|
PRINT World News for Leaders in the Global Graphic Communications Industry
NPES and the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC), the producer of the US-based PRINT show, have developed this free resource for leaders in the global graphic communications industry.
PRINT World News is unique as a worldwide overview report for and about today’s graphic communications industry. Each month it will deliver a summary of key stories addressing vital trends and emerging issues from around the globe.
Ralph J. Nappi, President
Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) and
NPES – The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies
USA
Headlines
Industry News
"Canada: CEO of Newsprint Giant Recounts Year of Hardships, Looks to Future"
"India: Print Industry Bolstered by Companies' Drive to Boost Sales"
"United Kingdom: Direct Mail—The Personal Touch Pays Dividends"
"Australia: Printing Industries Launches Sustainable Green Print Program"
"United States: Automated Materials Handling Technologies Help Newspapers Cut Costs and Boost Efficiency"
"Japan: RFID Helps Publisher Manage Book Sales"
"Global: Green Publishing Creates Niche Opportunities"
"Bangladesh: Strict Election Code Cutting Into Print Industry Profits"
"United States: Good Management Key to Survival for Printers"
"Russia: Publishers Face Hardships and Opportunities"
"Trends: All the Lights Fit to Print"
"Trends: Xerox on the Forefront of Sustainability"
Industry News
Canada: CEO of Newsprint Giant Recounts Year of Hardships, Looks to Future
Making today's hard decisions with a "long-term view" increases the challenge but also increases the potential for success.
David Paterson, CEO of Montreal, Canada-based newsprint giant AbitibiBowater, says that his industry has been dealing with a steady decline in markets for years but that things took a marked turn for the worse this year, forcing him to make some tough choices. AbitibiBowater was formed last year when former rivals Abitibi-Consolidated and Bowater merged as a means to overcome the overcapacity, high costs, and declining demand facing the newsprint industry. Newspaper publishers have been forced to make tough cost-saving decisions, including smaller page sizes and lighter paper, to cope with declines in advertising. Paterson says that newspaper publishers and commercial printers warned him in early summer that things were going from bad to worse, with Christmas season ad spending way down compared to previous years. But rather than panic, Paterson has taken a pragmatic approach to the future. "If you start making long-term decisions based on a short-term view, you end up getting burned," he says. "You have to think about the long-term implications of short-term decision making more rigorously." Paterson says now is the time to look to the future. "This is the time to commit to the products that people are going to want five, 10 years down the road and to start making sure you're making those products now. The sense of urgency is heightened, and in some ways the opportunities are greater, because the willingness to change and the acceptance of change are there." He says that the continuing decline in demand for the short-term is inevitable and that no action will stem it, and that for now, his biggest challenge is to keep employee morale up at a time when change is being demanded of them. "I'm having to do a lot of direct communications with employees to assure we're doing the right things. It helps them when they can ask the boss the questions." In the meantime, AbitibiBowater is seeking to bolster its competitive position and to diversify into higher-value grades of paper as it looks to sell assets and shut more mills.
From "The Whole World Changed"
Globe and Mail (CAN) (12/26/08) P. B3; Marotte, Bertrand
India: Print Industry Bolstered by Companies' Drive to Boost Sales
Promoting ink on paper with ink on paper pretty much says it all.
India's printing industry is one sector that has stayed strong amid the economic recession, as it has benefited from other industries' need to invest in print advertising to find new business. "With companies struggling to retain their clientele, the need for advertising has become important. Pamphlets, brochures and handouts being the cheapest source of publicity, the number of orders for printing brochures and pamphlets has gone up in the past three months," says Amit Saraf of Sagarmit Meelan Graphics Studio. Wedding cards and other wedding-related printing jobs are strong as well, and the elections set for early next year are expected to produce plenty of work for printers. While there has not been a strong upsurge in politics-related jobs as yet, Raju Dalvi of Shree Arts predicts that orders will be flooding in once the election dates are announced.
From "Recession Gives Printing Industry a Miss"
Indian Express (12/04/08) Kulkarni, Pranav
United Kingdom: Direct Mail—The Personal Touch Pays Dividends
"Value added" is an over used reference but it still remains the remedy for curing the commodity illness.
Despite a likely downturn in direct-mail (DM) spending in the United Kingdom due to the economic crisis, DM printers are finding ways to cope by investing in new technology and providing value-added services. For one thing, they are using their technology and skills to increase the amount of targeted, customer-specific marketing to help add value and get away from the stigma of undirected "junk mail." In addition, there is a growing sense that multi-channel marketing is becoming a mature offering, enabling more DM companies to move toward data-driven services for clients. "You have to have an added-value to your offering," says Barry Crich, managing director for the manufacturing division at Adare. "If you are just a commodity printer, then you will find the market very, very difficult." Similarly, Howitt Managing Director Gurdev Singh comments, "We have had a multi-channel strategy for around the past 18 months. If you are a business that's just stuffing envelopes, then you've had it." Indications are that more marketers are picking up on the move to multi-channel, according to Singh, who says, "There was a slow start, but it offers a return on investment. It's emerging fast and helps us understand our customers and their market—it's more in tune with 21st Century marketing." Among the new technology that DM firms are investing in is "transpromo," which combines transactional mail with marketing messages, along with hardware and software to improve the targeting of mail. In the targeted, multi-channel marketing world, however, it is important to make sure the data is all correct and in order.
From "Direct Mail—The Personal Touch Pays Dividends"
Print Week (12/05/08) P. 28; Chadwick, Philip
Australia: Printing Industries Launches Sustainable Green Print Program
Becoming a "sustainable" company provides benefits past the obvious, like easing the ISO certification process.
After three years of effort, Australia-based Printing Industries has completed the development of the Sustainable Green Print (SGP) program, which will enable printers to choose the level of environmental compliance that suits their business needs. "From the outset, our goal was to develop a system to engage the maximum number of companies able to participate and therefore provide industry-wide environmental credentialing for companies of all sizes," says Printing Industries CEO Philip Andersen. "While ISO 14001 remains the international standard, not everyone can achieve this in, say, 12 to 18 months, and many smaller companies servicing geographically-limited markets would not be able to afford the resource commitment and financial cost." According to Paul Nieuwhof, who spearheaded the SGP initiative, "The print industry specialist nature of SGP is such that it actually reduces the cost of achieving ISO 14001 compliance by giving you what you need to know rather than requiring you to spend time and money trying to figure it out yourself." This includes knowing the specific environmental rules for different Australian states, as well as how to perform audits and documentation and manage the system. "Sustainable Green Print provides all that at your fingertips and provides the necessary training and support to make the process as straightforward as possible," says Nieuwhof.
From "Printing Industries Launches Sustainable Green Print Program"
ProPrint (12/10/08) Fitzgerald, Daniel
United States: Automated Materials Handling Technologies Help Newspapers Cut Costs and Boost Efficiency
Automation and technology can positively impact even the embattled newspaper industry.
Business for newspapers is slowing down and consolidation is escalating, and some publications are turning to automated materials handling technologies to boost their pre-production efficiency and increase their post-production agility. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, for example, has implemented automated guided vehicles (AGVs) at its Tiedeman production facility, and VP of operations Joe Bowman reports that the switch from wire-guided to laser-guided vehicles has helped the paper raise its efficiency. The AGVs are dispatched to pick up newsprint rolls with the appropriate specification for the job, and they automatically install the rolls upon delivering them to the press. Bowman says that the upgrade has significantly improved roll installation efficiency, reduced downtime events, and added storage capability in open areas. Richard Hooper of the Fort Worth Star Telegram observes an industry-wide business slowdown, which is driving strategies such as multiple newspapers being printed by single facilities. Several newspapers are using bar codes and RFID to not only confirm the produced and shipped materials, but to verify that the shipment arrived where it was supposed to via GPS link or mobile phone. The Washington Post has deployed a "microzoning" effort for inserted preprints in order to better serve advertisers, and Post plant manager Jenny Rymarcsuk says that preprint packaging has been a major problem for the newspaper industry. "They are varied in size, shape, page count and they can be very slippery. We use collators for our Sunday package because they can handle more preprints than most other insert equipment. We schedule products that go to the collators to maximize the efficiency of job flow on the machine and minimize the downtime for job changeovers." Professor Twyla Cummings at the Rochester Institute of Technology's School of Print Media thinks newspapers would do well to set up materials handling as a side-business. "Newspapers have gotten to the point where things are underutilized, not just their presses, but their distribution mechanism and processes," she points out. "When I look around I see a great deal of excess space and they would be a perfect venue to start a warehousing business. They could also do fulfillment."
From "Newspaper Publishing: Survival Strategies"
Modern Materials Handling (12/08) Vol. 63, No. 13, P. 39; Andel, Tom
Japan: RFID Helps Publisher Manage Book Sales
Japanese publishing house Shogakukan has implemented an RFID tagging system with many of its books as a way of improving its retail logistics and return management. Over 70,000 of Shogakukan's home medical dictionaries sold though bookstores have been RFID tagged, and retailers can either buy the books from the publisher and resell them or be paid on consignment. While retailers get a higher margin from non-consignment sales, they also tend to lead to a higher percentage of returns to the publisher, so Shogakukan sought to help retailers improve demand planning and purchasing to cut down on returns and wastage. The publisher is also providing flexible terms for retailers to operate under. For example, a retailer could buy the initial order from Shogakukan, then use the consignment plan for subsequent orders of the same title. This is made easier thanks to the ability to accurately and conveniently label each book with payment terms through the RFID tagging. Shogakukan's RFID program was implemented along with inlay maker UPM Raflatac and the Japanese publishing-industry information systems firm Suuri-Keikaku.
From "Japanese Publisher Manages Book Sales With RFID"
RFID Update (12/09/08) Burnell, John
Global: Green Publishing Creates Niche Opportunities
The innovative concept of "green" publishing, in which published materials are printed on-site and on-demand rather than printed up at a central printing plant and then expensively transported to stores, has created a new niche for organizations and entrepreneurs. Some newspapers already have large numbers of printing sites around the world that they transmit the finished newspaper to electronically, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says that green publishing would be especially appropriate for customers in faraway global markets. In fact, OECD's latest sustainable-development publication, called "OECD Insights: Sustainable Development," is to be printed and sold at an Australian bookstore using a device called the Espresso Book Machine. The machines, which in just minutes can print a book complete with a color cover, will also be available at locations in the United States, Canada, and Egypt to make the book available there. "Using this approach, publishing can become a 'just-in-time' business that is both economically more efficient and friendlier to the environment," says OECD publishing head Toby Green. The Espresso Book Machine, made by On Demand Books, costs about $100,000 per unit, but the manufacturer has high hopes for the concept and says it has already printed "library-quality perfect-bound books" in sites worldwide, including the New York Public Library.
From "Reading Green On Demand"
New York Times (12/02/08) Kanter, James
Bangladesh: Strict Election Code Cutting Into Print Industry Profits
Print shops in Bangladesh are taking a hit from new restrictions placed on political candidates regarding election spending and other electioneering activities. Traditionally, election time has been a boon to the local print industry. During the last national elections seven years ago, even the smallest print shops were kept busy with orders for multi-colored posters, handbills, leaflets, pamphlets and other printed material for hundreds of constituencies. Under the new restrictions, however, candidates are only allowed mono-colored posters of limited size, whereas in the past it was not unusual to find life-size color posters of candidates. "The candidates or their agents used to make fervent pleas to give quick delivery of their materials as they should send those to far flung areas by various modes of transportation like launches, buses, steamers, rails, and private cars," says Mohammad Saheed Khan, owner of Janani Printers. Paper vendors are also feeling the effects of the new restrictions. "This is because on previous occasions, candidates used to buy imported brand of finest quality papers, poster papers and some times even art papers for printing their posters and other election materials," says Amir Hossain, general manager of Zenith Packaging and Printing. "But this time only demi-size local papers are used."
From "Strict Election Code of Conduct Deprives Printing Industry From Making Business"
New Nation (Bangladesh) (12/28/08)
United States: Good Management Key to Survival for Printers
Corporate Darwinism is a necessary evil of nature AND business. A "thinning of the herd" based upon environmental adaptability.
As a sign of the extent of the current economic crisis, three commercial printing plants in the Eugene, Ore., area recently announced that they were shutting down. The closure of 101-year-old Koke Printing, 36-year-old Northwest Web, and the 13-year-old Springfield plant of Shorewood Packaging will eliminate about 150 jobs and serve as a ominous sign for the area's roughly 40 other local printers. "I've not seen the closures like what we've experienced here," says Doug Koke, owner of QSL Print Communications in Eugene. "In the early '80s, of course, the economy in this area was really, really bad, but I didn't see the closures." Koke was a 36-year employee of Koke Printing, which his grandfather founded, until he left to buy QSL last year, and while QSL has picked up some former customers of IP/Koke—the company's new name after a 1990 merger with Industrial Publishing—it will take some time for all of IP/Koke's many clients to find new printers. "This will only bode well for those of us who remain," says Eric Pearson of Eugene's TechnaPrint Inc. "Although I wouldn't wish this on any of my competition—least of all the companies who have announced impending closures." According to Andrew Paparozzi, chief economist at NAPL, a printers trade group based in Paramus, N.J., the trend toward digital publishing and the Internet has created "profound threats for the unprepared," and neither size nor location nor longevity are good indicators for which printers will survive. The most meaningful indicator, he says, is leadership. "You can't just hope to batten down the hatches and ride out a recession like the one this industry has been in for over a year now. ... You really have to prepare yourself to come out stronger than when you went in by getting more valuable and efficient to your clients." Similarly, 72-year-old veteran printer Jerry Thenell, owner of Eugene's Insta-Print, says that management is the cause of most of the area printers' struggles, and he feels better positioned than many competitors because of a lack of "the debt that other people have" as well as management techniques such as keeping spoiled work to less than three-tenths of one percent. The industry benchmark for spoiled work is less than 2 percent.
From "Fit to Print"
Eugene Register-Guard (OR) (12/14/08) McDonald, Sherri Buri
Russia: Publishers Face Hardships and Opportunities
Even the fast growing BRIC economies must live and work within the market economy rules to prosper.
The global financial crisis is having a deep impact on the Russian media industry, triggering many business failures and mass layoffs, writes Aleksey Pankin, editor of Strategy and Practice in the Publishing Industry. Pankin explains that the biggest sufferers are the most outdated and most cutting-edge media firms, the former group comprised of "the uncompetitive, subsidized" firms and the latter constituting companies "that are the realization of the fondest desire of the majority of large, successful media companies during Vladimir Putin's presidency--namely, to go public." Despite the downturn, Pankin notes that the Russian media sector is projecting a substantial boost in advertising revenue this year and next year that will be the envy of Western media professionals facing the implosion of their own advertising markets. The author cites claims by the directors of Tula's Sloboda newspaper and Kommersant in Moscow that their circulation numbers are increasing, and Sloboda's development plans are still moving forward because director-general Vera Kiryunina said German investors feel that a crisis represents a prime opportunity to develop new projects. Pankin says that media outlets practice caution in times of uncertainty. "The National Press Coordinating Council, which is composed of the directors of leading publishers, distributors and printers, has agreed that an industry-wide policy to avoid creating panic about the state of the economy is the No. 1 priority. The Council met to discuss the status of the publishing sector and to adopt anti-crisis measures, including commitments not to abuse monopoly status where it exists and to conduct business in a transparent fashion."
From "The Media Crisis"
Moscow Times (12/02/08) Pankin, Aleksey
Trends: All the Lights Fit to Print
"Printing" lights!! The most successful will find a way to not be bound by yesterday's definition of printing.
To help usher in a new year and a new era of lighting and printing, GE unveiled organic light-emitting diode (OLED) Christmas tree-lighting at its Global Research Center in Niskayuna, New York. Illuminated in green light, the flexible OLED panels were a hint of what's in store for the printing and lighting industries. Earlier in 2008, GE demonstrated the world's first roll-to-roll manufactured OLED lighting devices, making it possible to print lighting products in the same manner as newspapers are printed. The breakthrough is seen as vital to making OLED lighting commercially viable. "We’re making great progress toward hitting the metrics needed to successfully introduce OLED lighting to market," says GE OLED program leader Anil Duggal. "We continue to make steady advances in efficiency, lifetime, and lighting-quality using device structures that can be made with roll-to-roll manufacturing, so that we’ll be able to introduce OLED lighting at an affordable price." OLEDs are comprised of thin organic materials placed between two electrodes that illuminate when an electrical charge is applied. Achieving commercial viability will transform how homes and businesses are lit.
From "GE Scientists Display First-Ever OLED Christmas Tree"
Business Wire (12/17/08)
Trends: Xerox on the Forefront of Sustainability
Xerox has launched a companywide effort to cut down on paper waste and natural-resource consumption, looking to build a profitable business out of helping companies use fewer printers and copiers and less paper. One technology the company has developed is erasable copier paper, which can be used for printing out temporary documents that can be rendered completely blank again using a machine with a heating element. "We're looking for radical solutions [by] asking ourselves, 'What does it mean to be radically green?'" says Sophie Vandebroek, chief technology officer at Xerox, which is also looking to provide expertise to new "greentech" industries. Though it is one of the companies most heavily identified with office use of paper, it has also been seeking out ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle for years, serving as a pioneer in remanufacturing equipment as well as developing resource-conserving technologies like automatic double-sided printing. Xerox customers are also seeking to win new business with a more environmentally friendly approach, particularly professional printing shops, which make up 28 percent of Xerox's business. As a result, Xerox has adopted a line of environmentally friendly technologies, such as solid ink that does not require a cartridge, high-yield paper that can be made using 90 percent of the tree (about twice as much as usual), and a new kind of laser-printer toner that takes 25 percent less energy to make. The company also has teams of consultants helping corporate customers conserve paper and energy as part of the Xerox service arm, which provides more than $4 billion in company revenue.
From "The Paper Chasers"
Newsweek (12/01/08) Lyons, Daniel
Abstract News © Copyright 2009 INFORMATION, INC.
|
