Commercial-print

He has a nose for business. He sees opportunities. He knows his products. He cares about his customers - they are referred to almost like family members. He strongly believes in offset and is the only one constantly bringing machines to tradeshows whenever possible. He has a strong respect for his father, who passed away years ago. His father gave Manley an opportunity and another direction of life that was initially planned. Manley is the distributor of RMGT and other products. This story is about Chris Manley and GraphCo - great story!  

When we spoke with Chris Manley from GraphCo before going to Verdant, he said we would be intrigued by the owner, Don Kallil - and yes - that's an understatement. When you step into the company, you realize this is different. In a way, it's an in-plant because the technology is specifically acquired to serve Don Kallils's design business - another story and a fantastic story - but for now, let's stick to Verdant. Going from a small DI machine to an 8-color RMGT machine is impossible. You see every day, but then again, having an owner who calls himself Chief Vision Officer reflects quite well that visions, ideas, innovation, and a lovely personality define Don Kallil. Super friendly staff, beautiful products, and a happy RMGT customer - but dig into the story and listen for yourself.

Morten Reitoft and John Blyth discuss the upcoming Drupa 2024, reflecting on the excitement and challenges leading up to the event. Blyth mentions that it's been eight years since the last Drupa, and there's a significant amount of anticipation and celebration around the event. He highlights Ricoh's readiness to showcase its innovations and commitment to its client's success through partnership and transformation. Reitoft notes that it's Ricoh's fourth Drupa, emphasizing the company's relatively recent emergence as a major player in the industry. Blyth recalls joining Ricoh 12 years ago when the company was still establishing its presence, and he expresses pride in Ricoh's rapid development and expansion since then. Blyth explains that attending Drupa was an easy decision for Ricoh, as it provides a unique opportunity to showcase their refreshed production printing hardware range, including the Pro Z75 (the world's first B2+ inkjet sheet-fed device with aqueous ink and auto-perfecting) and the new flagship high-speed inkjet Webfed device, the Pro VC80000. Ricoh aims to create a memorable experience with their "House of Hinkaku" theater, featuring a multisensory show highlighting their commitment to transformational innovation. Reitoft asks about the meaning of "Hinkaku," which Blyth explains as "transformational innovation," emphasizing fundamental and far-reaching change. This ethos underpins Ricoh's approach to innovation, which involves collaboration with partners and clients to meet their specific needs. Blyth mentions the importance of aligning their products with market needs through consultation and feedback programs. He recalls the successful launch of the Pro Z75, highlighting the collaborative effort between Ricoh's Japanese R&D team and European staff. Reitoft compliments Ricoh's booth design, noting its contemporary and minimalist style with Japanese influences, including a theater structure reminiscent of a Japanese temple and calming gardens. Blyth confirms the booth's bright accent colors, including pink and purple, and hints at a Japanese flavor in their offerings. The interview concludes with Reitoft thanking Blyth for his time and looking forward to seeing him at Drupa.

Morten Reitoft and Theo Buchmeyer discuss Manroland Goss's participation in the upcoming Drupa 2024. Buchmeyer emphasizes the importance of attending Drupa for the company despite the absence of their "brother" company. He sees it as a key opportunity to showcase new products, meet customers, and build new relationships. Reitoft praises Manroland Goss for adapting to market changes through refurbishment and technological innovations, ensuring the continued relevance of their web offset presses. Buchmeyer confirms the significant install base of over 3,000 active presses worldwide and their plans to support these with retrofits and improvements. They discuss Drupa's role as a statement of commitment to the future of the print industry and the importance of maintaining connections with customers. Buchmeyer highlights the company's efforts to integrate digital tools like VPN and IoT boxes for monitoring press performance and predicting downtime, enhancing productivity through tools like Manroland Sense, an artificial intelligence tool for predictive maintenance. Buchmeyer acknowledges the growth of digital printing but emphasizes that offset printing remains a robust, productive process for mid to large runs. He predicts a coexistence of both technologies, offset retaining its place in the industry for the foreseeable future. Manroland Goss's booth at Drupa will focus on its new VarioMAN packaging press, showcasing its flexibility and cost-efficiency in reducing production costs and carbon footprint. It will also demonstrate maintenance tools and emphasize the importance of sustainability and extending the economic life of its installed presses. Reitoft and Buchmeyer discuss the continued relevance and growth of web offset printing in certain markets, noting that some customers are expanding their volumes through consolidation and new titles. Buchmeyer concludes by emphasizing the importance of supporting the existing install base and showcasing Manroland Goss's upgrades and innovations at Drupa.  

Reitoft welcomes Taketsugu and thanks him for joining despite the late hour in Japan. Taketsugu, representing Horizon, is busy preparing for Drupa, the major industry show in Düsseldorf. Reitoft expresses admiration for Horizon's continuous innovation and commitment to R&D. Taketsugu affirms that Horizon is still developing new ideas and is committed to achieving its smart factory concept, which began in 2019 and remains a work in progress. They discuss Horizon's use of robotics, AGVs, and robot arms, all integral to their smart factory initiatives. Taketsugu explains that the demand for such technology is growing, particularly in Europe and the US, where automation is sought for repetitive tasks. Although Japan's printing industry lags in adopting new technologies, Taketsugu mentions that labor shortages due to an aging population are driving a gradual increase in demand for automation. The conversation shifts to Horizon's iCE LiNK platform, which integrates both hardware and software, emphasizing the importance of data collection for operational efficiency. Taketsugu highlights the collaboration with software vendors to enhance data utility, which benefits both Horizon and its customers by providing insights and predictive maintenance alerts. Reitoft inquires about data security concerns. Taketsugu reassures that Horizon only collects machine data, not personal data, and emphasizes customer transparency. They discuss Horizon's long-standing partnerships, such as with Hunkeler, which continue despite industry changes like acquisitions. Taketsugu shares that Horizon will showcase 18 different solutions at Drupa, including bookbinding technologies and various automated systems. Reitoft praises Horizon's modular equipment design, which allows for scalability and integration based on customer needs. Reitoft acknowledges Horizon's market-driven approach and the importance of customer feedback in its development process. Taketsugu mentions Horizon's expansive booth at Drupa, which will feature live presentations and demonstrations by knowledgeable staff. Finally, Reitoft and Taketsugu discuss the overall market outlook. While the printing industry's volume may be shrinking, opportunities within specific segments, such as books with increasing titles but shorter runs, are growing. Taketsugu highlights the feasibility of short-run and on-demand printing, which aligns with current market trends.  

Drupa 2024 is the first drupa for IST Metz Managing Director Tim Sterbak. In this interview with James Quirk, you learn how IST Metz has completely refurbished and redesigned its lambs. He also says that they will have four daily shows together with Heidelberg, where they will show their technology. Super interesting interview, so enjoy and remember to visit IST Metz at drupa 2024.

The Landa S11 and S11P is a new iteration of the S10 and S10P currently in the market - and for the S10's that have IR drying, these can be upgraded to the new S11. S11 has new software for improved quality and a speed option, allowing the machine to print 11,200 B1 sheets an hour. In this walkthrough of the S11, together with Yardon Ben-Dor, we talk about the machine and also look at how the machine is built. The S11 and S11P will be shown at drupa, and the upgraded versions are for immediate delivery, so there is no waiting time. And we DID see the machine run 11,200 B1 sheets per hour :-)

Yarden Ben-Dor says that Benny Landa (of course) is very involved in the company and is often seen in the labs helping engineers with ideas. Still, they are also engaged in the employees' well-being, for example, how the cantine operates and how the company encourages people to eat together (and Landa serves food in the morning, lunch, and dinner)—here, of course, we talk about the S11, applications, etc. It was great talking to Yarden Ben-Dor.

Amir Shalev is responsible for market development, which also includes what we would call pre-sales activities with customers - understanding the needs the investment needs to address. That's what Amir Shalev and his team do. We also get to discuss "more" the Landa payoff for drupa. 'More' must be understood broadly - but listen to Amir Shalev and learn more!

All the major offset manufacturers have machines that exceed the 20,000 sheets per hour benchmark, but do we really need them? Anthony Thirlby helps printers around the world be as efficient as possible, but are the new fast printing machines something for everybody? We also hear about 20% gains in efficiency, but the reality is that these new machines are WAY more efficient than the machines they replace - and it raises the question about what is more important? There is no question that the newest and fastest machines are engineering marvels, but with more speed and the same order volume, the utilization will be lower. We are curious to hear what the manufacturers think about this and why they believe faster machines are needed - but start here - super interesting discussion!

Kevin Neureuter, as of May 1st, 2024, has been appointed new CEO for manroland sheetfed North America. Kevin Neureuter has been with manroland for the past four years and explains in this interview that he, for some time, has been trained and positioned for his new role, and now the time is here. Kevin Neureuter will still be visiting clients and will be 'on the road' 80% of the time - and with a background in the industry, Neureuter has the same domain knowledge as the newly appointed Global CEO Mirko Kern. It's interesting to see how different the major players in the market address leadership. Meet Kevin Neureuter in this interview: open-minded, smiling, and relaxed - GREAT!

You visit printing companies producing beautiful metallizations, embossings, etc., but we have never visited a company like Studio on Fire. Employees are art-educated and have a fantastic dedication to what they do, and what they do is precision foils in multiple colors, embossing, and de-bossing like no one else, letterpress, and materials that are beyond what you find with most printing companies. When you are a customer, the creative team spends hours, days, weeks, and even months to create the perfect packaging for a perfect product - and zero compromises - the process is developed to perfection, and the entirely analog production gives the finished product a sense of beauty that blow your mind - this is simply art, packaging, creativity, and craftsmanship at the highest level possible. You can't do anything but love the process, the people, the products, and the technology that comes from Kluege, Heidelberg, and recently, the KAMA ProCut76 and KAMA FF52i. When you see our film, Ziga Kovac (the filmmaker) has captured the work—and yet fantastic—it doesn't justify the real thing. Ben Levitz likes what he does and wants to work with others, but he realizes that other printing companies often have different passions than Ben Levitz and his team—but you should learn. This is the real deal! GREAT—simply GREAT!

In this film, we visit 'Executive Mailing Service,' or, in short, EMS in the Chicago area, and this is a great experience for many reasons. The company specializes in mailing, and when you enter the facility, you see mailboxes as long as you can see - it's quite a large operation. Though you see many machines everywhere, you also realize the number of people working. In the print room, you have a combination of toner-based printers and the newer MCS Inkjet machines - and in the film, we learn how more efficient the MCS Inkjet machines are - and why EMS is replacing the toners one by one. During the visit, you easily understand how great the collaboration is between EMS as a customer and MCS as a supplier - and as this is our first filming with MCS, we are also learning quite a lot. MCS has an intense focus on mailing, and when we later visited their Chicago-based operation, we got a walkthrough that you can see here: https://inkish.tv/inkish-video/mcs/ - it was a great day, and great meeting dedicated people from both sides of the production!

Robots are essentially dumb; therefore, they need more than anything else tailored software to make them productive tools. When Diego Diaz joined HP, he needed to develop further automation solutions for HP. At DSCOOP Indianapolis, HP, for the first time, presented what they had been working on for over a year. The AMR is here, and it's not just a licensed robot but a robot tailored to HP PrintOS and, in particular, Production Beat. The robots make Lights Out Productions an almost reality, and what HP has in development further down the road is the promise of new technology solutions making print even more automated. This is a MUST-SEE film from us!

At Innovationdays #HID23, the Starbook line was born—but for continuous fed production. Now, Hunkeler introduces the Starbook Sheetfed edition, enabling cut sheet production. Hans Gut from Hunkeler explains how the solutions work and the benefits in this session with Editor Morten B. Reitoft. Great!

Imagine in the nearby future robots that will feed the KAMA ProCut76 die-cutter, move the stripped and blanked pieces to the KAMA Foldinger/Gluer FF52i - and 100% handsfree production takes place - even dies are exchanged by the robot - not only the vision, but soon reality! CBO Jordi Giralt talks about the products - also the digital embellishment machine Hammerhead recently announced - and of course, the journey KAMA is on - super interesting - and worth listening to! Enjoy!

Kevin Abergel is the founder of Taktiful - a company driving a community for companies working with digital embellishment - and also now a software supplier of a newly developed MIS system - that essentially takes the next step for how embellishment can help their owners make more money. In this interview, Abergel talks about how he was born into the industry with two uncles and a father founding MGI - and how digital embellishment differentiates from analog embellishment. Super interesting story that we can all learn from! Watch and learn!

"We are only at the beginning," Noam Zilbershtain says when talking about the opportunities with digital print - and we are talking to a very confident General Manager. Noam Zilbershtain is a super nice and open person who walks into you - easy to talk to, and still with great opinions about the market and how he and his team can drive HP in the right direction. We also get a chance to talk to Noam Zilbershtain about the war in Israel, about liking people, and, of course, he gets an option to mention football :-)

At the recent HP Pre-Drupa event in Indianapolis, we talked to Al Scolari about their latest lay-flat technology. With more and more automation, it's not surprising that APS Imaging Solutions is also looking into faster, better, smarter, and more automated lay-flat binding—but take a look for yourself. Enjoy!

DE Edition Roularta Media Group is a Belgium-based publishing group publishing magazines and news, delivering digitally, making TV, and supporting local and international brands. Roularta is also involved in the printing industry as the group publishes Grafisch Nieuws - but it's also a huge printing company with dedicated objectives of achieving considerable CO2 reductions. As CEO Steven Renders explains, CO2 reductions get harder and harder as the company obviously looks for the easiest targets first. One of these targets was the dryers on Roularta's web-offset presses - they realized that new Contiweb gas dryers could not only use less energy but also considerably reduce the CO2 emissions - so with that, Roularta exchanged all the heaters on their presses, and now the happy owners of three new Contiweb gas-dryers. Roularta is a very automated printing company with clear strategies that enable it to grow, reduce its carbon footprint, and develop more print business through its unique business models. This is a VERY good film to learn from we believe!

German language/multiple languages subtitles: Im Rahmen unserer ALWAYS on DACH Tour hatten wir die Gelegenheit, den CEO Ralf Rehmet von Primus zu treffen. Primus ist eine Online-Druckerei und Zulieferer für andere Druckunternehmen sowie andere Online-Druckereien. Als Online-Druckerei ist ein schneller Produktionsablauf, gleichbleibende Qualität und die Fähigkeit, viele Produktarten herzustellen, erforderlich. Primus liefert alle gebundenen Produkte, von Wire'O und Klammerheftung bis zu perfekt gebundenen Erzeugnissen. Neben dem Druck, der auf den Heidelberger und Koenig & Bauer Druckmaschinen des Unternehmens erfolgt, verfügt Primus auch über digitale Konica Minolta Drucker und einige Formulardrucker - die, da immer weniger Formulare produziert werden, den ganzen Tag beschäftigt sind. Eine der jüngsten Investitionen ist die Koenig & Bauer Rapida 106X, die viel Automatisierung in die Produktion bringt und eine Maschine ist, mit der sowohl Bediener als auch Besitzer sehr zufrieden sind. Es ist interessant zu sehen, wie Koenig & Bauer eine ältere man roland Bogenoffsetmaschine ersetzt hat und wie die Arbeitslast zwischen Heidelberg und Koenig & Bauer verteilt ist. Aber hören Sie hier Ralf Rehmet zu und genießen Sie es. As part of our ALWAYS on DACH Tour, we got the chance to meet CEO Ralf Rehmet from Primus. Primus is an online printer and supplier of print to other printing companies and other online printing companies, and being an online printer requires fast turnaround, consistent quality, and the ability to produce many types of products. Primus delivers all bound products, from Wire'O and saddle stitching to perfect bound products. Besides the print being printed on the company's Heidelberg and Koenig & Bauer presses, Primus also has digital Konica Minolta and then a couple of form printers - that, because fewer and fewer produce forms are busy all day long. One of the most recent investments is the Koenig & Bauer Rapida 106X, which brings a lot of automation to the production and is a machine both operators and owners are very pleased with. Interesting to see how Koenig & Bauer replaced an older man roland sheetfed machine and how the job load between the Heidelberg and Koenig & Bauer is. But listen to Ralf Rehmet here and enjoy. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralf-rehmet-25a508a6/

German language/Multiple subtitles: Das familiengeführte Unternehmen Rosebrock ist etwa 30 Minuten von Bremen entfernt, und wir haben es im Rahmen unserer ALWAYS ON DACH TOUR besucht. Rosebrock ist eine Druckerei, die sich auf den Etikettendruck spezialisiert hat. Im Film erklärt Lars Rosebrock, warum sie von einem 5-Farben- zu einem 6-Farben-Druck gewechselt haben und wie die höheren Energiepreise die Entscheidung beeinflusst haben. Bei unserem Besuch wurde die Rapida 106 von einer jungen Frau bedient, und das erfüllt zwei Anforderungen, die wir mögen - 'Jung' und 'Frauen' - eine tolle Kombination und gut für die Zukunft. English: The family-run company Rosebrock is about 30 minutes from Bremen, and we visited it as part of our ALWAYS ON DACH TOUR. Rosebrock is a printing company that specializes in label printing. In the film, Lars Rosebrock explains why they switched from a 5-color to a 6-color printing press and how the higher energy prices have influenced the decision. During our visit, the Rapida 106 was operated by a young woman, and this fulfills two requirements that we like - 'Young' and 'Women' - a great combination and good for the future.

German language / Multiple subtitles subtitles (including German and English). Die Grafikindustrie muss einfach mehr Anreize schaffen.“ Die Worte stammen von CEO Hans-Jürgen Geiß und handeln davon, wie wir unsere Produkte und Dienstleistungen besser vermarkten sollten - sowohl um mehr Kunden zu gewinnen als auch um attraktiv für zukünftige Mitarbeiter zu sein. Dies ist die zweite Station unserer Always On DACH Tour - zusammen mit Koenig & Bauer, und in diesem Film besuchen wir das Druckhaus Bechstein - etwa 40 Minuten nördlich von Frankfurt am Main. Das familiengeführte Unternehmen ist eine Full-Service-Druckerei, die hochwertige Druckerzeugnisse liefert und zudem Lagerhaltung und Fulfillment anbietet. Hans-Jürgen Geiß spricht über die jüngste Investition des Unternehmens in die Rapida 106, aber auch darüber, ein kleineres kommerzielles Druckunternehmen zu sein, das allem Anschein nach ein sehr solides Geschäft betreibt. Es war ein sehr interessanter Besuch, und wir hoffen, dass Ihnen unser Film gefällt. The Graphics Industry simply needs to create more incentives.” The words come from CEO Hans-Jürgen Geiß and are about how we should market our products and services better - both to get more customers and also to be attractive to future employees. This is the second of our Always On DACH Tour - together with Koenig & Bauer, and we are in this film visiting Druckhaus Bechstein - about 40 minutes north of Frankfurt am Main. The family-owned company is a full-service commercial printer, delivering high-quality printed products along with also warehousing and fulfillment. Hans-Jürgen Geiß speaks about the company’s recent investment in the Rapida 106, but also about being a smaller commercial printing company that by all means seems to have a super sound business. It was a very interesting visit, and we hope you like our film. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hans-j%C3%BCrgen-gei%C3%9F-5a9736131/

The KAMA ProCut76 is an amazing machine, and in the interview soon to be published on INKISH, the founder of Studio on Fire, Ben Levitz, explains how and why the KAMA ProCut76 is a game changer for the company - but in this film, we take the operators perspective. How easy is the ProCut to use, and what makes it stand out from similar machines in the market. Eric Ryan operates the ProCut76 and explains to Editor Morten B. Reitoft how it's used - and I am sure you will understand well - so sit back and enjoy!