Agfa Graphics :Dotrix Modular High Speed Digital Press

The base of the :Dotrix Modular is an industrial flexo press from Edale, a UK-based manufacturer of narrow web printing and converting presses. This guarantees the system's highly accurate and stable web transport. :Dotrix Modular can produce output on a wide variety of substrates including paper, multi-wall, biodegradable plastics, PE, PP, BOPP, PET heat and pressure sensitive materials, and more. Its high speed, unique width of 25.6 inches and extremely high quality bring on-demand printing to a whole new level. It can print on a wide range of thicknesses ranging from 25 to 600 micron (1-24), plus it offers users many additional benefits. The :Dotrix is fully modular and can be configured roll-to-roll or roll-to-sheet, and there's absolutely no limitation to graphic or job length. Customization and versioning are also available to support the growing need for target marketing and regionalization within the industry. Print '09 attendees, the media and industry experts will have the opportunity to learn about the newest enhancements to the :Dotrix Modular as well as Agfa's entire line of industry leading inkjet and prepress solutions at the Agfa Graphics News Conference on September 11, 2009 at 10:30am in McCormick Place, booth #2600, South Hall.

Print 09 Executive Outlook Conference

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The Executive Outlook Conference has announced that early registrations reflect the international reach of PRINT 09, underscoring the global appeal of the popular technology update program. Executive Outlook registrants thus far hail from Canada, Kenya, Switzerland, Brazil, Nepal, Nigeria and India, with many other countries likely to be represented by the time the conference opens. The all-day Executive Outlook Conference will be held in Chicago’s McCormick Place on Thursday, September 10, 2009, the day before PRINT 09 opens. PRINT 09, the year’s largest global graphic communications exhibition and conference, takes place September 11 – 16, 2009, also in the expansive McCormick Place.

. “The significant amount of overseas registration illustrates the truly global nature of the graphic communications industry” said William Lamparter, President of the PrintCom Consulting Group and chairman of the Executive Outlook Conference, now in its 14th year. “People have also come to recognize that, whatever economy they’re operating in, advanced technologies such as those discussed each year at Executive Outlook are key to business success.”

. As noted, this year’s Executive Outlook Conference themed, “Technology Harnessed: Driving the Road to Recovery,” will provide printers from around the world with practical information on how to use technology to gain a competitive advantage in their unique economy. Plenary sessions will focus on issues such as the economy, hot markets, computer-centric print production, digital variable data printing status and trends, new offset litho technology; and other key topics that will impact the international graphic communications industry. "How To" tutorials will cover a range of production topics featuring practical operational information.

. An annual highlight of the Executive Outlook Conference is the closing session, which features the announcement of the Must See 'Ems technology and product awards recipients. The Must See 'Ems program identifies those products that show goers must consider to remain competitive in the industry and serves as a 'road map' to the Print 09 show floor. This year’s entries will showcase the newest and most compelling technologies from across the entire spectrum of graphic communications.

. GASC provided an insiders’ sneak preview of some of these technologies during a special free webcast, “Print 09 Must See 'Ems: Advance Sneak Peek,” which revealed an overview of the critical core technologies under consideration for Must See 'Ems designation at Print 09.

. Print 09 is expected to welcome more than 650 exhibitors showcasing the entire gamut of printing-related equipment, products and services this fall. The global graphic communications show will fill the North and South halls of the expansive McCormick Place with the latest technologies in commercial and quick printing, publishing, high-volume transactional output, package printing and more.

. Print 09 is produced by the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC). GASC is owned by the National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL), NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies (NPES), and the Printing Industries of America. GASC is located at 1899 Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 20191 USA

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Print' s Top 10 Technologies

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PRINT 09 Must See 'Ems Committee identifies computer-Centric Production as "Critical Core Technology" for today's Printing Industry

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Among a commercial printer’s ‘critical core technologies,’ topping the list was information technology (IT), along with the effective use of Management Information Systems (MIS) and print buyer interfacing via the use of Web-to-Print software, in a three-way tie identified by the Selection Committee for the PRINT 09 Must See 'Ems technology/product recognition program.

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According to the Committee, today’s print production operation is a computer-centric manufacturing process, built around interfacing with the print buyer, that handles content material, controls manufacturing and distribution operations, and also provides information used as the basis for managing a print business.

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In today’s evolving print business, the computer is frequently the entry point, starting with print buyers placing inquiries, receiving quotations from the printer and placing orders over the Internet. Web-to-print utilization is, with the exception of well established MIS-based estimating, the number one application for printers’ computer use.

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Whether a printer-created approach, or via CIP4’s Job Definition Format (JDF), computers and MIS are the key components of integrated automation. Production floor feedback to MIS offers a wide range of information that, if acted upon, can improve operations. However, often lacking, the Committee notes, are the analytical software skills and computer savvy to turn available data into actionable improvements by utilizing the data in follow-on applications such as statistical process control. Other functions that benefit from IT competency are, for example, addressing/mailing and digital asset management operations.

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After IT competency, Web-to-Print and MIS, all in a three-way tie for first place, digital printing was cited as the next key technology for commercial printers to embrace. Printers whose mainstay output is sheetfed or web offset are finding that the lack of digital printing capability, even if only for addressing and brief messaging, puts them at a competitive disadvantage. According to the Selection Committee, in the longer term—three to five years—digital printing will have infiltrated the majority of printing operations and, as one member commented, “You won’t want to be without it.”

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Several Committee members noted that if, or when, the ink jet equipment demonstrated at drupa comes to market, increasingly longer run work will start to gravitate to both sheet and web ink jet digital printing. Several Committee members commented that the key to moneymaking with digital print is mastering variable data printing and mining the markets where personalization and one-to-one marketing pays off which leads back to the top technology selections.

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While no single technology secures a commercial printer’s place on the road to profit (it takes a grouping of technologies working together to best serve specific markets) the Committee noted one exception—the fifth technology pick, workflow—since efficient applications workflow is critical for any printer.

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Color management, and the ability to provide cross or multiple media products, tied for sixth place on the list of critical survival technologies. As black-only work is on the decline, few commercial printers can exist without color capability—and the key to quality color lies in color management, agreed Selection Committee members.

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In 2009, because advertising and information markets have become fragmented, multi-media capability provides printers with a diversification opportunity. In the short to medium term, the Committee predicted cross-media will transition from being an “opportunity” to a required customer service.

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The “best in show” examples of the products and services chosen by the Committee, will be identified by the Must See 'Ems product and technology recognition program, which spotlights PRINT 09’s most unique, innovative and compelling products and services for printers to see at the global exhibition and conference. Must See 'Ems recipients will be announced at the conclusion of the Executive Outlook Conference to be held in McCormick Place the day before the show opens on Thursday, September 10th.

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PRINT’S TOP 10 TECHNOLOGIES

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Ranked

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1 Information Technology*

1 Web-to-Print*

1 MIS*

4 Digital Printing

5 Workflow

6 Color Management**

6 Cross-Media Production**

8 Automated Equipment

9 Customer Resource Management (CRM)

10 Preflighting

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* Tied for 1st place as a critical technology

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** Tied for 6th place

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Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) is the producer of GRAPH EXPO and the global PRINT 09 show, the largest and most comprehensive prepress, printing converting, package printing, binding and finishing, mailing and fulfillment, and offset and digital equipment trade show and conference in 2009. GASC is owned by the National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL), NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies (NPES), and the Printing Industries of America. GASC is located at 1899 Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 20191 USA..