McGowans Print targets speed and productivity with a new Rho 1030
Managing director Mal McGowan said: “The choice of the Rho 1030 is to help us remain ahead of competition and provide a better service for our customers. The kit is quite simply the best in its class for productivity and quality of print.” The machine was the fastest fully automated flatbed printer available, said McGowan, and capable of production speeds of up to 1,000sqm/hr without compromising print quality. Durst’s Quadro Array 30M printhead carriage has more than 65,000 nozzles. The Rho is an addition to existing machines and has a list price of around €1.15m (£990,000). “Speed and full automation with automated loading and unloading makes it good for both industrial production and as a standalone facility. It is capable of parallel printing of boards and perfect reverse-side printing. Options include corrugated board printing, roll-to-roll and roll-to-sheet configurations. “We took the Rho 1030 because we needed to increase capacity. We first saw the kit at a Durst innovation day in Lienz, Austria, in April and were so impressed by its performance. We wanted a machine that offered fully automated production. It is also really fast. “We are aiming for further diversification and growth and see the Rho 1030 as part of our future. I think we could very soon be looking at Durst’s roll-to-roll printers, in particular, the Rho P10 for its superb quality of print.” McGowans’ 90 staff is based in two factories, in Dublin and Belfast, and the company has a sales presence in London. It supplies digitally printed retail products, including POS, display units, floor graphics, signage and vehicle wraps for retailers such as Lidl and Primark as well as agencies. Its large-format line-up includes an Inca, an M-Press Tiger, six machines from HP including Indigo and latex printers, a Nur Expedio and a screen line. These are supported by a laminator and both Kongsburg and Zünd automatic cutting tables. “We have had a long relationship with Durst installing a very early Lambda, and today we have two Lambdas,” said McGowan. “Our first digital inkjet machine was an Inca Eagle 44, which I believe was only the third to be installed anywhere.”...
read morePunch to sell Xeikon in €110m deal
According to a statement issued this morning, Netherlands and Belgium-based private equity house Bencis Capital Partners will purchase, subject to conditions, Punch’s 65.68% controlling stake in Xeikon for €110.3m. Once the conditions, largely centred on Xeikon’s interim results, Bencis raising the required capital and the approval of competition authorities, are met, the €5.85-per-share cash offer will be extended to a mandatory offer of the same share value to the remaining shareholders of publically traded Xeikon. The business will then be delisted. The offer price represents a 32% premium over Xeikon’s average share price in the past six months and a 10% premium on yesterday’s closing price of €5.33. The transaction is expected to complete no later than 17 September. The deal, which was first mooted in January, has been recommended to shareholders by the Punch board. As part of the deal, Bencis will also acquire Xeikon’s premises in Belgium and Point-IT, Xeikon’s IT services provider. Once the deal has been completed, a second investment fund, Gimv, will acquire a 20% stake in Xeikon. Punch, which was a major supplier of components to Xeikon, bought the then ailing press manufacturer’s colour digital assets out of bankruptcy in March 2002. Neither Xeikon nor Bencis were available for comment at the time of writing....
read moreFast Pak invests in Redline die-cutter
The Redline is due to be installed at the beginning of October. According to Diecut UK, the new machine is capable of cutting sheets of up to 1.9×1.3m at speeds of up to 3,000sph. It features a 500t cutting press and can handle thicknesses of 0.5mm-12mm. A “triple-action stripping section and grip-edge removal” mean the machine can output 100% stripped product. The RL-1900 is also equipped with a retractable, automated top feed system, which can feed rigid sheets without the need for operator interference. The feed system can be retracted to allow more difficult substrates, such as thin plastics and self-adhesive films, to be hand-fed into the machine. Dave Leighton, managing director at Ashton, Manchester-based Fast Pak, said: “At Fast Pak we go through a lengthy procurement process, evaluating all of our options available and make purchases based on fact. The Redline quite simply won due to how well built and robust the machine is and because of the features that enable the operator to make ready and change jobs quickly and efficiently.” Fast Pak supplies corrugated packs and cases for a wide variety of commercial and industrial applications....
read moreMcGowans Print targets speed and productivity with a new Rho 1030
Managing director Mal McGowan said: “The choice of the Rho 1030 is to help us remain ahead of competition and provide a better service for our customers. The kit is quite simply the best in its class for productivity and quality of print.” The machine was the fastest fully automated flatbed printer available, said McGowan, and capable of production speeds of up to 1,000sqm/hr without compromising print quality. Durst’s Quadro Array 30M printhead carriage has more than 65,000 nozzles. The Rho is an addition to existing machines and has a list price of around €1.15m (£990,000). “Speed and full automation with automated loading and unloading makes it good for both industrial production and as a standalone facility. It is capable of parallel printing of boards and perfect reverse-side printing. Options include corrugated board printing, roll-to-roll and roll-to-sheet configurations. “We took the Rho 1030 because we needed to increase capacity. We first saw the kit at a Durst innovation day in Lienz, Austria, in April and were so impressed by its performance. We wanted a machine that offered fully automated production. It is also really fast. “We are aiming for further diversification and growth and see the Rho 1030 as part of our future. I think we could very soon be looking at Durst’s roll-to-roll printers, in particular, the Rho P10 for its superb quality of print.” McGowans’ 90 staff is based in two factories, in Dublin and Belfast, and the company has a sales presence in London. It supplies digitally printed retail products, including POS, display units, floor graphics, signage and vehicle wraps for retailers such as Lidl and Primark as well as agencies. Its large-format line-up includes an Inca, an M-Press Tiger, six machines from HP including Indigo and latex printers, a Nur Expedio and a screen line. These are supported by a laminator and both Kongsburg and Zünd automatic cutting tables. “We have had a long relationship with Durst installing a very early Lambda, and today we have two Lambdas,” said McGowan. “Our first digital inkjet machine was an Inca Eagle 44, which I believe was only the third to be installed anywhere.”...
read morePunch to sell Xeikon in €110m deal
According to a statement issued this morning, Netherlands and Belgium-based private equity house Bencis Capital Partners will purchase, subject to conditions, Punch’s 65.68% controlling stake in Xeikon for €110.3m. Once the conditions, largely centred on Xeikon’s interim results, Bencis raising the required capital and the approval of competition authorities, are met, the €5.85-per-share cash offer will be extended to a mandatory offer of the same share value to the remaining shareholders of publically traded Xeikon. The business will then be delisted. The offer price represents a 32% premium over Xeikon’s average share price in the past six months and a 10% premium on yesterday’s closing price of €5.33. The transaction is expected to complete no later than 17 September. The deal, which was first mooted in January, has been recommended to shareholders by the Punch board. As part of the deal, Bencis will also acquire Xeikon’s premises in Belgium and Point-IT, Xeikon’s IT services provider. Once the deal has been completed, a second investment fund, Gimv, will acquire a 20% stake in Xeikon. Punch, which was a major supplier of components to Xeikon, bought the then ailing press manufacturer’s colour digital assets out of bankruptcy in March 2002. Neither Xeikon nor Bencis were available for comment at the time of writing....
read morePrime Group combines techs to boost sales by £100,000 in two months
The printer in Nottingham worked with ROI360 and Tharstern to integrate their technologies to “establish a valuable advantage that will secure online business and also protect profit margin”, said Prime Group managing director Jon Tolley. By linking ROI360’s Pageflex Storefront package and Tharstern MIS the printer has made it easier to customise and order print, reducing manual administration work such as booking. This has upped productivity, said Tolley, insisting the set-up was “critical” to the business. “Ordering was brilliant on web-to-print but going from ordering to invoicing was requiring manual intervention. Because we can now clearly visualise the work at every stage, we have seen a 30% increase order volumes, which equates to £100,000 over only two months.” Prime Group turns over £4m from personalised material for retail, direct mail and marketing campaigns. The 40 staff run two HP Indigo presses and a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 74. Tharstern sales manager Lee Ward said: “It’s been estimated 80% of the cost of ordering a print job is not in production but in admin. Work like estimating and booking a job costs £30 to £50 straight away. What we are not doing is not new. “But we want to educate more printers to protect what little margin they have on low-margin jobs by taking out the administration. By doing this you can make those web orders more influential in the profit of your business because you are automating the process.” ROI360’s managing director Simon Ellington said: “This is a key way to reduce internal costs and there are different levels of sophistication, from simple transfer of orders to more dynamic integration. We are also working with a big PLC printer and another smaller set-up.”...
read morePrime Group combines techs to boost sales by £100,000 in two months
The printer in Nottingham worked with ROI360 and Tharstern to integrate their technologies to “establish a valuable advantage that will secure online business and also protect profit margin”, said Prime Group managing director Jon Tolley. By linking ROI360’s Pageflex Storefront package and Tharstern MIS the printer has made it easier to customise and order print, reducing manual administration work such as booking. This has upped productivity, said Tolley, insisting the set-up was “critical” to the business. “Ordering was brilliant on web-to-print but going from ordering to invoicing was requiring manual intervention. Because we can now clearly visualise the work at every stage, we have seen a 30% increase order volumes, which equates to £100,000 over only two months.” Prime Group turns over £4m from personalised material for retail, direct mail and marketing campaigns. The 40 staff run two HP Indigo presses and a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 74. Tharstern sales manager Lee Ward said: “It’s been estimated 80% of the cost of ordering a print job is not in production but in admin. Work like estimating and booking a job costs £30 to £50 straight away. What we are not doing is not new. “But we want to educate more printers to protect what little margin they have on low-margin jobs by taking out the administration. By doing this you can make those web orders more influential in the profit of your business because you are automating the process.” ROI360’s managing director Simon Ellington said: “This is a key way to reduce internal costs and there are different levels of sophistication, from simple transfer of orders to more dynamic integration. We are also working with a big PLC printer and another smaller set-up.”...
read moreBig names line up for Cross Media 2013
Experts will give talks, lead panel discussions and present case studies on the challenges to delivering successful campaigns and what they can achieve. The event on 23 and 24 October is at the Business Design Centre in north London. As well as exhibitors on the show floors, the event will include several discussion hubs or theatres dedicated to Print and Innovation, Cross Media, Digital and Direct Marketing, Content Marketing and Publishing Strategies and a Mobile Marketing. “As new digital technologies continue to capture people’s attention, printed media still holds a vital place,” said conference manager Ruth Clougherty. “Understanding how to effectively place print within marketing and publishing strategies is essential. “The Cross Media 2013 theatre programme promises to set delegates on the right track and help them look at various options to widen their service offering. High-calibre speakers have already confirmed and we are looking forward to announcing more names soon.” Some of the most successful cross-media campaigns will be covered first hand by leaders from St Ives, Carat, Crew Clothing Co, McCann London, Sony Europe, Twitter and Microsoft, who will offer advice on building effective strategies. In the Print and Innovation Theatre InfoTrends associate director Kaspar Roos will stress the importance of print in content marketing strategies. OgilvyOne and Kyp Partnerhsip will give a case study on “putting print back on the map by keeping it creative, engaging and relevant”. Canon Europe and UK marketing manager for graphic arts Andrew Harris will demonstrate the ROI of print to your customers. Chiefs from the BPIF, Canon Europe, Xplor and PODi have also confirmed their places on speaker panels. Other confirmed speakers include Carat head of planning Dan Hagan, who will take to the Cross Media Theatre on “how to keep one step ahead of the ‘always on’ consumer with a real time planning approach”. In the Digital and Direct Marketing Theatre, Adobe Systems Europe product marketing manager for EMEA Jamie Brighton will talk about new innovations in delivering personalised content. “The show highlights the importance of print as part of a successful multi-channel marketing campaign,” said a show spokeswoman. “Companies will learn how to grow businesses into fully fledged marketing service providers with print as a part of their offering.” Visitors will learn about the explosion in content access through digital and mobile devices and how to measure the ROI of one channel against the other through speakers from Royal Mail, O2 and IDM. The shift towards content marketing by brands will be covered speakers from FMG Group, the Content Marketing Association and Oxford University Press. This year’s show will also reflect the growth in mobile data consumption, with the introduction of a Mobile Marketing Theatre, with speakers from Centrica, Tesco Mobile, Ernst & Young, adeven and the Internet Advertising Bureau UK. Visit crossmedialive.com for more information....
read moreBig names line up for Cross Media 2013
Experts will give talks, lead panel discussions and present case studies on the challenges to delivering successful campaigns and what they can achieve. The event on 23 and 24 October is at the Business Design Centre in north London. As well as exhibitors on the show floors, the event will include several discussion hubs or theatres dedicated to Print and Innovation, Cross Media, Digital and Direct Marketing, Content Marketing and Publishing Strategies and a Mobile Marketing. “As new digital technologies continue to capture people’s attention, printed media still holds a vital place,” said conference manager Ruth Clougherty. “Understanding how to effectively place print within marketing and publishing strategies is essential. “The Cross Media 2013 theatre programme promises to set delegates on the right track and help them look at various options to widen their service offering. High-calibre speakers have already confirmed and we are looking forward to announcing more names soon.” Some of the most successful cross-media campaigns will be covered first hand by leaders from St Ives, Carat, Crew Clothing Co, McCann London, Sony Europe, Twitter and Microsoft, who will offer advice on building effective strategies. In the Print and Innovation Theatre InfoTrends associate director Kaspar Roos will stress the importance of print in content marketing strategies. OgilvyOne and Kyp Partnerhsip will give a case study on “putting print back on the map by keeping it creative, engaging and relevant”. Canon Europe and UK marketing manager for graphic arts Andrew Harris will demonstrate the ROI of print to your customers. Chiefs from the BPIF, Canon Europe, Xplor and PODi have also confirmed their places on speaker panels. Other confirmed speakers include Carat head of planning Dan Hagan, who will take to the Cross Media Theatre on “how to keep one step ahead of the ‘always on’ consumer with a real time planning approach”. In the Digital and Direct Marketing Theatre, Adobe Systems Europe product marketing manager for EMEA Jamie Brighton will talk about new innovations in delivering personalised content. “The show highlights the importance of print as part of a successful multi-channel marketing campaign,” said a show spokeswoman. “Companies will learn how to grow businesses into fully fledged marketing service providers with print as a part of their offering.” Visitors will learn about the explosion in content access through digital and mobile devices and how to measure the ROI of one channel against the other through speakers from Royal Mail, O2 and IDM. The shift towards content marketing by brands will be covered speakers from FMG Group, the Content Marketing Association and Oxford University Press. This year’s show will also reflect the growth in mobile data consumption, with the introduction of a Mobile Marketing Theatre, with speakers from Centrica, Tesco Mobile, Ernst & Young, adeven and the Internet Advertising Bureau UK. Visit crossmedialive.com for more information....
read moreEFI logs record quarterly growth
“We’re very pleased that the momentum of Q1 accelerated in our June quarter resulting in a solid 10% top-line growth, a fantastic all-time record quarter for EFI,” said chief executive Guy Gecht in the company’s earnings conference call. He added that last month’s Fespa was a particular highlight, stating that the company had had its most successful show to date in terms of sales and lead generation. “Trade shows are a fantastic opportunity for customers to compare our products with the competition’s,” he added. Breaking the numbers down by regions, the company reported that the Americas were exceptionally strong in Q2, growing 22%, while Asia, excluding Japan, grew 10%. However, “the tough European market” continued its Q1 decline, although Gecht said it was “less pronounced” at just 3% overall, with inkjet being the only area of real decline and its Fiery and MIS segments actually growing. The firm reported that the migration of industrial tile printing to Asia was the prime cause of the decline in EMEA, stating that once the numbers for Cretaprint were stripped out, EMEA actually grew 4%. Gecht singled out 26% growth in UV ink volume as his personal highlight in Q2. “That’s my favourite number, because it shows that our [Vutek] customers are growing even faster than EFI,” he said. He cited a lot of the growth in UV ink volumes was down to strong OOH markets and the continued migration of screen to digital printing. Chief financial officer Vincent Pilette said that across the first half of the year, sales had grown 9% to $351.7m year-on-year and operating profit 21% to $45.8m. “We’re on track for a record revenue year,” he added....
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