INDUSTRY NEWS

May 1, 1999 12:00 PM

HEIDELBERG FORMS DIGITAL UNIT Heidelberg has announced plans to integrate the former Kodak Office Imaging Div. into its worldwide group. The firm will establish Heidelberg Digital, headquartered in Rochester, NY and headed by Wolfgang Pfizenmaier, who will act as CEO for the new organization. Bernhard Schreier, formerly heading up the Prepress Business Unit, will become the COO of Heidelberg Digital LLC.

Heidelberg Digital will encompass the black-and-white digital printing business formerly owned by Kodak, Prepress Business Unit and the NexPress toner and color digital printing. NexPress remains a 50/50 venture between Heidelberg and Kodak.

"The new organization will enjoy the best the two organizations have to offer," says Hartmut Mehdorn, chairman of the board of Heidelberg Druckmaschinen AG. "Heidelberg knows how to build reliable machines, provide outstanding sales and service and has the trust of the printing community. Kodak has brought imaging technology to the table, along with some interesting patents."

Heidelberg Digital will start up with 3,000 employees worldwide and $500 million in U.S. sales. Quickmaster DI business will stay in the Direct Imaging Business Unit of Heidelberg, not as part of Heidelberg Digital.

Heidelberg has not decided if it will retain the Kodak brand name in the future. Distribution arrangements are currently being reviewed, and discussions are progressing with Danka, who has been distributing Kodak products for the past few years.

The NexPress joint venture is moving forward, with 300 employees currently in place in Kiel, Germany and Rochester, NY. The product will be unveiled at Drupa 2000, with the first customer installations scheduled for 2001.

STALAM TO HEAD VIO NORTH AMERICA UK-based Vio Worldwide Ltd. has appointed Vic Stalam president and chief operating officer of Vio North America. Stalam will be responsible for all Vio's North American sales, marketing and customer support operations. Stalam has served the majority of his 20-year career in the graphic arts with Eastman Kodak, where he led a number of sales, marketing and business initiatives for products ranging from digital proofing to photo CD systems.

The telecommunications company, a joint venture between British Telecom and Scitex, wants to help customers "build a global workflow of publishers, advertising agencies, color trade shops and commercial printers," said Stalam. "Our goal is to surpass the market's need for digital transfer by adding experience and applications solutions that will expand the digital workflow supporting CTP, on-demand printing and remote proofing needs."

PORTALIS DONATES DIGITAL SYSTEM TO RIT Portalis (Rochelle Park, NJ) has donated a Portalis PressPort to Rochester Institute of Technology's CIMSPrint Integrated Digital Printing Publishing and Imaging Center. The system enables digital presses to replicate original documents "off the glass." It will be used with Indigo, Heidelberg and Xeikon digital presses as part of the curriculum for the School of Printing and Management Sciences for research and training in on-demand color production.

"This enabling technology will allow instructors and operators to demonstrate a digital press without building a digital file," enthused John Peck, RIT's director of Industry Relations for printRIT. "PressPort has become a popular addition to the Digital Printing Laboratory."

AGFA, XAAR ANNOUNCE PRINTHEAD PACT Belgium-based Agfa announced it has entered a joint agreement with UK-based Xaar to develop page-wide inkjet printheads. "The agreement will strengthen Agfa's position as one of the leading digital printing companies," said Herman Remmerie, general manager for Agfa Digital Printing. "Xaar [has] leading edge technology that, when incorporated into Agfa-developed systems, can result in high-value, high impact systems."

Xaar is currently developing nine-inch wide and 12.6-inch wide printheads in conjunction with Kyocera Corp. of Japan. Agfa will join the program to explore incorporating the printheads in future system products for the digital printing market.

Graham Wylie, CEO of Xaar, said the page-wide inkjet printhead development effort "is proceeding according to plan. Our cooperation with Kyocera is complemented by the development agreements that we have with DuPont and Zeneca for the supply of special inks that will be required."

HEIDELBERG WEB REORG Heidelberg Web Systems (Dover, NH) announced it will merge its research and development and order management departments, now responsible for high-volume finishing equipment at its Dayton, OH facility, into the corresponding departments now responsible for press products at its headquarters in Dover, NH.

The merger will be completed over the next six months to ensure continuity in customer service, day-to-day business activities and deliveries. Manufacturing of finishing and mailroom products will continue at the Dayton facility. Approximately 200 engineering jobs will be affected by the move--most employees will be offered the opportunity to relocate to Dover.

PRINTIMAGE INTERNATIONAL TO MEET IN JULY PrintImage International (Chicago) will hold its annual conference July 22-24 in Rosemont, IL. "Conference sessions feature two concurrent tracks," explains Jennifer Mills, PrintImage International education manager. "One deals with technology and the other concentrates on business management. Saturday sessions will focus on training."

The keynote address will be given by Kenny the Printer, a.k.a., Kenny Fisher of Irvine, CA. Topics slated for discussion at the conference include printing four colors on a two-color press, protecting against Y2K problems, the advantages of computerized estimating and proper hiring techniques.

Winners of the1999 Print Excellence Award competition will also be announced at the conference. Open to copy shops, quick and small commercial printers, the competition features two dozen categories. For more information, call (800) 234-0040 or see www.printimage.org.

CUSTOMER NEWSLETTERS: FOOD FOR THOUGHT "Client education is the most powerful value-added service printers can provide," claims Patrick Whelan, White & Associates' vice president of operations. "Customized newsletters are an inexpensive way to promote your services while providing valuable educational materials to your customer base."

White & Associates recently launched "What's Cookin'," a turnkey client newsletter for quick printers and small commercial printers. The two-sided, one-page newsletter is provided on disk on a regionally exclusive basis--users drop in their own logos.

In addition to "What's Cookin' " White & Associates offers customizable newsletters for medium to large-sized commercial printers. It also produces the National Assn. of Printers and Lithographers' "Desktop for Profit" newsletter. For more information, contact Whelan at (617) 424-6400.

NEW DIGS FOR J.E. DOYLE CO. The J.E. Doyle Co. has completed its new headquarters in Richfield, OH. The 75-year-old manufacturer of sheet and web cleaning systems, is now located at 2662 Brecksville, Road, Richfield, OH 44286; telephone: (330) 659-2330; fax: (330) 659-2911. See www. jedoyle.com for more details.

ARE HIGH-TECH HUSHPUPPIES NEXT? AdPlex (Houston) is redefining both walk-in business and short-run color. Using an Indigo E-Print 1000+ at its Greensboro, NC location, it prints designs on a heat transfer sheet that allows images to be transferred to materials such as leather. One of these shoes won a "Best of Category" award for digital printing from the Printing Industries of Carolina earlier this year.

"These shoes were an unusual project for us," notes David Steitz, vice president of marketing for AdPlex. "But they're eye-catchers that show how far digital printing has progressed."

NEW SIX-COLOR OPTION FOR WEB OFFSET? Graphic Arts Center (San Francisco) faced a challenge familiar to many web printers. How do you accurately match colors to products with one pass without incurring the cost of multiple spot colors? For its catalog project, the West Coast printer used Pantone's Hexachrome.

The fully integrated six-color process includes an ink set, design capabilities, and separations, proofing and color selector. The system utilizes an enhanced color set consisting of Pantone Hexachrome CMYK plus Pantone Hexachrome Orange and Pantone Hexachrome Green. The resulting expanded choice of colors reportedly can achieve over 90 percent of the solid Pantone colors.

Although Hexachrome has been used on sheet-fed presses since 1995 for projects ranging from packaging to posters, Graphic Arts Center is said to be the first to use it for high-volume web offset catalog printing.

NEW DIGITAL SEMINARS AT RIT Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY) recently announced several new digital seminars that will cover variable data printing, on demand book printing and publishing, Acrobat 4, QuarkXpress 4 and InDesign.

Professor Frank Romano will team with David Cohn, manager at RIT's digital lab, to teach the variable data printing workshop May 12-14 and September 22-24. Participants will gain experience using the lab's Xeikon DCP/32D digital color press with Barco PrintStreamer, Heidelberg Quickmaster DI, Indigo E-Print 1000+ and Xerox DocuColor 40.

The on-demand book printing and publishing seminar will be held June 2-3. Attendees will learn how to effectively compare different solutions for on-demand digital printing and binding.

RIT's Acrobat 4 Workflow Workshop is slated for July 19-20. Peter Muir, instructor and technical advisor for RIT's T&E Center, joins Romano to highlight new features and workflow issues with Acrobat. Muir and Romano also are the instructors for the QuarkXpress 4 workshop to be held July 21-23 and October 20-22. Finally, the dynamic duo of Romano and Muir join forces again December 13-15 for one of the first hands-on training sessions for InDesign, the new page layout tool from Adobe.

For more information contact the RIT Technical and Education Center at (800) 724-2536.

FUJI OPENS GREENWOOD R&D FACILITY Fuji Photo Film Inc. recently celebrated the opening of its Greenwood Research Laboratories (GRL) at it manufacturing complex in Greenwood, SC. The new R&D facility will concentrate on photographic products but is expected to branch into other areas soon. Minoru Ohnishi, chairman and CEO of Fujifilm's worldwide operations, said that GRL will help the company "guarantee the quality, speed and innovation necessary to excel in the global marketplace of the next millennium."