EFI’s Industrial Inkjet division generated revenues of $87.1m for the three months to 30 September 2013, up 10% year-over-year and contributing 49% of EFI’s quarterly revenue, while UV ink volume grew 21% year-over-year. Gecht attributed the growth to strong demand for EFI’s VUTEk, Jetrion and Cretaprint industrial printers, its UV ink and in particular, the growing demand for the firm’s LED curing technology, which he said was a major differentiator. “We’re not the lowest cost provider in inkjet but we bring a lot of value – especially with LED technology,” said Gecht. “We are the only one that can do LED curing at a very high speed, giving people benefit of being more green [and] being more efficient. “It’s cheaper to run and also you can run it on slimmer materials, which are cheaper and let you do applications that otherwise you cannot do.” Gecht added that EFI was the only wide-format industrial inkjet manufacturer capable of LED curing in roll-to-roll production level output, although he added that the firm had yet to figure out a way to bring the technology to its top-end 334sqm/hr, 3.2m-wide Vutek HS100 Pro. “We’ve been offering it only on the kind of the mid-range, what we call the hybrid product that can print on any surface, now we’re introducing it on roll-to-roll, so now we’re going to have other types of customers that can actually purchase LED,” he said. “As far as the HS100, this is still printing at a speed that is too fast for the LED to cure, but we’re working on that as well and I’m sure we’re going to get there faster than anybody else to this type of production speed.” Gecht also remarked on the fact that LED ink consumption was “substantially higher” for customers who had bought presses with the LED option versus those that had not. “I think that shows that customers are getting much more business when they go off the LEDs,” said Gecht. “It’s not like LED is consuming more ink, it’s just that you get a lot more utilization and more business when you take the LEDs. I think that’s definitely going to continue to grow interest in the market we’re very pleased with the interest. “I definitely think that we’re going to see that as a global opportunity through next year.” Meanwhile, EFI is today celebrating the 10-year anniversary of its acquisition of Printcafe, which kick-started the growth of EFI’s MIS business, now its Productivity Software arm. EFI trumped Creo in an acrimonious bidding war for the listed Printcafe’s shares, which ended up in court after Creo accused Printcafe of trying to unlawfully block Creo’s acquisition of a block of...

Cardpress combines Print Club London’s original silkscreen printed artworks with UCI’s old-fashioned letterpress printing and linotype type casting machines to create a retro take on the modern concept of online personalised cards. To celebrate the launch, UCI and Print Club London held a launch party at MC Motors in Dalston last week (17 October) where revellers were invited to get their fingers inky by printing their own line of linotype text (produced live at the event) on an Adana hand press. The first batch of designs include illustrations by Pure Evil, Alice Stallard, James Joyce, Margaux Carpentier and Anthony Peters, all of which were originally produced as limited edition silkscreen handmade prints in one, two or three-colours. These five designs have been turned into letterpress printed cards, printed on a Heidelberg platen on 100% pure cotton stock, which can have a single line of variable text centre aligned on the inside right page. Kate Newbold-Higginson, director of Print Club London, said: “UCI’s manual ethos is close to the way we work. It’s really exciting to combine contemporary illustrators with traditional machines. Because we work with layered files too, the process we go through translates well to their machines. Though there’s still a bit of a learning curve – they are learning our way and we are learning theirs.” Cardpress customers input their line of text on the website when ordering the card; the text is then cast on a linotype machine in Metro Medium 18pt and letterpress printed to the inside of their chosen card. In addition, Print Club London creative director Rose Stallard has created five new designs that allow for a personalised text element – again produced in Metro Medium 18pt on a linotype machine – but with the variable text incorporated into the design on the cover of the card. All of the cards cost £4.90 (including VAT) and are available to order now from UCI’s website. UCI founder Stanley Wilson, who rescued and restored one of the UK’s last remaining collections of Linotype machines in 2011, said: “It requires real knowledge to keep this machinery going. We needed to conceive of a way of breathing new life into the machines. “The key concept is to make sure the next generation of people are getting that knowledge. It’s not rocket science but it is complicated. It’s not something you can learn in a fortnight, a month or even six months. I can see a difference in the print one of our very experienced printers has produced and one produced by someone else, even if they’re relatively skilled.” Additional reporting by Jenny Roper....

The new kit has replaced a manual ODM casemaker and a Rebord casing-in machine to boost the efficiency and quality of Harrier’s photobook and commercial book operation. The new binding line is also designed to allow Harrier to grow its presence in commercial trade finishing. “We’ve been making books using smaller hand kit for quite some time, but the volumes have increased, as have demands for quality, whether that’s in photo finishing or commercial print,” said operational planning and solutions manager at Harrier James Belton. The biggest challenge in sourcing a new binding line was finding kit that could switch quickly between the wide range of different book sizes Harrier processes, said Belton. “Our work is heavily variable in terms of pages,” said Belton. “So 10 sheets of paper all the way up to commercial books which are two to three inches thick. We had to have something that could deal with that without massive disruption to the set-up times. We decided that the Kolbus would be the best option.” He added: “It has built-in variance which allows you a small amount of measurement where you can batch efficiently and you don’t have to change the machine over. There are machines available on the market that say they run faster and can switch on the fly but when you actually try that option it makes things slower.” The efficiency of both Kolbus machines is also crucial for producing personalised photobook cases. Belton said: “The Rebord machine for instance was fine for doing your linens and your leathers and that was where the marketplace was a few years ago for us, but personalised spines mean people want text that never moves out of half a millimeter tolerance. We needed that accuracy and we needed it quick.” The Kolbus DA 260 outputs 40 cases per minute, while the BF 512 outputs 30. Also part of an investment push “in the millions” for Harrier LLC this year, has been an eighth HP Indigo installation and investment in UV coating, lamination, guillotine and punching capacity....

Group revenue rose just over 16% from $154.1m in Q3 2012 to $178.8m in Q3 2013, while for the first nine months EFI’s revenues are now up around 11% year-on-year at $530.5m (Q1-Q3 2012: $478m). Of the group’s three operating segments – Industrial Inkjet, Productivity Software and Fiery – the strongest growth was in the Fiery business, which rose 24.5% from $50.7m in Q3 2012 to $63.2m in Q3 2013. Fiery revenues are impacted significantly by the product development cycles of digital press manufacturers such as Canon, Konica Minolta, Ricoh and Xerox, which offer the EFI RIP with their devices – leading to cyclical revenues in line with new digital print engine launches. Guy Gecht, chief executive of the US-based inkjet and print software giant, admitted that EFI “clearly had an easy compare with Q3 last year being at the bottom of the down cycle [in Fiery]” but added that the growth was not purely cyclical. “We definitely benefitted from products which our partners introduced in the last few quarters but, when I look at the numbers, we got strength from products that got launched last year or before that,” he told analysts on EFI’s Q3 earnings call. Industrial Inkjet revenues rose just over 10% from $79.1m to $87.1m for the quarter, while Productivity Software revenues were up 17.6% at $28.5m versus $24.3m in Q3 2012. With the exception of Japan, which dragged down the group’s APAC earnings, revenue by geographic region was up across the board and particularly strong in EFI’s domestic market and in EMEA. EFI interim chief finanical officer Marc Olin attributed the strong growth in EMEA to the success of EFI’s acquisition strategy, which has seen it snap up numerous European software businesses in the past 12 months, including Technique, GamSys and Online Print Solutions. “The Productivity Software team in EMEA posted a record quarter that quite surpass the previous record in that region in what is normally a seasonally weak period,” he said. “This demonstrates that our strategy of investing in our European business to build market share and support the launch of our core products into the European market has been delivering solid results. “This has allowed us to become the largest provider of business process automation solutions for the imaging industry in Europe as well as the Americas even as most of the market is still untapped.” On a regional basis, Q3 revenues rose from $86.4m to $102.4m in the Americas, from $41.1m to $52.2m in EMEA, and from $19m to $19.9m in APAC excluding Japan; including Japan (which posted a drop in Q3 revenues from $7.5m to $4.3m) APAC revenues fell from $26.5m to $24.2m. Gecht said: “I think in Japan,...

Group revenue rose just over 16% from $154.1m in Q3 2012 to $178.8m in Q3 2013, while for the first nine months EFI’s revenues are now up around 11% year-on-year at $530.5m (Q1-Q3 2012: $478m). Of the group’s three operating segments – Industrial Inkjet, Productivity Software and Fiery – the strongest growth was in the Fiery business, which rose 24.5% from $50.7m in Q3 2012 to $63.2m in Q3 2013. Fiery revenues are impacted significantly by the product development cycles of digital press manufacturers such as Canon, Konica Minolta, Ricoh and Xerox, which offer the EFI RIP with their devices – leading to cyclical revenues in line with new digital print engine launches. Guy Gecht, chief executive of the US-based inkjet and print software giant, admitted that EFI “clearly had an easy compare with Q3 last year being at the bottom of the down cycle [in Fiery]” but added that the growth was not purely cyclical. “We definitely benefitted from products which our partners introduced in the last few quarters but, when I look at the numbers, we got strength from products that got launched last year or before that,” he told analysts on EFI’s Q3 earnings call. Industrial Inkjet revenues rose just over 10% from $79.1m to $87.1m for the quarter, while Productivity Software revenues were up 17.6% at $28.5m versus $24.3m in Q3 2012. With the exception of Japan, which dragged down the group’s APAC earnings, revenue by geographic region was up across the board and particularly strong in EFI’s domestic market and in EMEA. EFI interim chief finanical officer Marc Olin attributed the strong growth in EMEA to the success of EFI’s acquisition strategy, which has seen it snap up numerous European software businesses in the past 12 months, including Technique, GamSys and Online Print Solutions. “The Productivity Software team in EMEA posted a record quarter that quite surpass the previous record in that region in what is normally a seasonally weak period,” he said. “This demonstrates that our strategy of investing in our European business to build market share and support the launch of our core products into the European market has been delivering solid results. “This has allowed us to become the largest provider of business process automation solutions for the imaging industry in Europe as well as the Americas even as most of the market is still untapped.” On a regional basis, Q3 revenues rose from $86.4m to $102.4m in the Americas, from $41.1m to $52.2m in EMEA, and from $19m to $19.9m in APAC excluding Japan; including Japan (which posted a drop in Q3 revenues from $7.5m to $4.3m) APAC revenues fell from $26.5m to $24.2m. Gecht said: “I think in Japan,...