Parkside chairman Lawrence Dall dies aged 55
Dall, who had been ill with cancer since earlier this year, died peacefully in his sleep on the 18 September. He joined the company in Normanton, West Yorkshire, in 2007 after serving as sales director for Alcan. “His earlier career was in marketing and a standout achievement was the round teabag, which he is credited with helping to pioneer,” said development director Chris Kozlik. “Lawrence was a charmer and an entertainer. “He was gregarious and outgoing, the essence of Parkside and the driving force of the business for the last five years. But he left us in a very strong position with great growth options, so we have time to take stock. He will be a very, very hard act to follow.” Parkside flexographic printer and specialist laminating company has been supplying bespoke packaging to the tobacco industry for more than 40 years. The business has 150 staff, a manufacturing base in Malaysia and a turnover of around £30m....
read moreQuality Management . . . for Education?
The following is a guest blog from Daniel G. Wilson. In addition to being author of The New PrintScape: A Crash Course in Graphic Communications, he is a professor in the Department of Technology and coordinator of the Graphic Communications degree program at Illinois State University. There is a growing trend toward an environment of accountability in higher education today. Current U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan is proposing that federal dollars be linked to college program “quality.” Early in 2006, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings issued “A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education.” A major conclusion of the report is that there is a lack of accountability and transparency in colleges and universities. As a result, there is a major movement toward systems of continuous improvement, and a new emphasis is being placed on a kind of quality assurance called “learning outcomes assessment,” mandated by many states for colleges and university degree programs. In college programs, it used to be enough to test the students in each course and assess learning in little bits and pieces along the way and just give out grades. I sit on the accreditation board for graphic communications-oriented college programs, called the Accrediting Council for Collegiate Graphic Communications (ACCGC). We just met at PRINT 13. What accreditation assures is, essentially, that a system or quality assurance is in place for the educational program. This is achieved mainly through a process of learning outcomes assessment. The essential concept of learning outcomes assessment is to develop very broadly stated knowledge and/or skill-based outcomes that graduates of the degree program are expected to have learned, and then to figure out ways to measure the outcomes. For example, our faculty and advisory board for the graphic communications degree program at Illinois State University have developed these six learning outcomes: Create and manage digital media content, including photographic, illustration, video, and animation. Develop production-ready graphic layouts for digital media, print products, and cross-media products like publications, packages, labels, and signage. Participate productively in a range of graphic production processes, including printing (litho, flexo, digital), e-publishing, cross-media, and website development. Employ a technology management skill set, including project management, quality control, and business practices. Learn independently within the context of the graphic communications discipline. Solve problems within the context of the graphic communications discipline. How to measure these outcomes effectively is a challenge. We do this in our program at ISU through a number of different measures. Students have to complete a senior project, we survey employers of our graduates, and we survey graduates themselves: the resulting data give us a pretty accurate picture of learning. But that’s not enough: once measured the program faculty must look for ways to improve the results over time. Check out more about ACCGC here: www.accgc.org. Find more information on The New PrintScape: A Crash Course in Graphic Communications and other new releases from Printing Industries Press by visiting...
read moreQuality Management . . . for Education?
The following is a guest blog from Daniel G. Wilson. In addition to being author of The New PrintScape: A Crash Course in Graphic Communications, he is a professor in the Department of Technology and coordinator of the Graphic Communications degree program at Illinois State University. There is a growing trend toward an environment of accountability in higher education today. Current U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan is proposing that federal dollars be linked to college program “quality.” Early in 2006, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings issued “A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education.” A major conclusion of the report is that there is a lack of accountability and transparency in colleges and universities. As a result, there is a major movement toward systems of continuous improvement, and a new emphasis is being placed on a kind of quality assurance called “learning outcomes assessment,” mandated by many states for colleges and university degree programs. In college programs, it used to be enough to test the students in each course and assess learning in little bits and pieces along the way and just give out grades. I sit on the accreditation board for graphic communications-oriented college programs, called the Accrediting Council for Collegiate Graphic Communications (ACCGC). We just met at PRINT 13. What accreditation assures is, essentially, that a system or quality assurance is in place for the educational program. This is achieved mainly through a process of learning outcomes assessment. The essential concept of learning outcomes assessment is to develop very broadly stated knowledge and/or skill-based outcomes that graduates of the degree program are expected to have learned, and then to figure out ways to measure the outcomes. For example, our faculty and advisory board for the graphic communications degree program at Illinois State University have developed these six learning outcomes: Create and manage digital media content, including photographic, illustration, video, and animation. Develop production-ready graphic layouts for digital media, print products, and cross-media products like publications, packages, labels, and signage. Participate productively in a range of graphic production processes, including printing (litho, flexo, digital), e-publishing, cross-media, and website development. Employ a technology management skill set, including project management, quality control, and business practices. Learn independently within the context of the graphic communications discipline. Solve problems within the context of the graphic communications discipline. How to measure these outcomes effectively is a challenge. We do this in our program at ISU through a number of different measures. Students have to complete a senior project, we survey employers of our graduates, and we survey graduates themselves: the resulting data give us a pretty accurate picture of learning. But that’s not enough: once measured the program faculty must look for ways to improve the results over time. Check out more about ACCGC here: www.accgc.org. Find more information on The New PrintScape: A Crash Course in Graphic Communications and other new releases from Printing Industries Press by visiting...
read moreEx Cromwell Press director sentenced
Hemmings was the subject of a police investigation in 2010 and 2011, as a result of which he was charged with fraud, including obtaining money by deception and false representation, in April 2011. The investigation centred on false invoices that Hemmings had fraudulently created from Ken Biggs Construction in April 2005 and March 2006. Hemmings, a director of Wiltshire-based academic book printer Cromwell Press from 1991 until it fell into administration for the second time in September 2010, initially denied the charges. But in July this year he entered a guilty plea, admitting that he had falsified two invoices amounting to £81,983. Sentencing had been scheduled for 30 August but was delayed to 19 September....
read moreScodix press targets speed and texture
The Ultra digital press costs from £320,000 and can produce 1,250 B2+ size sheets an hour. It can handle stock from 135 to 675gsm on thicknesses up to 700 microns. The manufacturer claims its incorporated patent-pending RSP technology delivers pin-point accuracy, while its Variable Density and 99GU applications allows for variable polymer thickness and “the highest level of gloss attainable” for print. “It has taken a while for the print market to speed up to the fact that print is no longer merely a 2D medium but has become something that’s raised and textured,” said Mark Nixon, managing director for sole UK and Ireland distributor Conversion UK. “This is twice the speed of our other B2 machine, the S75, and it employs twin-tray technology that loads twice as fast. At 1,250 sheets per hour, the Scodix Ultra can produce 10,000 B2 sheets, 40,000 photo-book covers, 80,000 greeting cards, or 480,000 business cards during every eight-hour shift,” he said. The device is targeted at commercial printers, folding-carton packaging converters, web-to-print shops and trade finishers servicing the luxury stationery, photobook, greetings cards and packaging markets....
read moreHH Global extends reach in South America
“The South Americans are shifting away from the direct print model and embracing print management and other models,” said chief marketing officer Tony Massey. “Our expansion also has something to do with buoyant regional economies and the ‘bric effect’,” he said of surging markets in Brazil, Russia, India and China. He said the company aimed to double the number of staff in Brazil to around 30 within a year to deal with a client spend in the Americas of £100m and growing rapidly. Clients include giants such as Google and pharmaceutical multinational Bayer, all hungry for large volumes of print for material such as POS and creative services, Massey said. Americas president Mike Perez said: “Increasing our operations in Brazil is a result of tremendous business growth over the past 18 months, which has made this expansion necessary. “We will continue to deliver outstanding global services to South America. The services HH Global are renowned for around the world.” HH Global offers print and media asset management, creative production, artwork management, marketing procurement, production management and marketing fulfilment to an increasingly global market. In July this year, the company won a three-year contract to provide electronics giant Siemens with global end-to-end print services....
read moreEx Cromwell Press director sentenced
Hemmings was the subject of a police investigation in 2010 and 2011, as a result of which he was charged with fraud, including obtaining money by deception and false representation, in April 2011. The investigation centred on false invoices that Hemmings had fraudulently created from Ken Biggs Construction in April 2005 and March 2006. Hemmings, a director of Wiltshire-based academic book printer Cromwell Press from 1991 until it fell into administration for the second time in September 2010, initially denied the charges. But in July this year he entered a guilty plea, admitting that he had falsified two invoices amounting to £81,983. Sentencing had been scheduled for 30 August but was delayed to 19 September....
read moreScodix press targets speed and texture
The Ultra digital press costs from £320,000 and can produce 1,250 B2+ size sheets an hour. It can handle stock from 135 to 675gsm on thicknesses up to 700 microns. The manufacturer claims its incorporated patent-pending RSP technology delivers pin-point accuracy, while its Variable Density and 99GU applications allows for variable polymer thickness and “the highest level of gloss attainable” for print. “It has taken a while for the print market to speed up to the fact that print is no longer merely a 2D medium but has become something that’s raised and textured,” said Mark Nixon, managing director for sole UK and Ireland distributor Conversion UK. “This is twice the speed of our other B2 machine, the S75, and it employs twin-tray technology that loads twice as fast. At 1,250 sheets per hour, the Scodix Ultra can produce 10,000 B2 sheets, 40,000 photo-book covers, 80,000 greeting cards, or 480,000 business cards during every eight-hour shift,” he said. The device is targeted at commercial printers, folding-carton packaging converters, web-to-print shops and trade finishers servicing the luxury stationery, photobook, greetings cards and packaging markets....
read moreHH Global extends reach in South America
“The South Americans are shifting away from the direct print model and embracing print management and other models,” said chief marketing officer Tony Massey. “Our expansion also has something to do with buoyant regional economies and the ‘bric effect’,” he said of surging markets in Brazil, Russia, India and China. He said the company aimed to double the number of staff in Brazil to around 30 within a year to deal with a client spend in the Americas of £100m and growing rapidly. Clients include giants such as Google and pharmaceutical multinational Bayer, all hungry for large volumes of print for material such as POS and creative services, Massey said. Americas president Mike Perez said: “Increasing our operations in Brazil is a result of tremendous business growth over the past 18 months, which has made this expansion necessary. “We will continue to deliver outstanding global services to South America. The services HH Global are renowned for around the world.” HH Global offers print and media asset management, creative production, artwork management, marketing procurement, production management and marketing fulfilment to an increasingly global market. In July this year, the company won a three-year contract to provide electronics giant Siemens with global end-to-end print services....
read moreLanda pushes beta test back to latter part of next year
The major outward change to the design of the presses involves the giant three-metre wide touchscreen control panel that featured on the models shown at Drupa. This has been ditched in favour of a wraparound ‘cockpit’ at the delivery end of the press that is more akin to a conventional litho press control console. The cockpit features several smaller touchscreens and retains the ability for the operator to monitor the press from a remote, hand-held tablet. Landa Digital Printing (LDP) founder and chairman Benny Landa said that after Drupa the LDP team had visited more than 120 customers in 10 countries “to really understand their needs”, and the huge touchscreen had been given the thumbs-down. “We goofed,” Landa admitted. “They said it’s a fantastic thing, but it’s in the wrong place. The operator will be running back and forth and that’s not practical.” The addition of the cockpit means the original compact design has considerably increased in size. The B1-format S10FC simplex press for folding cartons, which will be the first model to ship, has also had a conventional coating unit added to its configuration, again as a result of customer feedback. This, plus the cockpit, means the S10FC now has an overall length of 17m. Previously the press was 8.65m long (pictured below is the Drupa version of the S10 with touchscreen). Other changes include improvements to the formulation of the special NanoInk used, and a revamp of the press range’s internal design. LDP has changed the position of the printheads to make it easier for operators to carry out maintenance without needing to crouch down. LDP is now using 1,200dpi printheads, understood to be from Kyocera although the company will not confirm this, for its ink ejectors and the latest print samples show a level of quality that has vastly improved since Drupa. The samples included small Kanji text and fine linework, as well as flat tints, onto a range of substrates including high-gloss coated paper. LDP also has new samples showing conventional AM screening at 175lpi, as well as the stochastic screening that is typical of inkjet output. Over the past few weeks Landa founder and chairman Benny Landa and his team have been briefing customers who have paid deposits or signed letters of intent for presses about the shipping delay, as well as the latest quality developments. “No-one has cancelled due to the delay,” Landa stated. “We have 430 LOIs. Some people cancelled after Drupa but fewer cancelled than new orders we received.” Landa said that based on the firm’s print quality ‘s-curve’, it is now “80% to 85%” of the way to offset quality. He said he would not ship the presses until that benchmark had been achieved. “Everyone wants a machine that is reliable and fully tested,” he added. “There isn’t a mistake I haven’t made in my career, and one I’m never going to make again will be to ship a product before it’s ready.” 40% of the presses on order are for packaging models. LDP said it was still planning to roll-out the original range of seven presses, comprising four sheetfed and three web models, but would do so in order of customer demand. The B1 perfecting model, the S10, will follow the S10FC and is set to ship to beta...
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