fact, while black-and-white volumes are declining, digital color printing is increasing at a rate so great that Caslon predicts the retail value will more than double in just five years.

InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, today announced that it continues to drive the worldwide adoption of TransPromo, an innovative marketing technique combining personalized marketing with trusted statements such as bills. This is via the opening of InfoPrint Innovation Centers, coupled with running TransPromo pilot promotions to demonstrate the business benefits of its use. InfoPrint’s customers using its full-color, continuous forms drop-on-demand inkjet printing system, the InfoPrint 5000, are also running successful trials, with direct mailers and transactional printers around the world.

Sustainability starts at the corporate level. Several vendors are taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, use alternative energy sources, recycle and more.

As a leading builder of luxury homes, Toll Brothers knows that just building a home isn’t enough. You have to sell it too. So the Horsham, Pa.-based firm keeps its marketing department very busy creating flyers, postcards and other glossy materials to promote its homes. Until recently, those materials were all printed by outside vendors. Then the company looked into the actual cost of outsourcing.

IT’S SAFE to say that no one left the 31st annual National Government Publishing Association (NGPA) conference thirsting for more information. Held in Bellevue, Wash., near Seattle, the meeting combined excellent educational sessions with a well-orchestrated plant tour that left many attendees breathless.

In an article in the December issue of IPG, Ricoh's Greg Cholmondeley writes: In-plants face a never-ending fight for retaining and growing print volume—and this is as it should be. It is always in an enterprise’s best interest to find the most effective way to produce work. For in-plants, this simply means the need to constantly evolve as technologies, competitors, applications and business practices change.

As an example of changing business practices, consider digital color printing. Caslon and Co. reported that in 2006, for the first time ever, the retail value of digital color printing in the U.S exceeded that of black and white—even though digital color print volumes are a fraction of monochrome. Digital color production costs are higher—but then so are the margins.

InfoPrint Solutions Co., a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, today announced that Best Western International, the World’s Largest Hotel Chain®, has successfully grown awareness for its own branded credit card, and increased revenues through incremental bookings via implementation of a TransPromo pilot. The scheme replaced inserts previously included with the program statement, with personalized and targeted promotions on quarterly rewards statements, sent to a segment of Best Western Gold Crown Club International rewards card customers in North America.

Selecting the right Web-to-print system for your in-plant requires you to ask yourself some questions about the workflow needs of your shop. In a recent article in Ricoh's Production Print News, Greg Cholmondeley, In-Plant Segment Marketing Manager for Ricoh Americas, offers a few questions for managers to consider:

• What are your automation goals? Do you strive to be a "lights-out" operation or do you pride yourself on your value-added services?