Miles, who took up the position of textile product specialist two weeks ago, will be responsible for expanding the company’s textile substrate offering for printers and signmakers. He will oversee all aspects of the company’s digital print textile division, including researching and introducing new products, sales and customer service. APS managing director Kevin Wallace said: “The wide-format textiles sector is experiencing double-digit growth year-on-year, driven by dramatic improvements in the printer technology. A number of our customers are moving into textiles printing so it makes sense for us to expand our offering in this way.” Miles has over 10 years’ experience in the print industry. Prior to his appointment at APS, he was a specialist sales manager for CMYUK’s digital textiles division. APS employs 42 staff and has a turnover of around £10m. The company was established in 1984 and supplies materials to the display, signage and exhibition markets....

The Brussels show, which attracted 28,500 visitors last time in 2011, has also attracted just under 600 exhibitors, up from 550 last time. This year will also see a record number of new product launches, reported managing director at Labelexpo Global Series Lisa Milburn. Milburn attributed this show-on-show growth to global rather than European growth in label printing. She said: “Labelexpo Europe has become our global show, which means global growth affects us. Growth in India is about 10% per year, which is huge if you look at the global economy at the moment. Europe’s growth is only about 2%, but then you have 10%-12% in South America. We bring people in from all those different countries.” Milburn also attributed this growth to the show’s continued highly specialised focus. “Because it’s so niche and dedicated to label convertors, people don’t have to walk round 20 halls for two weeks; they’ve got all of the technology they want to see concentrated and all very relevant to them,” she said. Key launches at the show will include world premieres of digital presses from Screen, Epson, HP Indigo and Heidelberg, new web offset presses from Omet, MPS and DG Services, and new flexo presses from Nilpeter, MPS and Nuova Gidue. Focus on digital technology is significantly increased this year, with a hall dedicated to just this sector. Also new is an HP and partners-dedicated ‘Print Your Future’ hall showcasing the innovations possible on various Indigo presses. Other features at this year’s show will include an Inkjet Trail, featuring six inkjet manufacturers producing the same print products for visitors to compare, Package Printing Workshops hosted by Xeikon and Nuova Gidue, and a half-day Digital Masterclass. Entrance to the show costs 50 euros (£42) if registering before 18 September, and 75 euros (£64) afterwards. Visit www.labelexpo-europe.com....

Miles, who took up the position of textile product specialist two weeks ago, will be responsible for expanding the company’s textile substrate offering for printers and signmakers. He will oversee all aspects of the company’s digital print textile division, including researching and introducing new products, sales and customer service. APS managing director Kevin Wallace said: “The wide-format textiles sector is experiencing double-digit growth year-on-year, driven by dramatic improvements in the printer technology. A number of our customers are moving into textiles printing so it makes sense for us to expand our offering in this way.” Miles has over 10 years’ experience in the print industry. Prior to his appointment at APS, he was a specialist sales manager for CMYUK’s digital textiles division. APS employs 42 staff and has a turnover of around £10m. The company was established in 1984 and supplies materials to the display, signage and exhibition markets....

The Brussels show, which attracted 28,500 visitors last time in 2011, has also attracted just under 600 exhibitors, up from 550 last time. This year will also see a record number of new product launches, reported managing director at Labelexpo Global Series Lisa Milburn. Milburn attributed this show-on-show growth to global rather than European growth in label printing. She said: “Labelexpo Europe has become our global show, which means global growth affects us. Growth in India is about 10% per year, which is huge if you look at the global economy at the moment. Europe’s growth is only about 2%, but then you have 10%-12% in South America. We bring people in from all those different countries.” Milburn also attributed this growth to the show’s continued highly specialised focus. “Because it’s so niche and dedicated to label convertors, people don’t have to walk round 20 halls for two weeks; they’ve got all of the technology they want to see concentrated and all very relevant to them,” she said. Key launches at the show will include world premieres of digital presses from Screen, Epson, HP Indigo and Heidelberg, new web offset presses from Omet, MPS and DG Services, and new flexo presses from Nilpeter, MPS and Nuova Gidue. Focus on digital technology is significantly increased this year, with a hall dedicated to just this sector. Also new is an HP and partners-dedicated ‘Print Your Future’ hall showcasing the innovations possible on various Indigo presses. Other features at this year’s show will include an Inkjet Trail, featuring six inkjet manufacturers producing the same print products for visitors to compare, Package Printing Workshops hosted by Xeikon and Nuova Gidue, and a half-day Digital Masterclass. Entrance to the show costs 50 euros (£42) if registering before 18 September, and 75 euros (£64) afterwards. Visit www.labelexpo-europe.com....

The most significant new feature is a streamlined user interface, called Workspace, reported general manager of Kodak Unified Workflow Solutions, Jon Bracken. He said: “There’s a lot of complexity in pre-press production and over the years we’ve added capability to it and so for a new user it can be a little daunting. And getting skilled talent into the industry is becoming increasingly difficult.” “So what we wanted to do was add an interface that simplified a lot of the processes by making the decisions intelligently.” The Workplace interface consists of three modules: Manage, Plan and Track. Plan is designed so that the amount of information that needs to be input is minimised, with jobs automatically programmed to the right machines. Bracken said: “The intelligence we’ve added to this new version is that the database has all your manufacturing information – all presses, all the sheet sizes, cutters, folders and so on. The intelligence is that it will tell you what options are open to you depending on what equipment you have and what you want to produce.” He added that the Manage module enables more in-depth interaction with the system. The Track module then offers users a single view of what is being output. “The digital print interface was first added in 2004 but over that time we’ve added more and more digital presses. What we’ve done in Prinergy 6 is unified all those things into a single view so an operator can know from a single view exactly what’s going on in the output side, regardless of whether it’s to a computer to plate system or a digital press,” said Bracken. So far Prinergy 6 has 30 users across the globe, who have been beta testing the software for the last six months. Prinergy 5.2 users with premium service contracts will be upgraded automatically at no extra cost. Kodak expects strong uptake from those new to Prinergy. Bracken reported that the software was designed to have broad appeal within the commercial, packaging and publication printing sectors. He said: “It’s very scalable. With Prinergy we cover the whole gamut, so from a very competitive level at the starting price point all the way up to massive systems. There should be no barrier to a customer getting a foothold in Prinergy 6.”...