Swallowtail fined after worker injury
The incident happened at the print firm’s facility on Drayton Industrial Estate in Norwich, when a 44-year-old employee opened a service compartment on a press to make an adjustment. As he leaned in, he slipped and put his hand out, which then got caught in an unguarded moving part of the press. The employee received hospital treatment and was unable to return to his job for three months. A subsequent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that a fixed metal guard had been removed by other employees five weeks earlier, from the service compartment in question. Swallowtail pleaded guilty at Norwich Magistrates’ Court on 28 August to breaching health and safety at work regulations and was fined £6,700 and ordered to pay £3,030 in costs and a £120 victim surcharge. HSE Inspector Paul Unwin said: “This incident was entirely foreseeable and therefore preventable. The risks to employees from exposed machinery are well known. “Had Swallowtail Print met its duties, it would not have been possible for the employee to have accessed moving parts of machinery in this way and an injury would not have occurred.”...
read moreSwallowtail fined after worker injury
The incident happened at the print firm’s facility on Drayton Industrial Estate in Norwich, when a 44-year-old employee opened a service compartment on a press to make an adjustment. As he leaned in, he slipped and put his hand out, which then got caught in an unguarded moving part of the press. The employee received hospital treatment and was unable to return to his job for three months. A subsequent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that a fixed metal guard had been removed by other employees five weeks earlier, from the service compartment in question. Swallowtail pleaded guilty at Norwich Magistrates’ Court on 28 August to breaching health and safety at work regulations and was fined £6,700 and ordered to pay £3,030 in costs and a £120 victim surcharge. HSE Inspector Paul Unwin said: “This incident was entirely foreseeable and therefore preventable. The risks to employees from exposed machinery are well known. “Had Swallowtail Print met its duties, it would not have been possible for the employee to have accessed moving parts of machinery in this way and an injury would not have occurred.”...
read moreAdobe launches upgraded PDF Print Engine
APPE 3 features a number of enhancements over earlier incarnations, most notably a new RIP architecture, Mercury, which was developed specifically to drive high-speed digital presses. Mercury features a scalable, parallel-processing framework, which the company said boosted “RIP horsepower and dynamically balances processing loads across available devices”. It can also support continuously streamed PDF and PDF/VT in high-speed environments such as transpromo and high-volume transactional print. According to Adobe, it also renders content in a way to match Reader and Acrobat XI that “ensures predictability and eliminates unwelcome surprises”. Fujifilm has become the first vendor to utilise Mercury architecture, with the launch of v5.5 of its XMF workflow. However, Adobe said that Canon, EFI, Kodak, Screen and Xeikon would also be launching Mercury-powered systems in the coming months. “With PDF Print Engine 3, Adobe continues to demonstrate our leadership in print – 30 years after launching PostScript and igniting the Desktop Publishing revolution. Faster processing and greater predictability translate directly into higher profits for our partners’ customers: the printers of the world,” said Naresh Gupta, senior vice-president of Adobe’s Print and Publishing Business Unit....
read moreAdobe launches upgraded PDF Print Engine
APPE 3 features a number of enhancements over earlier incarnations, most notably a new RIP architecture, Mercury, which was developed specifically to drive high-speed digital presses. Mercury features a scalable, parallel-processing framework, which the company said boosted “RIP horsepower and dynamically balances processing loads across available devices”. It can also support continuously streamed PDF and PDF/VT in high-speed environments such as transpromo and high-volume transactional print. According to Adobe, it also renders content in a way to match Reader and Acrobat XI that “ensures predictability and eliminates unwelcome surprises”. Fujifilm has become the first vendor to utilise Mercury architecture, with the launch of v5.5 of its XMF workflow. However, Adobe said that Canon, EFI, Kodak, Screen and Xeikon would also be launching Mercury-powered systems in the coming months. “With PDF Print Engine 3, Adobe continues to demonstrate our leadership in print – 30 years after launching PostScript and igniting the Desktop Publishing revolution. Faster processing and greater predictability translate directly into higher profits for our partners’ customers: the printers of the world,” said Naresh Gupta, senior vice-president of Adobe’s Print and Publishing Business Unit....
read moreCommunisis buys content marketing specialist
Edinburgh-based Editions trades as Editions Financial and specialises in content marketing for clients in the financial sector. Communisis has paid £5.87m for the firm made up of cash and £1.7m worth of newly-issued shares. The total consideration is £7.1m including cash acquired with the Editions business. Editions Financial posted sales of £2.6m and a pre-tax profit of £500,000 in the year to 31 August 2012. Communisis chief executive Andy Blundell said the Editions offering and specialism in financial services was “uncannily close to the strategic sweet spot” for the group. “The key part is the analytics behind their content management offering, along with content creation and the delivery of that,” he said. “It all fits with the trend towards providing content that is sufficiently relevant and interesting for people to look at.” Editions Financial employs 31 and its services include digital marketing, social media, apps, video and print including customer magazines and direct mail. Founders Caspian Woods and Ruth Stewart-Simpson will remain with the business for at least two years. Blundell said the acquisition would be earnings-enhancing, and analysts have upgraded their profit forecasts for the group for the 2014/2015 financial year. He said there was considerable growth potential for Editions, as part of an integrated group offering: “We’ve got plans for ongoing revenue growth of 20%-plus a year with this business and we think we can achieve that.” The deal means that Communisis has now spent the £20m it gained through a rights issue earlier this year. “We’ve absolutely delivered on what we said we’d do,” Blundell added. He said further M&A deals remained possible. Communisis’ share price has slipped from its 52-week high of 68p over the past two months, but was up 1.5p today at 56.5p....
read moreCommunisis buys content marketing specialist
Edinburgh-based Editions trades as Editions Financial and specialises in content marketing for clients in the financial sector. Communisis has paid £5.87m for the firm made up of cash and £1.7m worth of newly-issued shares. The total consideration is £7.1m including cash acquired with the Editions business. Editions Financial posted sales of £2.6m and a pre-tax profit of £500,000 in the year to 31 August 2012. Communisis chief executive Andy Blundell said the Editions offering and specialism in financial services was “uncannily close to the strategic sweet spot” for the group. “The key part is the analytics behind their content management offering, along with content creation and the delivery of that,” he said. “It all fits with the trend towards providing content that is sufficiently relevant and interesting for people to look at.” Editions Financial employs 31 and its services include digital marketing, social media, apps, video and print including customer magazines and direct mail. Founders Caspian Woods and Ruth Stewart-Simpson will remain with the business for at least two years. Blundell said the acquisition would be earnings-enhancing, and analysts have upgraded their profit forecasts for the group for the 2014/2015 financial year. He said there was considerable growth potential for Editions, as part of an integrated group offering: “We’ve got plans for ongoing revenue growth of 20%-plus a year with this business and we think we can achieve that.” The deal means that Communisis has now spent the £20m it gained through a rights issue earlier this year. “We’ve absolutely delivered on what we said we’d do,” Blundell added. He said further M&A deals remained possible. Communisis’ share price has slipped from its 52-week high of 68p over the past two months, but was up 1.5p today at 56.5p....
read morePrinters owed in latest CSDM collapse
Herefordshire-based CSDM Fundraising (CSDMF), a charity direct marketing agency, emerged in June 2010 under the directorship of Chris Stoddard, on the same day his previous company CSDM collapsed owing £1.4m. It is the third company, associated to Stoddard, to collapse in as many years. According to the administrator’s report produced by MB Insolvency, CSDMF owed unsecured creditors £739,172, at the time of its collapse this summer, with the largest creditors being SPI Direct Entry* and Affinion International, which were owed £173,699 and £126,800 respectively. Other unsecured print and mailing operators included Apex Direct Mail, TFW Printers, The Envelope Works, The Colourhouse, Impact Mail and Print & Mail Solutions UK. It is not anticipated that there will be any available funds for unsecured creditors, the report states. According to the document, Stoddard claims his company was forced to enter administration because a subcontracted postal supplier failed to deliver its post, costing CSDMF around £300,000. In a statment Stoddard said despite the amount owed to unsecured creditors being documented by the administrator as £739,172, the amount that would ultimately be due to third parties would be “comparatively small”. He said: “[The figure] actually includes inter-company claims amounting to some £160,000 and £204,000 of creditor claims that are totally disputed but excludes the £600,000 of claims that CSDM Fundraising has against two creditors for breach of contract.” “Relatively few creditors remain on the CSDM Fundraising’s purchase ledger. “Our principal aim has been to ensure that clients of the firm, all small charities, do not suffer as a result of the company’s closure. “None of the company’s clients has suffered any financial loss as a result of the administration. “No members of staff have lost their jobs and we continue to have the support of our clients – who value our approach and the resources and expertise we bring. Neither have we – nor do we intend to – put other companies into administration.” Meanwhile another firm, CS Fundraising, also owned by Stoddard, has acquired the assets of CSDMF, including clients, contracts and obligations. However, according to the administrator’s report “there was uncertainty regarding the extent of assets included in the sale”, resulting in ongoing investigations by MB Insolvency. Stoddard confirmed that all staff had transferred to CS Fundraising. The business continues to operate from CSDMFs Ross-on-Wye base. *Edit note: the CSDMF creditors’ list filed by the administrator shows an amount of £173,699 owed to ‘Swiss Post’. Swiss Post International UK Ltd has asked us to clarify that this sum is actually owed to SPI Direct Entry Ltd based in Stockley Park, a separate company that has a strategic partnership with Swiss Post....
read moreScreentec invests in second Océ Arizona
The new device, which was installed around five weeks ago, complements an existing Océ Arizona 350 GT at the company’s 930sqm facility in Ferndale, South Wales. “This was an absolutely natural step for us. We’ve been so impressed by the first investment and in particular Canon’s service offering,” said sales director Harry Palmer. “Good technical back-up and service are absolutely fundamental to a business and it’s enabled us to have the confidence to never say no to our customers.” Traditionally a trade screen printer, which produces a broad range of products, the 33-staff company expanded into wide-format digital printing around six years ago with a Roland roll-to-roll printer and Palmer said with growth of around 40% in the last year, the company will continue to build on this revenue stream. “Digital wide-format printing has galvanised our business, increasing the speed and range of applications we can offer to our customers,” he said. The Arizona 480 GT, which can print at speeds of up to 32.8sqm per hour, features eight independent ink channels including varnish, double opacity white and two additional cyan and magenta channels, and will enable the firm to produce a range of creative effects and to print on coloured and clear substrates. “This is going to help us meet a growing demand for shorter runs, with high-quality applications more cost-effectively – all delivered quickly thanks to the high throughput and batch-printing mode.” He added that the company hoped to boost its POS work and industrial print output while also being able to produce specialist applications, such as window graphics. “We expect growth to slow to a steady 15%-25% a year now, and I think we will consider another Océ Arizona 480 GT at some point down the line,” he said. Duncan Smith, wide-format printing group director for Canon UK, said: “We’re delighted that Screentec has decided to continue its journey with us. It is an example of a company that recognises both the vast potential of the wide-format market and how digital printing technology can drive success.”...
read moreCaravelle trebles throughput with Mimaki JV33
The 1.6m-wide JV33-160, which was supplied by inkjet specialist I-Sub Digital at the end of June, cost around £15,000 and replaced an older Mimaki machine, a JV3-160. According to Caravelle Creative managing director Ian Daniels, the company made the investment to improve productivity and quality. “We held on to our old equipment for longer than we ought to have done, and with the new machine, the difference is really noticeable,” he said. “Our output has gone up by about 300%.” Caravelle Creative, which employs around eight staff, is using the machine to produce exhibition graphics for both indoor and outdoor applications for clients across a broad range of sectors. “People often ask for those jobs to be done by the next day, and we can do that now,” said Daniels. “It’s the modern age. People expect things to be turned around that much quicker today.” He added that the new machine had enabled the company to take on more wide-format jobs: “Because we can trust it to run overnight we have been able to take on more of this sort of work.” The JV33-160 is being used with Mimaki’s SS21 solvent inks, which I-Sub said are a more environmentally friendly than those used in the JV3. They are suitable for a range of substrate types and are designed to be fast drying, high density and highly scratch resistant and to offer a wide colour gamut. I-Sub Digital director Andy Spreag added: “This is a great example of how investing in new, faster, better quality and environmentally friendlier technology can take a business forward and bring new work into a business that wasn’t possible with the old machine.”...
read moreUpdate: Kodak exits Chapter 11
The once-mighty photographic and imaging giant went into Chapter 11 in January 2012. After a complex process it has now completed all the necessary steps for emergence, including exit refinancing and the ratification of the sell-off of its personalised imaging and document imaging business to the Kodak UK Pension Plan. The ‘new’ Kodak is focused on commercial imaging, with a large part of its operations made up of its commercial printing, digital printing and packaging operations. In a statement, Perez said: “We have been revitalised by our transformation and restructured to become a formidable competitor – leaner, with a strong capital structure a healthy balance sheet and the industry’s best technology.” Perez will remain in post for up to a year, or until the fresh Kodak board appoints a successor. According to filings made as part of the emergence process, the firm is optimistic about its future performance, and estimates it will make EBITDA of $200m on sales of $2.6bn next year. In a press briefing earlier today (4 September) Perez said the new Kodak was “stronger financially, and stronger technically as well”, ready to grow free of its legacy costs. He highlighted four key technologies that he described as being “fundamental for our new portfolio”: Stream inkjet, SquareSpot imaging, ColorFlow colour management and its Unified Workflow solutions, with Kodak planning to expand the uses into “key adjacencies”. The Stream high-speed continuous inkjet technology is to be expanded into packaging applications and also into wider formats. Perez said Kodak has already made a 49-inch (124.5cm) print bar and is working on 60-inch version. “Nothing else is even close to the capability of this technology,” Perez stated. “It will change the world of printing and the world of deposition forever.” Kodak is poised to announce an OEM deal in the packaging space that harnesses its technology with another manufacturer’s press and industry specific know-how, similar to the OEM deal it currently has with Timsons in the book printing market. However, president of digital printing and enterprise Doug Edwards also stated that toner-based products, including NexPress, remained “key” for the business. “These are mature, cash- and earnings-generating businesses for us, and will continue to be so,” he said. Referring to the shift from analogue to digital processes, Perez described printing as a “hybrid industry” and said it would continue to be so for many years to come. In line with the proposals that preceded its emergence, Kodak again highlighted the three key markets it planned to focus its growth efforts on: the $247bn packaging market, the $455bn graphic communications market, and the $28bn functional printing market – with only a fraction of each market currently being addressed by the company. Perez said that 80% of revenues now came from the sale of annuities such as ink, media, plates and services. “We have been cautious in our projections but we feel pretty confident about this,” he stated. Unusually, it revealed some of its own market statistics to illustrate the scale of its current operations. These included: 60,000 Prinergy ‘seats’ worldwide, more than 16,000 CTP systems, an installed base of over 12,000 commercial digital printing devices, 300 Flexcel NX systems and 40bn-plus pages printed using Kodak Prosper inkjet systems. Kodak now employs 8,500 staff worldwide. Its HQ will remain in the USA, in...
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