Last week we put out a video and letter regarding Obama’s Executive Order to cut waste in the government. While we agree whole heartidly that cutting wastful spending is a necessity, we didn’t appreciate his mischaracterization of print in his address. You can view his video here to get an idea of what we’re talking about.  Here is our video response:   Agree? Disagree? We’d love to hear in the...

Printing Industries of America is proud to be a part of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service. This coalitions consists of business mailing associations and companies – including magazines, newspapers, advertisers and catalogers, financial services, telecommunications,  insurance and other statement mailers, high-tech businesses, small businesses of every kind – and their suppliers – paper, printing, technology, envelope manufacturing, mail services and other companies, who understand the essential role played by the U.S. Postal Service and want to see it sustained, reformed and strengthened to meet the demands of the future. The U.S. Postal Service yesterday announced it is suspending its employer contributions to the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS) as a way to conserve cash needed for salaries and mail delivery.  The move comes as the Postal Service estimates it could run out of cash as soon as this October, which would result in a national shutdown of the mail. “The U.S. Postal Service is hanging by a thread, and 8 million private sector jobs along with it,” said Art Sackler, coordinator of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, a group representing the private sector mailing industry.  “This underscores the need for Congress to make quick, bold and substantive reforms to the Postal Service.” The future of the Postal Service is vitally important to the U.S. mailing industry, which supports 8 million private sector jobs.  In 2009, the mailing industry generated $1.1 trillion in economic activity, representing over 7 percent of our national GDP. While the Postal Service is self-sustaining, relying on user fees, i.e., postage, to support itself; it is encumbered with an outdated operating structure, while being saddled with expensive, mandated over-payments into government retiree funds.  To avoid a costly postal bailout, it is critical that Congress enact meaningful reforms to the Postal Service.  This must include short-term steps to maintain its solvency such as restoring fairness to its retiree obligations.  It must also include longer term steps to free USPS to streamline its system, collectively bargain more effectively, and innovate expansively while preserving service to all Americans. “There is still time to reform the Postal Service in a way that preserves private sector jobs and costs taxpayers nothing, but that time is rapidly coming to a close,” said...

The ability to create 3-D images is currently a hot marketing tool as new technology has sparked interest in three dimensional media. One of the oldest and least expensive methods to create and reproduce a 3-D image is the anaglyph. Anaglyphs are a method of encoding a three-dimensional image in a single picture by superimposing a pair of pictures. The anaglyph consists of a left and right image encoded to create the perception of depth in the image. Anaglyphs are not difficult to create, however creating good anaglyphs is a craft. A poorly made anaglyph can make the viewer feel uncomfortable. The most important and difficult part of the anaglyph is creating the original photographs or images. The originals should have depth in the image; otherwise the anaglyph will not exhibit much 3-D effect. Objects in the foreground of the original photographs will create the appearance of depth or accentuate the 3-D effect. The original images should be bright and ideally not have much red. With the red/cyan-blue anaglyph glasses, the right eye sees blue and green, the left eye sees gray. What about red? Red is absent, some light leakage through the glasses’ filters may produce limited red, and professional anaglyph designers go to great lengths to tweak the color channels to produce some resemblance of red, but this will never approach commercial quality color. Black and white or duotone anaglyphs can be used to compensate for problems with color reproduction shortcomings, especially reds in memory colors. Original photo-fluorescent pink geranium Simulation of loss of red in anaglyph viewed thorough red-cyan glasses, gray balance is better in the 3-D anaglyph. A stereo camera with two lenses that captures both left and right images simultaneously in the exact same plane is the preferred method to create the left and right images for the anaglyph.  A single lenses camera can be used if mounted on a tripod with a slide that enables the same image to be photographed several inches apart.  With a single lens/image camera, the subject can not move between images.  A limitation to the single lenses/image camera is anything that moves including people, pets, and clouds which will produce an unusable stereo image. The last method is free hand, where the photographer tries to hold the camera exactly the same and only shifts a couple of inches to the right for the second image. This method is unreliable and may require many attempts to produce a useable left and right image. There are software programs that automatically combine the left and right images to form the anaglyph. Instructions to manually create anaglyphs in Photoshop are in a link at the end of this discussion. Some software will...

The Binding Industries Association (BIA) Conference took place on OrlandoMay 23-25 for its largest event in more than five years. With a theme of “Make the Connection,” companies were able to experience significant networking opportunities. This was the definitive event for the binding, graphic finishing, and custom loose-leaf manufacturing. Attendees from all over the country gathered to meet with peers and talk openly about important business issues, strategy, and hear practical tips that would help their companies.   The conference opened with a fantastic keynote session titled No Excuse! Incorporating Core Values, Accountability and Balance into Your Life and Career. This session gave attendees a better understanding of the importance of consistency in behavior, decisiveness, and personal honesty. The speaker, Jay Rifenbary, emphasized how this could help employees’ productivity and efficiency. Attendees also learned how to drive a decisive competitive edge in production, supply chains, and new product introduction by addressing a company’s single biggest constraint. Gerald Kendall, Goldratt Institute, educated the audience about a process called The Five Focusing Steps.  Theory of Constraints is based on the idea that in any complex system at any point in time, there is only one, or at most, very few aspects of the system keeping that system from achieving more of its goal: 1. IDENTIFY the system’s constraint 2. Decide how to best EXPLOIT the constraint 3. SUBORDINATE everything else to the above decision 4. ELEVATE the system’s constraint 5. If, in a previous step, a constraint has been broken, go back to step     1. PREVENT INERTIA from becoming the system’s constraint. A consistent theme of every BIA conference is the close community. Throughout the year, The Binding Industries Association serves as a peer group that not only helps each other, but helps educate the industry. It was a successful conference, and we can’t wait to begin planning for next year! For more information about the BIA, visit...

  The web2awards is the premier–and only–annual award competition that names the best websites in the print/marketing service provider industry. Why should you enter the 2011 web2awards? Here are the top 10 reasons: You will receive a professional analysis and critique of your website. You will receive a private report showing how your site compared to others in the competition. Because the categories are grouped by company size, businesses of all sizes have a good opportunity of winning. Multiple categories give your company a chance to win more than one award. A submission for a customer’s Web-to-print portal site solidifies your value as their partner. All contenders get great exposure through the People’s Choice Award and the official web2awards booklet, which features all participants. Winners get even more exposure with inclusion in Printing Industries of America’s press releases and promotional campaign. If you win a web2award, you can publicize it yourself to further impress your customers, your competitors, and your staff. Winners get to receive their award during our awards ceremony on the floor at GRAPH EXPO 2011. Winners receive the beautiful crystal web2award statue and can proudly display it in their facility. So there you have it. The deadline to enter is this Friday, June 10. If you have any questions about the contest leave a comment on this post. We look forward to seeing your...

Over the last year or so, OSHA has been under scrutiny from the Department of Labor for not taking enough measures with to enforce current standards and rules, especially toward companies that demonstrate an indifference to meeting compliance. As a result OSHA has implemented several enforcement initiatives that are greatly impacting vast numbers of printers today. One of the initiatives involves National Emphasis Programs (NEP). These are inspection programs designed to target specific industries and hazards. Applicable to the printing industry are the Amputation NEP, Combustible Dust NEP, and the Injury and Illness RecordkeepingNEP.Under each of these NEPs printing operations and printing equipment have been specifically identified and require OSHA to seek printers in their area for inspections.   Once an inspection occurs, OSHA will attempt to determine whether or not there are violations and whether or not a company is considered a “severe violator,” which is another enforcement initiative. OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) is applied when a company demonstrates an “indifference” to meeting OSHA compliance. Under the SVEP program, OSHA can issue willful, repeat, and/or failure-to-abate citations with much higher penalties and enhanced settlement requirements.  The issue of higher penalties brings us to the more recent policy change regarding OSHA’s penalty classification. Because of the many violations noted by OSHA inspectors, OSHA believes the penalties are too low to have an adequate deterrent effect. Based on inspection data, OSHA has increased the number of years it will look back for previous violations, which will increase the number of potential repeat violations. OSHA has also limited the initial penalty reduction allowance from 50% to 30% which has increased the average penalty for serious citations to a base of $3,000–$4,000 for each citation. First and foremost, with all OSHA inspections, being prepared ahead of time is the key to avoiding citations and penalties. Second, cooperation with the inspector is important, but be careful of what information is provided when asked. Always record what occurs during the inspection process and ask the inspector to clarify or explain the actual OSHA standard for any issues raised. OSHA inspections will usually take multiple days with multiple inspectors to cover the applicable programs. Being proactive is the best defense. If you need help in this area, please contact me at rhartwig@printing.org or 412-259-1792.  There is also a free publication available to members, OSHA Primer, which will provide a basic overview of the federal OSHA regulations affecting printers. This publication, as well as other compliance tools, is available at www.printing.org/osha....