GATFWORLD back issues from February 2006:
What's Next? Assessing Print Markets in 2006 and 2007
Feb 01, 2006; ... Section 1 The Print and Graphic Communications Industry U.S. Economic and Other Trends With the arrival of each new year it is time to look ahead and assess future print market conditions. Our Technology Forecast article for this year is based on the recently published ...
Globalization in the Printing Industry
Feb 01, 2006; ... The traditional North American printing industry is under siege as never before. The number of U.S. and Canadian printers is said to be declining at the rate of approximately 5% per year, with no end in sight. Some printing formerly done in North America is now migrating offshore. As a result, ...
The Printers' Changing Profile
Feb 01, 2006; ... Technology is almost always an exciting topic, eliciting the most oohs and ahhs wherever and whenever the future of print is discussed. Marketing, on the other hand, generally draws a less motivated response. After all, the announcement of a new automated workflow solution that is faster and ...
The Changing Face of Service
Feb 01, 2006; ... Todays print company owners have a lot on their minds. Issues such as how to meet increasing customer demands, how to make their shops work smarter, and how to stay competitive are always on the agenda. While companies have long looked to new technologies and the latest equipment to get ahead in ...
Print: The Medium That Dares Not Speak Its Name?
Feb 01, 2006; ... Print Markets Welcome to our look at the state of the offline media industry. What, pray tell, is the "offline media industry?" As it turns out, it's what the printing industry is now being called, at least by some in the advertising and marketing industry. I attended November 2005's ...
Books in 2006
Feb 01, 2006; ... The book markets will be entering 2006 coming off a year of "rebound" and generally strong results. But, what will 2006 hold in store for book manufacturing? For the past few years we have learned that forecasting the future demand within the book markets is much more of a "best guess" ...
QP/SC Workflow Solutions Are Here!
Feb 01, 2006; ... In my article, a year ago, I predicted workflow would be the big thing that will change our segment of the industry. If you attended PRINT in Chicago in September 2005, eveiy major vendor had a solution. They all promoted their new workflow products and their amazing new features. But when it ...
Technology Mapping to Drive Future R&D in the U.K.
Feb 01, 2006; ... Print is a vital part of every company's communications ... The print industry, part of the fifth-largest industry in the U.K. (print, paper, and publishing), spans a wide range of supply chains and end-use sectors. Major end-users of print include: * Banks, building societies, and other ...
Current Evolution of CTP in Europe
Feb 01, 2006; ... Introduction We were concentrating on the research about CTP in the main European countries, such as: Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain, and The Netherlands. We understand that these six countries account for about 75% of the Western European region, making a good representation of the ...
NPES Office in India Reflects Growth
Feb 01, 2006; ... Late in 2005, NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies achieved a milestone that we believe will continue to benefit our members and their global customers for years to come. NPES became the first U.S. association to open its own dedicated, ...
Efficient Print Production Based on Industry Standards
Feb 01, 2006; ... ef*fi*cient (i_fish'ent). Acting or producing effectively with a minimum of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort (Source: The American Heritage Dictionary). Stan*dard (stan'derd). Noun: something, such as a practice or a product, that is widely recognized or employed, especially because ...
Boost ROI of Print, Conserve Working Capital
Feb 01, 2006; ... Imagine a production workflow where success, from design through delivery, was highly efficient, cost-effective, and predictable. A workflow in which everyone clearly understood his or her specific duties-and nobody duplicated effort. A workflow that continuously saved money and could generate ...
Digital Smart Factory Update
Feb 01, 2006; ... If you take a look around the prepress area and pressroom of virtually any printing company today, you'll see a lot of high-tech gear (Macintosh and PC workstations, file servers, Internet routers, large-format inkjet proofers, PDF workflow systems, CTP devices). In the pressroom you'll see ...
"Having Difficulty with Stochastic?"
Feb 01, 2006; ... Stochastic, or difficulties surrounding the use of stochastic screening, have created a sub-culture of stochastic e-forum debate topics and institutional educational workshops. Even the title of this article comes from the e-mail subject header I often receive from PIA/GATF promoting its ...
Monitor Proofing-The File Is the Proof
Feb 01, 2006; ... Introduction Over the last two years, advances in monitor proofing technologies have opened the door to the elimination of the traditional hardcopy ad proofs in the creative and approval process and the costly forwarding of hardcopy ad proofs to the printer. Leading printers are ...
Battered Print Industry Volume Declines-Individual Companies Prosper
Feb 01, 2006; ... Battered from all sides in die tumultuous, increasingly electroniccentric, changing world of global commerce and media convergence, the overall volume of U.S. produced print products declined about 1.3% to an estimated $93.2 billion in 2005. Although softened by a few bright spots, ...
Why Large Format?
Feb 01, 2006; ... Large- and super-large-format presses are one of the fastest growing segments of the graphic arts industry. These presses, which range in size from fifty-one to eighty-one-inches, in the past were primarily used by packaging printers who needed the size and format. Today, we at KBA are noticing ...
Gravure Update
Feb 01, 2006; ... Gravure and associated technologies will continue to evolve in 2006. From pre-media to finished product, those involved with gravure have quite a bit to look forward to during the second half of this decade. On the pre-media front, Kodak is in Beta testing for its revolutionary gravure ...
Screen Printing Wide-Format Digital Printing
Feb 01, 2006; ... The specialty imaging industry, made up of companies using screen printing, digital printing, and other technologies for the creation, decoration, or finishing of a wide variety of end products, has been in significant flux since the introduction of wide-format digital imaging technologies ...
Automatic Inspection: Current and Future Technologies and Solutions
Feb 01, 2006; ... Introduction In the 2003 GATF Technology Forecast was the first article regarding the current and future automatic inspection technologies. In that article, we estimated that the acceptance of automatic inspection solutions and the awareness of its benefits will grow significantly in ...
RFID-Opportunities and Shortcomings
Feb 01, 2006; ... In recent years, there has not been a warehousing conference or a supply chain management magazine that has not offered a keynote or feature presentations on radio frequency identification (RFID). Touted as the next coining of sliced bread and the replacement of the "inferior" barcode labels, ...
Trends in Perfect Binding
Feb 01, 2006; ... Adhesive (perfect) binding has been with us for a long time. One of the most preferred binding methods for soft-cover work, perfect-binding is known for its "square" media back, ease-of-use in both laying out of the work (imposition), and in the wide range of systems and adhesives available for ...
Postpress Distribution Solutions
Feb 01, 2006; ... Magazine publishers, catalogers, retailers, and other mailers have long sought ways to contain the postal costs that consume such a large portion of their budgets. The 5.4% postal rate increase that became effective on January 8,2006, and the news that further hikes are contemplated have made ...
Information Fulfillment Opportunities for Printers
Feb 01, 2006; ... A number of surveys conducted in recent years by the various marketing research venues have accentuated the desire and plans among commercial printers throughout North America to expand into a variety of value-added services, complementary and supplementary, to their conventional print ...
The Image Transfer Process-the Defining Moment
Feb 01, 2006; ... In the overall printing process, there are a number of elements that all have bearing on the outcome of the finished product, but the real defining moment in printing is the moment of image transfer. It is the brief instant when ink meets the substrate and a number of critical factors converge ...
New Technology Brings UV to Coldset Printers
Feb 01, 2006; ... A new world of opportunity has opened for coldset web printers wanting to expand their business markets. Although UV ink technology has been around for more than twenty years, newly developed UV ink technologies have provided coldset printers the option to produce high-quality, high-speed web ...
The Changing Graphic Communications Talent Pool: Training and Education Are Critical for Staying Afloat and Winning the Race
Feb 01, 2006; ... Section 3 Supporting the Print Production Process Education and Training Because of its long and distinguished past, the printing industry is often termed "mature" and resistant to change. Nothing could be further from the truth. The business environment for all printers ...
Recruiting Gen X and Millennial Employees to Grow Your Business
Feb 01, 2006; ... For graphic communication companies, recruiting talented personnel will continue to be a key to success in upcoming years. One characteristic common among great businesses-regardless of industry-is a strong culture and a capable workforce. With so much attention given to JDF and the digital ...
Pushing the Envelope on E-learning
Feb 01, 2006; ... For the past three years, I have written about e-learning, who is using it, and how it is being used. Webinars and Internet providers that allow instant access to information at employees' desktops are often times the subject of many training articles, highlighting the need for time allotment, ...
The Standards Outlook for 2006
Feb 01, 2006; ... As we look at the standards outlook for 2006, it is also important to review what has been accomplished in 2005 and how we compared to last year's forecast. We will review the standards work, not by committee but by the major functional areas of file formats, file content definition and printing ...
GRACoL® 7: Let the Printing Revolution Begin!
Feb 01, 2006; ... During the past eighteen months, experiments have been conducted and data has been gathered from a series of seventeen research press runs conducted at nine U.S. printing locations by the GRACoL Committee of IDEAlliance. Input into the new specification was also sought from Europe, Japan, and ...
Digital Image Submission Guidelines Lead to Improved Print Quality
Feb 01, 2006; ... Over the past three years, the percent of digital images submitted by photographers for print publication has soared to nearly 100%. This rapid shift from film-based images to digital images has not been without problems: * What is the minimum quality level for digital images based upon ...
EPA Update
Feb 01, 2006; ... Environmental Crystal balls, tea leaves, and divining rods-the traditional tools of prognosticators and forecasters worldwide. On occasion, however, the future can be seen clearly with nothing more than a pair of strong reading glasses. Predicting the direction of the U.S. Environmental ...
Message from the Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officers
Feb 01, 2006; ... The printing and publishing industry is moving steadily towards becoming a fully automated, computer-integrated manufacturing workflow from the creative design through final distribution of either a printed product or other output media. The opportunity for printers to grow and profit is ...
Return to Stability Should Not Mask Continuing Turmoil in Print Markets
Feb 01, 2006; ... Anyone who has lived through the "wild ride" in our industry, between roughly 2000 and 2003, will be glad to hear that we appear to have reached calmer seas. But we shouldn't be so eager to embrace an apparent "return to normal" that we overlook what's happening beneath the surface. In ...
Postal Reform-What's Next
Feb 01, 2006; ... A priority for the printing industry and PIA/GATF for the past two years has been passing meaningful postal reform legislation. While countless articles have appeared in association and trade media about the importance of this issue, it may be useful to repeat a few statistics. The most ...
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): What Does It Mean to the Printing Company?
Feb 01, 2006; ... There is nothing more important to any company than its customers. That's why the idea of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and the systems to implement the concept, has become an area of great interest for printing companies. Printing companies have always gone to great lengths to acquire ...
Mergers and Acquisitions-How Technology May Affect Future Transactions, and Why
Feb 01, 2006; ... One of the favorite topics of industry observers about this time of year is an attempt to predict the future for Merger/ Acquisition (M&A) activity in the near term, based on the past years trends. For a lot of recent years, at least since 1990, the predictions have been reasonable and ...
Future of Packaging-Are There Opportunities for Commercial Printers?
Feb 01, 2006; ... The packaging markets are undergoing paradigm changes. These changes start with what's happening to the consumer product companies (CPCs) and have ripple effect throughout the entire packaging supply chain. Add in time-to-market pressures, the effects of packaging technology innovation driven by ...
The Hat Squad: Creatives Need to Become Fluent in an Ever-Widening Array of Media
Feb 01, 2006; ... Unless you've been trapped in an underwater pyramid for the past several years, you know that there is a tremendous degree of interest-and, dare we say, hype-concerning new, newer, and even newerer media, particularly among the advertising and marketing set. Projections of advertising growth for ...
Latin America in the Global Context
Feb 01, 2006; ... Our forecast on growth in the graphic arts industry in 2006 begins with an overview of Latin American perspectives in the global context, and continues with a presentation of the most important characteristics of the graphic arts industry's behavior in each of the representative countries of the ...
Canada's Printing Industry
Feb 01, 2006; ... International The printing industry in Canada remains one of the most economically important and technologically advanced industrial sectors. It is the fourth-largest manufacturing employer, with more than 84,000 employees working in 5,834 establishments from coast to coast. In ...
China-Land of Opportunities and Challenges
Feb 01, 2006; ... I recently attended the 2005 "China Annual Conference of Top Printing Managers" at Zibao on Chinas Hainan Island in the South China Sea. For people who know the history of the Chinese printing and publishing industry, which has been the last sector in China that the Chinese government would ...
Future of Print Customer Interaction: E-Everything!
Feb 01, 2006; ... Section 2 The Print Production Process Workflow & Premedia "In the year 2005, it is hard to believe that only half of print-for-pay establishments and less than one-third of inplants have deployed Web-enabled tools to submit jobs and communicate with their customers ....
Future of MIS Systems: Paths and Functionality
Feb 01, 2006; ... PRINT OS's underlying theme was interconnectivity, and the use of tools that are driven from a management information system (MIS) or prepress tools like imposition software. It seemed like every booth promoted some form of automation or interconnectivity. The promise is that if you were to buy ...
Winning With Workflow
Feb 01, 2006; ... Technology is changing the entire playing field in graphic communications. Competitors are merging. Vendors are now competitors. Clients are now suppliers. Tasks that took forty hours to complete can now be done in thirty minutes. The stakes are high. Expectations for flawless execution the ...
CIM-Bringing Workflow Integration to the Next Level
Feb 01, 2006; ... In todays competitive media environment, print production has to become more sophisticated and efficient if printers are to survive the onslaught of podcasts, blogs, and other new and burgeoning communications channels. CIM (computer-integrated manufacturing) has been used in other ...
Colorimetric Control Programs
Feb 01, 2006; ... Spectrophotometric Inter-Instrument Agreement: New Software Advancements Promise to Help Overcome Instrument Limitations with Colorimetric Control Programs. The relatively recent use of branding initiatives has been at the forefront of marketing directives on the part of many ...
New Sheetfed Technology
Feb 01, 2006; ... Over the past several months, industry pundits have been preaching the same message-printers need to reinvent their businesses in order to thrive in the highly competitive commercial printing marketplace. To achieve desirable profit margins, printers must diversify their service offerings, ...
U.S. Printing Process Market Share-2004-2015
Feb 01, 2006; ... Print & Output Processes Statistical Notes: All percentage estimates are rounded to the nearest whole number and may not total 100% as a result of rounding. The symbols > (more than) and < (less than) are used to indicate a value of less or more than 1% which is not measurable ...
Flexo's Future
Feb 01, 2006; ... The flexographic printing industry has grown tremendously over the last decade, becoming the largest print process for the packaging industry, covering a range of applications from flexible packaging to corrugated boxes to labels. In the last five years, the technology has changed drastically, ...
Digital Printing Futures
Feb 01, 2006; ... 2005 was the best year ever for digital color printing. Suppliers shipped almost 20,000 digital color printing systems worldwide (40 ppm or faster), with about half in North America, and our projections for 2006 are bullish. More importantly, penetration of commercial printing firms has ...
E-Paper: The Perfect Disruptive Technology?
Feb 01, 2006; ... Imagine, if you will ... A commuter sits on the bus or train, reading a newspaper, except that the newspaper is a sheet of electronic (or "e-") paper-a thin, flexible computer display. It accesses the ubiquitous wireless Web and allows the commuter to read what is as portable as a printed ...
UV and Hybrid UV-What's Ahead for 2010
Feb 01, 2006; ... In recent years, we have seen substantial growth in UV and hybrid UV lithographic and UV flexographic printing. This commentary will address the lithographic aspects. The growth will continue during the next five years and beyond for a number of reasons. The four primary reasons are: * ...
Justifying Bindery Automation
Feb 01, 2006; ... Postpress Someone recently described the craft of printing as "putting dead dinosaurs on dead trees," the idea being that dinosaurs decompose into crude oil, a key ingredient of ink. This description is clever, but also a little troubling when you consider that some of the print ...
Adding Value through Specialty Finishing
Feb 01, 2006; ... Printers today face more and more competition from printers who put ink-on-paper and do little more. Because of this, the ability to add value in other ways becomes an important way to differentiate printing services. Mailing services are one means printers seek to add value, but the ...
Paper Trends
Feb 01, 2006; ... Supplies & Materials Rather than totally new trends, 2005 reflects an intensification of already-established trends, as end users react to increasing costs from paper, distribution, etc. Trends identified in previous years, such as switching to lower basis weights, are continuing in ...
Mailing Services Dynamic Despite Lack of Postal Reform
Feb 01, 2006; ... By the time the Forecast is in your hands the January 8, 2006, USPS postage rate increase of 5.4% will have already gone into effect. Much has been written in the printing trade press about the Federal Postal Reform legislation under consideration for two primary reasons. First, the dependence ...
Price Increases and the Ink Industry
Feb 01, 2006; ... It is well known the ink industry is notoriously reluctant to pass along any price increases. For years, the leading ink manufacturers searched for ways to gain market share, sometimes seemingly without regard to ever-shrinking margins. Obviously, their customers were more than happy to ...
New Fast Drying Ink
Feb 01, 2006; ... Every commercial printer knows that time is money. That's why the wait between actual printing, drying and finishing can be so frustrating. You know that you could be producing more. Over the years, this dilemma has led to a host of improvements to the printing process. For ...
Training for Future Success
Feb 01, 2006; ... Say what you will about the value of structured training, but most training happens loose and unplanned, and it is oblivious to company managers. In many companies, that's the only type of training that occurs-lead operators talking about lessons they've learned to junior operators-when they ...
From the Classroom to the Printing Plant: GAERF Prepares Today's Students for Tomorrow's Workforce
Feb 01, 2006; ... For over two decades, the Graphic Arts Education and Research Foundation (GAERF®) has been a vehicle for channeling significant funds into worthy projects that advance knowledge and education in the field of graphic communications. Initially created as a grant-making organization, GAERF ...
Automated Systems and Workflows: Evolution and Development of JDF
Feb 01, 2006; ... Standards & Specifications Automated workflows and increased machine automation within the whole of the print production workflow, from initial conception and creation through prepress, production, bindery, and fulfillment, are the goal in many operations, leading to increased ...
Printing Across Borders and GRACoL: The New Direction for International Commercial Printing
Feb 01, 2006; ... Now is the time for commercial printing to finally move from a craft to a controlled process, because there no longer remain any quality barriers to making that transition. In the past, each commercial printing job was a custom process visually guided by a proof but dependent on the interpretive ...
SNAP Specifies the Total Coldset Advertising Production
Feb 01, 2006; ... Specifications for Newsprint Advertising Production (SNAP) is a specification for coldset prepress and printing processes and materials. It was first published in 1984 and revised in 1987, 1989,1994, 2000, and most recently in 2005. As with SWOP and GRACoL, SNAP is not a standard, which by ...