PCP adds web and bindery firepower
The Telford-based firm is adding a second Komori System 38 web to its pressroom, having acquired a secondhand model in “excellent condition” from a printer on the continent as part of a multi-million pound upgrade of its facilities. “We need it to grow, and it potentially gives us another 45% capacity growth from where we are at the moment,” said managing director Alex Evans. “That’s not going to happen from day one, it will be staggered over a number of years,” he explained. “A lot depends on what happens in the marketplace.” The Komori is configured with eight units and can produce 32pp duplex sections or two 16pp sections. PCP already runs a 16pp System 38, as well as a 32pp Manroland Rotoman. An older Goss Universal semi-commercial web at its factory will be taken out of production early in 2014. The firm also has sheetfed and digital printing facilities. “The new Komori is nice and flexible, similar to our Rotoman,” Evans added. It is being installed in the press hall that used to house PCP’s Wifag newspaper line, and is set to begin live production at the end of September. The bindery upgrade includes a new Muller Martini Primera E140 stitching line, with further additional finishing kit on the cards for the future. “We will continue to put automation into the plant to remain lean and keep our unit cost competitive,” Evans said. The firm runs 24/7, has turnover of £37m and employs 208 staff. It produces a wide cross-section of web offset products including B2B magazines, catalogues, and direct mail. Evans said 67% of its current capacity was contractual fill. PCP is part of the Claverley Group, which owns a raft of regional newspapers and online media brands....
read morePCP adds web and bindery firepower
The Telford-based firm is adding a second Komori System 38 web to its pressroom, having acquired a secondhand model in “excellent condition” from a printer on the continent as part of a multi-million pound upgrade of its facilities. “We need it to grow, and it potentially gives us another 45% capacity growth from where we are at the moment,” said managing director Alex Evans. “That’s not going to happen from day one, it will be staggered over a number of years,” he explained. “A lot depends on what happens in the marketplace.” The Komori is configured with eight units and can produce 32pp duplex sections or two 16pp sections. PCP already runs a 16pp System 38, as well as a 32pp Manroland Rotoman. An older Goss Universal semi-commercial web at its factory will be taken out of production early in 2014. The firm also has sheetfed and digital printing facilities. “The new Komori is nice and flexible, similar to our Rotoman,” Evans added. It is being installed in the press hall that used to house PCP’s Wifag newspaper line, and is set to begin live production at the end of September. The bindery upgrade includes a new Muller Martini Primera E140 stitching line, with further additional finishing kit on the cards for the future. “We will continue to put automation into the plant to remain lean and keep our unit cost competitive,” Evans said. The firm runs 24/7, has turnover of £37m and employs 208 staff. It produces a wide cross-section of web offset products including B2B magazines, catalogues, and direct mail. Evans said 67% of its current capacity was contractual fill. PCP is part of the Claverley Group, which owns a raft of regional newspapers and online media brands....
read moreAll Print Supplies appoints Peter Miles to digital textile division
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....
read moreLabelexpo Europe 2013 predicted to be biggest yet
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....
read moreLabelexpo Europe 2013 predicted to be biggest yet
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....
read moreAll Print Supplies appoints Peter Miles to digital textile division
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....
read moreKodak launches latest version of Prinergy workflow
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.”...
read moreKodak launches latest version of Prinergy workflow
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.”...
read moreXaar profits soar
Revenues for the Cambridge-based manufacturer in the six months to 30 June 2013 rocketed to £67.2m (H1 2012: £37.9m), with growth led by strong demand for Xaar’s ceramic tile digital printing technology, particularly in China, which has around 46% of the global ceramic printing market. Chief executive Ian Dinwoodie said he expected the company’s growth to begin to slow down in the coming year. “We’ve grown by 150% over the past three years; it has been huge. Now we’ll take a couple of years to draw breath, targeting a more meaningful growth rate of perhaps around 10%,” he said. Product sales across the company were £63.9m (H1 2012: £34.3m) with Xaar’s ceramic applications the key driver. Dinwoodie said that the company had experienced 36% growth of sales into the packaging market through digital label printing. The division generated £8.3m, accounting for 12% of H1 revenue. Company headcount, which now stands at more than 700, has increased by almost 50% since 30 June 2012. Dinwoodie said there would be further “significant hiring” to fulfil its ongoing R&D on existing and new products. “We are forecasting very robust numbers in the coming years, which will enable us to create a much larger company once we get the thin-film piezo technology (P4) product rolling out,” Dinwoodie said. He added that development of the P4 was on track with the first revenues expected in 2016. In the wide-format graphics market the company made something of a comeback after losing market share in recent years, achieving revenue growth of 28%; and with the new Xaar 501 GS10 on course for release in 2014, Dinwoodie expected that to continue over the next two to three years. Manufacturing at Xaar’s Huntingdon facility is at full capacity and the company plans to invest around £30m of capex in 2013/2014, in “further specialised assets to meet market demand”. Looking ahead, Dinwoodie said he expected demand for ceramic tile technology to stabilise. “But there are other ceramic processes that could possibly be digitalised and we are exploring those. “There will be more adoption of inkjet into packaging and our decorative laminate application. We expect to see results over the next couple of years. “Based on our thin-film technology we’ll be looking at further forms of packaging, textiles and book printing and we’ll expect these to kick in between 2016 through to 2022.” Interim dividend, which will be paid on 4 October, increased to 2.5p per share (H1 2012: 1p per share). Share price was 828.5p at the time of writing, almost four times its value last year, with a 52-week high of 898p (low:...
read moreXaar profits soar
Revenues for the Cambridge-based manufacturer in the six months to 30 June 2013 rocketed to £67.2m (H1 2012: £37.9m), with growth led by strong demand for Xaar’s ceramic tile digital printing technology, particularly in China, which has around 46% of the global ceramic printing market. Chief executive Ian Dinwoodie said he expected the company’s growth to begin to slow down in the coming year. “We’ve grown by 150% over the past three years; it has been huge. Now we’ll take a couple of years to draw breath, targeting a more meaningful growth rate of perhaps around 10%,” he said. Product sales across the company were £63.9m (H1 2012: £34.3m) with Xaar’s ceramic applications the key driver. Dinwoodie said that the company had experienced 36% growth of sales into the packaging market through digital label printing. The division generated £8.3m, accounting for 12% of H1 revenue. Company headcount, which now stands at more than 700, has increased by almost 50% since 30 June 2012. Dinwoodie said there would be further “significant hiring” to fulfil its ongoing R&D on existing and new products. “We are forecasting very robust numbers in the coming years, which will enable us to create a much larger company once we get the thin-film piezo technology (P4) product rolling out,” Dinwoodie said. He added that development of the P4 was on track with the first revenues expected in 2016. In the wide-format graphics market the company made something of a comeback after losing market share in recent years, achieving revenue growth of 28%; and with the new Xaar 501 GS10 on course for release in 2014, Dinwoodie expected that to continue over the next two to three years. Manufacturing at Xaar’s Huntingdon facility is at full capacity and the company plans to invest around £30m of capex in 2013/2014, in “further specialised assets to meet market demand”. Looking ahead, Dinwoodie said he expected demand for ceramic tile technology to stabilise. “But there are other ceramic processes that could possibly be digitalised and we are exploring those. “There will be more adoption of inkjet into packaging and our decorative laminate application. We expect to see results over the next couple of years. “Based on our thin-film technology we’ll be looking at further forms of packaging, textiles and book printing and we’ll expect these to kick in between 2016 through to 2022.” Interim dividend, which will be paid on 4 October, increased to 2.5p per share (H1 2012: 1p per share). Share price was 828.5p at the time of writing, almost four times its value last year, with a 52-week high of 898p (low:...
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