repro report - apdsp.com · company’s overall waste production and energy consumption. ... his...

REPRO REPORT Volume 27, Issue 1January/February 2008

Seven Tips for a Better Color Business

The Question isn’t Why Offer FM Services, but Why Not?

Digital Age: New Services, New Income

The movement to go green has never been stronger.

Businesses are continually striving to improve operating

models to further reduce their impact on the environment.

For reprographers, this means embracing eco-friendly,

sustainable equipment capable of producing the highest

quality prints—with output equaling, or often surpassing,

the less “green” printing equipment of decades past.

Today, high-quality, ultra-efficient printing solutions

that support responsible paper use, low-emissions, energy

conservation and reusable components are making their way

into the market. They are engineered to help reprographers

increase sustainability and improve end products, with

the overarching benefit of enabling them to reach their

environmental goals.

Océ Technology: Designed with the Environment in Mind Océ, through its full range of wide format printing

solutions, meets head on the need for sustainable,

environmentally sound business solutions. As part of the

Dow Jones Sustainability Index since 2004, which enables

Océ to be a qualified and eligible investment option for

“green funds,” Océ products are designed with ecosystem

preservation in mind and offer the following:

• Low emissions, reduced waste: Océ is committed to

engineering products with low ozone emissions, dust,

noise emissions and toner waste, as well as systems

with inherently economical resource consumption

on a per-print basis.

• Reusability: Océ considers sustainability throughout its

design and manufacturing processes. Components are

designed for re-use and recyclability to gain maximum

utilization and minimize landfill use. Products are

manufactured with consideration for energy consumption

and preventing waste during the manufacturing process.

• Radiant fusing: This timesaving technology eliminates

warm-up time, guaranteeing that high-quality printing

starts as soon as a printer receives a job—offering the fastest

cold-to-start print time available on any wide format product.

• Modular, upgradeable design: Constructing products using

a modular, open-architecture approach prevents equipment

from prematurely entering the “waste stream.”

• High degree of productivity: Created to ensure the highest

level of quality, reliability, speed and ease of use, while at

the same time requiring low energy input to operate,

Océ wide format printing equipment helps to decrease a

company’s overall waste production and energy consumption.

• Maximum paper handling efficiency: With multiple paper

size concurrent loading and printing options, Océ equipment

helps reprographers produce less paper waste by ensuring the

right size prints, with the right images and optimum quality

level, are printed the first time.

For more information on how Océ can help reprographers

produce quality print output and promote sustainability

to help benefit the environment, call 800-714-4427,

visit www.oceusa.com or email [email protected].

© 2008 Océ

Promoting Sustainability to Achieve Environmental Goals

Printing forProfessionals

Printing forProfessionals

®

7427 Oce Sustainability Ad.F.in1 1 12/17/07 3:31:02 PM

––––––––––––––– ADVERTORIAL –––––––––––––––

Your FM sites have something to say.Hear them, with job accounting software from Sepialine.

sepial ine ®

Cost recovery is the heart and soul of your on-site FM business. Sepialine’s

range of products and services are designed for AEC and reprographics to

track expenses quickly and easily. Sepialine’s range of products and services

are designed for FM and AEC professionals to track expenses elegantly, eas-

ily and painlessly.

For service providers like you, there’s FM Server™: our new secure online

service for transmitting, aggregating and working with your tracking data in a

single web-accessible place.

Our tamper-proof Print Tracking holds customers accountable without

holding printing hostage, making for happy customers. Our Copy Tracking

bucks conventional thinking by asking the user only one question instead of

many, reducing the headache of walkup tracking. For nearly everything else,

there’s Integration that makes our software the most connected of its kind.

Find out how we can help your on-site FM program by visiting www.sepialine.com or call (800) 404-9558.

REPRO REPORT

Board of Directors

Vol. 27 • Issue 1 • 2008

The bimonthly news magazine of the International Reprographic Association401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 2200, Chicago, IL 60611Tel: 800/833-4742; Fax: 312/527-6705 http://www.irga.com

Features

Bryan ThomasPresidentThomas ReprographicsRichardson, TX

Dan StephensVice PresidentGeorgia Blueprint/QRSAlpharetta, GA

Mike CullySecretary/TreasurerAIR GraphicsNorth Quincy, MA

Michael CarterImmediate Past PresidentLynn ImagingLexington, KY

Gary WilburDirector-at-LargeR.S. Knapp/NapcoLyndhurst, NJ

Earl BuchmannSeiko-I InfotechEscondido, CA

Patrick ChapuisOcé Wide Format Printing SystemsChicago, IL

Chuck HayesOCB ReprographicsIrvine, CA

Robert RopertiJiffy Reprographics Inc.Clearwater, FL

Woodie RushPlan Express Inc.Memphis, TN

Casey SimpsonMBC Precision ImagingColumbia, MD

Kip YoungKal-Blue ReprographicsKalamazoo, MI

14

17

20

Digital Age: New Services, New IncomeBy Navina Waterman

Remember the good old days? Our industry’s workflow was fairly simple—sheets in, sheets out—with relatively few options along the way. Then came the digital revolution…

The Question isn’t Why Offer FM Services, but Why Not?By Scott Cullen

If you don’t do it, somebody else will. That seems to be the consensus about facilities management services among reprographers who already offer clients these services.

Seven Tips for a Better Color BusinessFind new methods to increase new business and revenues.By Ed AvisColor reprographics has been an important profit center for many reprographics shops for well over a decade, but sometimes even reliable money makers need a little freshening up.

4 President’s Perspective 6 Association Highlights 8 In The News23 Print IT

24 Image Area25 Sustainable Imaging 26 HR Insider 27 Product Innovations

30 Classified Ads 32 End of the Roll

Columns/Departments

You’re in control of your business when you use PLP’svisionary solutions. With vendor independence and openarchitecture, you’re free to take advantage of powerfulnew technology as it emerges. Choose the best of what’savailable, and make it all work together seamlessly.

Use our newest solutions to get real-time intelligence onthe status of jobs or asset utilization from your Webbrowser. Apply this intelligence to take immediate actionto improve performance at any location.

Our other tried and true solutions enable you to integratedevices from different manufacturers and eliminate bottle-necks associated with file formats that are proprietary ordifficult to manage.

It’s your future, not theirs. Take control.Unparalleled service gets you up and running quickly—and keeps you going. And you’re not tied down to long-term contracts. In fact, our unique Investment ProtectionPolicy lets you apply the cost of some of our solutions towards upgrades.

Change is happening faster and faster. Make your businessmore agile by tearing down the barriers to growth. PLP helps you increase customer satisfaction, achieve thecompetitive edge and improve your profitability.

Take control of your business.

To find out more call1-800-444-7568 (ext. 3)© 2006 PLP Digital Systems | Arlington, Virginia | www.plp.com

PLP Hi Five Ad Final sans IRgA 9/18/06 8:33 AM Page 1

4 IRgA.com • January/February 2008

PreSIDeNT’SPERSPECTIVE

Jay Strother: Publisher

Dennis Coyle: Managing Editor

William Wargo: Design

Jennifer Hanasz: Production

Editorial CommitteeTina LemanowiczeBlueprintCleveland, OH

John MarquardtAmerican Reprographics CompanyWalnut Creek, CA

Bob RopertiJiffy Reprographics Inc.Clearwater, FL

Bill SchabergReprographics ConsultantFairfield, CT

Navina WatermanReproSceneMyrtle Point, OR

Kip Young, ChairpersonKal-Blue ReprographicsKalamazoo, MI

Write UsSend mail to: The Editor REPRO REPORT401 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 2200Chicago, IL 60611, or to [email protected] statement of fact or opinion is the responsibility of the author alone and does not imply an opinion of the board of directors, staff, or members of the International Reprographic Association (IRgA). Subscriptions are free to IRgA member contacts; additional subscriptions are available at the cost of $30/year for members and $150/year for non-members (international subscribers; please add $20 per subscription). No part of this publication may be reprinted without the written permission of the editor. Send reprint and subscription inquiries c/o the IRgA.

© 2008 The International Reprographic Association

REPRO REPORT

Bryan Thomas

President2007-2008

This issue of REPRO REPORT marks the introduction of a logo and tagline for the IRgA.

The new look and feel is needed to bring our association up-to-date and portray a more modern message of what our association and its member companies stand for. The new identity marks the next phase of the IRgA’s ongoing re-branding initiative. The next step is to incorporate the new logo and tagline into all IRgA correspondence and to bring the new messaging to the AEC industry.

What follows is a summary of the branding project—how it came to be and the logical progression to where we are today. On page 6 is an article about how the new logo and tagline came to be. On page 32, our executive director, Steve Bova, offers some suggestions on how you can tap into the IRgA’s brand messaging to maximize your company’s connection with the AEC industry.

Evolution of the IRgA BrandIn January 2004, the IRgA Board of Directors met for an intensive strategic planning session that helped set the future direction for our organization. The top priority was to develop an identity for the reprographics industry as the premier resource for construction printing and digital document management services.

The other two priorities dovetail with the re-branding effort: Add value to the industry and to member companies as well as develop a knowledge repository for the dissemination of industry information.

The first step in our re-branding initiative was to gain perceptions about reprographics from the AEC community. The IRgA hired SmithBucklin Corporation to conduct an independent study on the IRgA’s behalf. The study included gathering qualitative data through member and

end customer telephone interviews. We got feedback on primary products/services, needs, trends, challenges, competition, factors determining the use of an outside reprographer, perceptions of the reprographics industry and the unique benefit/value of using a reprographer.

This data helped form a quantitative research study aimed at identifying AEC reproduction needs, current and projected usage, influencers in using a specific reprographer, benefits gained by using a reprographer, perceptions of the reprographics industry, issues/challenges and professional affiliations and their value.

We sent a survey in December 2005 to architecture firms, engineering firms and construction companies in North America. The study garnered responses from 158 firms and offers tremendous insight from our customers’ perspective (you can view the entire survey results on www.irga.com by clicking on Branding under the About IRgA tab).

The results were not necessarily flattering. The general theme was that reprographics customers perceived our industry as being somewhat old and stodgy—unsophisticated.

On the bright side, reprographers were seen as ethical, responsive, professional, efficient, timely and knowledgeable. However, reprographers were least perceived by their customers to be on the cutting edge, innovative, leaders, proactive, partners and specialized.

This information quickly led the IRgA Board to decide it needed to develop a new look and message to change the negative perceptions of our industry.

The IRgA Brand EssenceThe survey results were conveyed at the 2005 Annual Convention and

IRgA Branding Project Evolves to New Logo and Tagline

Continued on page 10

925.658.0200 www.metaprint.netImage and device management for large-format digital printing

Go Fast With MetaPrint.

Multiple Devices. Multiple Manufacturers. One Solution.

A New Face for the IRgA As we kick off this New Year, the IRgA is also celebrating a brand new

image for the organization. This new logo was created not only to

look good on this page, but also carries a great deal of meaning

based on feedback from industry research that has been conducted

the past few years.


ASSOCIATIONHIGHLIGHTS

The process started with research of the AEC industry to truly gauge their perception of reprographers, our business and the services our members provide. This was an eye-opening process and one that led the IRgA to put a stake in the ground for the industry with an aim to make IRgA members the first choice for AEC companies and their large/wide format document printing, distribution and management needs.

Describing Who We AreBefore the logo redesign, the IRgA Board developed and accepted a tagline to better describe who we are as an organization. Over time, the group realized that more people resonate with the term “blueprinting” and may not necessarily understand or be familiar with the term “reprographics.”

“Based on the research and the desired perception of IRgA members and our organization, we set out to develop a tagline that captured where we’ve been, who we are and where we’re going,” says Executive Director Steve Bova. This tagline highlights our roots in blueprinting, differentiates us with our strong focus on customer service and where our industry is heading with technology and digital services.

Translating Words into GraphicsThe next step was the creation of our new logo. The IRgA team, along with the Branding Task Force and the Board of Directors, set out to translate these words into graphics and worked with a design team to create the new image for the IRgA. This was an in-depth process with many different options and careful consideration of each to choose the one that best represents our organization and its membership.

The new IRgA logo brings the association into the 21st century with its modern, bright digital look. The bold letterforms communicate the strength and stability of our established association of more than 80 years, while the pixels demonstrate change, flexibility, modernity and the direction of our industry with digital services. The roll of the unique lower case “g,” which has long characterized the acronym IRgA, is reminiscent of the printing press as well as rolled blueprints.

The three colored pixels represent the three components that make up the association tagline, corresponding to the smaller colored bullets shown in front of each piece of the tagline. The three RGB colors reflect the colors of today’s multimedia, as well as modern digital printing and traditional black and white print. The brightest red pixel draws the eye to the beginning of the logo. The arrangement of the third blue pixel at the base corresponds to the blue pixel preceding “Built on Blueprints.” It demonstrates the idea that blueprints as the foundation of the association are being built on with the other two components in the tagline.

Please refer to the End of the Roll column (page 32) for information on how you can represent your membership in the IRgA and use the IRgA brand elements in your business.•

IRgA.com • January/February 2008 7

Thank you to the IRgA Branding Task Force The Branding Task Force participated in several conference calls to consider each logo option along with the colors, typography and design elements that would best represent the IRgA. Thank you to all of them, and the IRgA Board of Directors, for volunteering their time and for their dedication to the IRgA.

Chair:Dan Stephens, IRgA vice presidentGeorgia Blueprint Co. LLC

Task Force members: Michael Shaw, IRgA past presidentCentral Blueprint Corp.

Pat Gremillion A&E – The Graphics Complex, a Division of Thomas Reprographics

Peter LawrenceProduct Manager, Océ North America

The IRgA would also like to thank designers Bill Wargo and Jacqueline Fiedler.




Regional Chapter Update

Schedule of Events

Eastern Regional Reprographic Association (ERRA)

Nov. 12-14Hilton Daytona Beach ResortDaytona Beach, Fla.

Contact: Shirley Zawoyski 630/[email protected]

Southeastern Reprographic Association (SRA)

Nov. 12-14Hilton Daytona Beach ResortDaytona Beach, Fla.

Contact: Linda Maynard407/[email protected]

Contact: Shirley Zawoyski630/[email protected]

Western Reprographics Association (WRA)

Oct. 2-7Westin Puerto VallartaPuerto Vallarta, Mexico

Contact: Paul McKee480/[email protected]

Central Reprographic Association (CRA)

Sept. 10-13The Millennium HotelSt. Louis, Mo.

Contact: Shirley Zawoyski630/[email protected]

The IRgA made a commitment to be the source of all reprographic-related information for those within the industry and as well as those outside the industry. In order to fulfill this task, the association is dedicating resources to create an interactive, online library.

The library is one of the many additional services that will be available later this year when the association completes its Web site redesign.

The IRgA is asking its members to help build the foundation of the library. However, the new resource of information will not be limited to books. The association wants to build a repository of white papers, articles, columns, best practices lists, tips, links to related Web sites/Web blogs, recommended universities/educational facilities, etc. The focus of the content should be diverse – management, leadership, sales, marketing, industry trends, new product releases, product comparisons, etc.

Please send all recommendations to [email protected]. All recommendations will be reviewed by the IRgA Board of Directors. If you have any questions, you can e-mail IRgA Headquarters or call 312/245-1026. •

IRgA Members Leverage Free WebinarsCelebrate a new year with new ideas. Jan. 16 marked the IRgA’s first of four Webinars planned for 2008.

The first Webinar focused on Improving Performance through Operations Innovation. Dr. Jeremy Lurey shared his key learnings from a recent operations assessment at one of our own IRgA member firms. The Webinar explained basic principles for process improvement to help reprographers not only to redesign your key business processes but also to achieve extraordinary outcomes through innovation. As an active IRgA member company, you and your colleagues have free access to online Webinars where you can gain tips and tricks from industry insiders. Take a listen!

Did you Know?Registration is free and open to all IRgA members. In addition, your IRgA membership grants you access to archived Webinars. The following are currently available:

•PDFTechnologyandTrendsintheConstructionIndustry;

•ManagingComplexAECDesignswithAutodeskDWF;

•OperationalEfficiency:HowtoBecomeMoreEfficient;and

• ImprovingPerformanceThroughOperationsInnovation.

Start your new year out right. Access an IRgA Webinar today. For more information, visit www.irga.com.•

IRgA Seeks Content for Interactive, Online Library



IRgA Members Set to Enjoy the Links at TPC Las Vegas

The IRgA 82nd Annual Convention & Trade Show –held May 13-15 at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel in Las Vegas – is known for its education sessions, networking events and dynamic exhibitor show. In addition, it is also known for excellent golf.

The host of this year’s annual golf tournament is the TPC Las Vegas on May 13.

The 12-year-old course, which has hosted the Senior PGA Tour’s Las Vegas Classic in past years, sits north of the bustling city of Las Vegas and south of dramatic mountainous views.

TPC Las Vegas has been called “desert elegance.” There could be a no more apt description of the par-71, 7,063-yard golf course that offers a stern test of golfing skills along with stunning vistas.

Lush green parcels of manicured turf are woven throughout a rugged tapestry of arroyos, barrancas and other natural features in the southern Nevada desert. While the course meanders over several hundred acres,

it has only 110 acres of irrigated land – another plus in the realm of environmental conservation and wildlife preservation.

All golfers must be registered IRgA Convention & Trade Show attendees. Registration for the IRgA Golf Tournament is available only through convention registration. A $250 early bird registration fee is available until May 2. After that date, registration is $300 per golfer. If you have any questions, please contact IRgA Headquarters at 312/245-1026.•

golf Tournament Schedule – Tuesday, May 13

6:15 a.m. Shuttle begins from Paris Las Vegas Hotel

6:30 a.m. – 7:50 a.m. Check-in and Continental Breakfast

7:10 a.m. Last shuttle departs from Paris Las Vegas Hotel

7:50 a.m. Welcome & Rules (golfers in carts)

8:00 a.m. Shotgun Start

After the conclusion of the tournament there will be a luncheon and awards presentation, followed by transportation back to the Paris Las Vegas Hotel.

Exclusive Convention Discounts AvailableMake the safest bet in Vegas by attending the IRgA 82nd Annual Convention & Trade Show May 13-15 at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev.

Register today and put money in your pocket as all IRgA members receive $300 in savings on registration over non–members and an additional $100 dollars off when registration is received by March 28. A new registration incentive allows further discounts for multiple registrants from the same company. In addition, the IRgA arranged discounted room rates, airline tickets and car rentals for all attendees of the IRgA Annual Convention & Trade Show.

Visit www.irga.com to register online or simply return the registration form included in this issue. We look forward to seeing you in Vegas.•


were posted on the IRgA’s Web site for download. Following the survey, the IRgA worked with a branding expert, Cindy Kuhn of SmithBucklin, who led the board through a series of exercises to funnel down and define our brand positioning statement.

Concepts Behind the Logo and TaglineIt was agreed that the IRgA would create a strong brand identity and consistent messaging with its new logo and tagline. It was important for the final product to:

•Differentiatereprographicsprofessionalsasbeingleading-edge partners in the AEC community;

•Generateawarenessintheindustryofthebenefitsofpartnering with reprographers; and

•EstablishtheIRgAasthe organization for reprographers.

We wanted the tagline to describe who/what the organization represents, speak to prospective IRgA members, speak to IRgA members’ customers—the AEC industry, and create a tie between the past and present—print and digital services. We focused on the importance of drawing a link from our blueprinting roots to establish credibility by virtue of our longevity, emphasized the fact that our knowledge and professionalism differentiates reprographers from other printers, and connected to the future by focusing on how our industry is evolving and becoming technology leaders.

We expect the new logo and tagline will help build credibility for the IRgA and its member companies, encourage greater participation in the IRgA and its offerings, and help IRgA members to increase the number and loyalty of customers. Our ultimate goal is for IRgA members to be the first choice for project-critical large/wide-format document distribution and management.•

IRgA Brand Essence: Reprographers offer professional expertise in

project-critical large/wide-format document

distribution and management.

IRgA Branding Project Evolves to New Logo and Tagline Continued from page 4

Due to the changing economic climate, the IRgA wants to remind members that the IRgA 2006 Operating Ratio Study is still available.

The study provides valuable industry profitability information to the industry at large and the IRgA membership in particular to be able to benchmark their company performance. Q.P. Consulting, Inc. conducted the survey by surveying more than 50 IRgA member and non-member participants. In its second edition, this financial report covers the 2005 fiscal year and features a detailed analysis of financial performance by companies in the reprographics industry. The 2006 Operating Ratio Study includes:

•25ProfitandLossStatements;

• 14BalanceSheets;

•At-a-glancecolorcharts,tables,andgraphs;

•Anextensiveexecutivesummarybyreportauthor,Larry Hunt;

• InformationontheOperatingRatioSurveyand participants;

•Operationalratiosdataandcomparisons;

• 2006-2007ProfitabilityWorksheet;and

•Abonusarticleonequipmentleasingpaymentsand negotiations.

The study represents a compilation of financial data pertaining to various sales, expenses and profits reported by more than 50 survey participants, representing various gross sales categories, market sizes, geographic locations, and many other significant sectors of the reprographics industry. The groundbreaking industry report is focused on impacting the profitability of individual companies. Reprographic firms can compare key ratios against similarly sized companies, utilizing this information to achieve new levels of financial success and to better understand the economic environment of the industry.

Copies of the IRgA 2006 Operating Ratio Study Report can be purchased at www.irga.com in the IRgA Bookstore at $99 for IRgA members and $249 for non-members.•

IRgA 2006 Operating Ratio Study Focuses on Impacting Profitability


Full Page Ad

Early Registration Deadline: March 28Register online at www.irga.com or complete the enclosed form.


1. CONVENTION REGISTRATION FEESFull Convention (Includes All Sessions, Evening Receptions, Keynote Breakfast and Exhibits)

Early-bird Registration Registration RegistrationFull Convention (on or before 3/28/08) (on or before 5/2/08) (after 5/2/08)Member ▫ $699 ▫ $799 ▫ $899 2nd Additional Member ▫ $599 ▫ $699 ▫ $7993rd Additional Member ▫ $449 ▫ $549 ▫ $649Non-Member ▫ $999 ▫ $1,099 ▫ $1,199

One Day (select one day only)Member ▫ $250 ▫ $275 ▫ $300Additional Member ▫ $225 ▫ $250 ▫ $275Non-Member ▫ $350 ▫ $375 ▫ $400

Select day you wish to attend:▫ Wednesday (OT). Includes Wednesday Keynote Breakfast, Sessions, Exhibits, Exhibit Hall Lunch and Reception.▫ Thursday (OF). Includes Thursday Sessions, Exhibits, Exhibit Hall Lunch and Reception.

Two Day (Wednesday and Thursday)Member ▫ $600 ▫ $650 ▫ $700Non-Member ▫ $800 ▫ $900 ▫ $1,000

Subtotal:

International Reprographic Association 82nd Annual Convention & Trade ShowParis Las Vegas Hotel • Las Vegas, Nevada • May 13 – 15, 2008

Attendee Registration Form(For additional registrants, please make copies of this form. Forms must be received by May 2, 2008. After May 2, 2008, you must register on-site.)

REGISTRANT INFORMATION (Please type or print):

First Name: Last Name: First Name preferred on badge (if different from above): Company Name: Address: City: State: Zip Code: Country: Phone: Fax: E-mail:

DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Subtotal: CONVENTION REGISTRATION FEES:

Subtotal: CONVENTION SOCIAL EVENTS:

Subtotal: GOLF OUTING:

TOTAL:THANK YOU!

2. CONVENTION SOCIAL EVENTS(1 ticket for each event is included with Full Convention.Enter number of additional tickets needed.)

On or before 5/2/08 After 5/2/08 Exhibit Opening Cocktail ReceptionTuesday __ x $100 __ x $125

Wednesday Networking Reception Wednesday __ x $75 __ x $100

Keynote BreakfastThursday __ x $25 __ x $50

Companion Program(includes Tuesday and Wednesday Receptions)

__ x $150 __ x $175

Companion Name:

Convention Social Events Subtotal:

PAYMENT OPTIONS: ▫ Check ▫ MasterCard ▫ VISA ▫ American ExpressCheck/Credit Card number: ______________________________________________Exp. Date ___________Name as it appears on card: __________________________________________________________________________________Cardholder’s Signature: _______________________________________________________________________________________

SPECIAL ACCOMMODATIONSIf, due to a disability, you have any special needs, please detail your requirements: _______________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Cancellation Policy: All cancellations must be received in writing. Requests for cancellations before April 18, 2008 will besubject to a $100 processing fee. No refunds will be issued after April 18, 2008. Substitutions can be made at any time.

HOW TO REGISTERBy Fax (with credit card information): 905-479-9297By Mail (with check or money order in US funds): IRgA – Registration, 5471 Paysphere Circle, Chicago, IL 60674Online at www.irga.com (credit card information required)Questions? Call 800-833-4742

Please tell us how you heard about the IRgA 2008 Convention & Trade Show. Enter the source code (found onyour mailing label, advertisment, e-mail or promotional piece):

3. GOLF OUTING (not included in Convention Registration Fees)

Golf Tournament Tuesday, (May 13, 6:30 a.m.)On or before 5/2/08 After 5/2/08

__ $250 __ $300(select one) ▫ Vendor ▫ Reprographer

(select one) ▫ Male ▫ FemaleHandicap = _______

Golf Rental will be paid at the course club.

Rental Information*Club Rental: ▫ Right ▫ Left ▫ Not needed(payment must be made upon pick-up)

Golf Outing Subtotal (not including rental):*Rental information must be received by Wednesday, April 25th.

1) Select your buying influence.▫ Final Decision▫ Recommend▫ Specify▫ No Role

2) What is your annual budget forreprographic equipment and supplies?▫ $0 - $99,999▫ $100,000 - $249,999▫ $250,000 - $499,999▫ $500,000+

3) What is your job title?▫ Executive/CEO/CFO▫ Vice President▫ Director▫ Manager▫ Purchasing Agent▫ Consultant▫ Specifier▫ Other

If Other (please specify) ______________________

4) What products and services wouldyou like to see?▫ Wide-Format Engineering Output▫ Wide-Format Color Graphics▫ Small-Format Digital Printing▫ Laminating and Finishing▫ Scanning and Archiving▫ Digital File Management▫ Facilities Management▫ Other______________________▫ All of the Above

5) Are you a first time attendee?▫ Yes ▫ No

6) Please list other associations/indus-try groups to which your companybelongs (please check all that apply):▫ PEiR Group▫ ReproMax▫ U.S. Reprographics Network▫ RSA▫ ARC▫ Independent/None

INTHENeWS


Hicks Moves to Marketing Manager for Paradigm Imaging GroupParadigm Imaging Group, a leading large-format scanning and printing solutions company, announced that Jane Hicks has been named as marketing manager, effective immediately.

In this role, Hicks will be responsible for the company’s advertising, industry events, new product rollouts, promotions and channel marketing. Hicks previously served in the position of service contract sales.

Hicks has more than 18 years of experience in the industry. Prior to her employment with Paradigm Imaging her most recent position was with Graphtec America where she held various management positions in customer service and marketing.

Ricoh Named to the 2008 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World List For the fourth consecutive year, Ricoh Company Ltd., parent company of Ricoh Americas Corporation, has been named to the “Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World,” known as the “Global 100.”

Started in 2005 by Corporate Knights Inc. of Canada, the top 100 corporations in the world are selected from more than 1,800 large corporations in all business sectors based on research and analysis of data provided by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors Inc. in USA.

The 2008 Global 100 was announced on at the Annual General Meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. The companies selected for the Global 100 were analyzed in detail, compared to their industry peers and evaluated as the global corporations with the best-developed abilities to effectively manage environmental, social and governance risks.

Achievement in these three areas, which significantly influences their business results, was evaluated as a key indicator of management quality and long-term financial performance. Among the world’s leading corporations, Ricoh’s aggressive environmental conservation activities along with its long-term vision extending to 2050, was highly regarded. While the rigorous selection process caused more than one third of the Global 100 corporations to be replaced between 2007 and 2008, Ricoh has the honor of making the list four consecutive years.

3P InkJet Textiles Corp. Wins Reader’s Choice Awards from Digital Output MagazineDigital Output magazine, a leading business magazine for the digital imaging and desktop publishing industry, has recognized 3P InkJet Textiles Corp. products with the coveted Readers Choice Award. Their readers regard Universal Glossy Canvas, Studio Canvas and the Value line formerly SubliDirect line as top products in the printing industry market.

Roland’s New 64" SOLJET PRO III Inkjet Printer Wins Prestigious DPI Product of the Year AwardRoland announced that the company’s new SOLJET PRO III XJ-640 64" inkjet printer was named DPI Product of the Year for the Output Device Poster Category in SGIA’s annual competition. Roland’s VersaWorks 2.2 RIP software and SCM-GPPG Glossy Photobase Paper earned DPI Partner Awards for the Output Device Poster Category as key components in producing the winning print.

Entries for the DPI Product of the Year competition were judged on the Expo show floor at the recent SGIA conference in Orlando by a team of digital imaging professionals. In the Output Device category, entrants were required to submit a test print produced from the nominated device. The image, designed by SGIA, was intended to challenge the output device’s capabilities. Roland’s SOLJET PRO III XJ-640 outperformed all competitive products to take top honors.

Contex Scanners, Distributed by IDEAL, Awarded Prestigious BERTL Award IDEAL has proudly posted the BERTL “Highly Recommended” Four-Star Award on four of the Contex scanners they distribute. The Chroma, Crystal, Cougar and Chameleon all received this prestigious award from BERTL.

Océ TDS700 Large-Format Multifunction System Awarded Highest Honors from BERTLOcé, a global leader in digital document management and delivery systems, today announced that the Océ TDS700 large format monochrome mid-volume integrated print/copy/scan system has received a “Five-Star, Exceptional” rating from BERTL, an independent, industry-leading source of product evaluation reports and comparative analyses. Of the hundreds of digital imaging and production devices evaluated by BERTL each year, only a select few that deliver an outstanding range of business-critical functions, are innovative, easy to use and present exceptional return on investment are recognized with this prestigious rating.

Belinda Coberly Named Customer Relations Manager for GEI WideFormat Roger Ilgen, vice president and general manager of GEI WideFormat, a Visual Edge Technology Company, announced the appointment of Belinda Coberly to the newly created position of customer relations manager for the service arm of this growing wide format imaging solutions enterprise. Coberly will report to Darrell Burchfield, director of service for the company, who has been proactively deploying service personnel throughout North America to meet the increased demands and growth forecasts from the equipment manufacturers serviced by GEI.


Now we still produce print output, but the number of services and the infrastructure

to support those services, has expanded exponentially. We have put a tremendous amount of capital into hardware—computers, servers, printers, scanners, routers and networks—and software of all types, not only to run the new equipment but also to access the internet and to handle the myriad types of file formats customers use. Equipment costs have rocketed from under $20,000 per machine to hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

The result has brought many more choices and increasing complexity—in how jobs arrive, in what formats they are sent, in what processes they are put through, the type of media they go onto or into, how they are stored and how and where they are to be delivered.

Not all existing employees have been able to make the transition, resulting in more internal training as well as hiring a whole new level of better educated, more skilled employees. These employees have been added to better answer questions, train customers and employees, and

provide technical expertise. Most are not directly involved in making prints. These new employees also require more compensation and more incentives to stay.

The end result: in the digital world—labor, overhead and capital expense all shot up.

Furthermore, the reprographer no longer creates prints (a commodity), but rather provides a service involving the handling and processing of digital work. Yes, a large part of that service often still involves printed output, but only a part. And that too continues to change.

By Navina Waterman

Digital Age: New Services, New Income

Remember the good old days? Our industry’s workflow was fairly simple—sheets in, sheets out—with relatively few options along the way. Then came the digital revolution which was going to make life easier for everyone.

IRgA.com • January/February 2008 15 IRgA.com • January/February 2008 15

In retrospect, it is truly astonishing how quickly these changes have occurred. Other industries have gone through digital transformations, but few have undergone such radical change as has reprographics. As always in business, change brings challenges…but also opens the door to new opportunities.

What hasn’t necessarily changed immediately is self-perception. Every company has worked hard to successfully make the transition from blueprinter to reprographer. Most in this industry pride themselves on providing outstanding customer service. But in many cases increased costs have outpaced increased revenue. Many have continued to struggle with how to make the changes financially viable.

It is clear that changes must occur for success to follow. These changes can take two primary avenues—workflow must become more efficient and services provided must be adequately compensated. Here we will focus on compensation for digital services. Digital services can mean anything having to do with handling data electronically. Typically, it involves the receiving and processing of print files, troubleshooting, file conversion, scanning, burning CDs, storing digital files, electronic bid services, planroom and content management, and archiving of files.

The first step in charging for a service is to understand why you must charge for it. It sounds simple, but when a customer asks, “Why do I have to pay for digital services since I’m now giving you a file in a way that’s easier for you to handle and you don’t even have to pick it up?” everyone in your shop needs to know, understand, and believe the reply which must be given.

The simple answer is that in order to provide the service your customer expects, you have had to make a tremendous number of capital investments for which you must be compensated in order to stay in business and continue providing that outstanding service he or she expects. Each reprographics company must come up with its own storyline to get

that message across, both internally and externally, and this is a critical aspect of charging for digital services.

Most companies that are now regularly and consistently charging for digital services originally agonized over the best way to do this. All expected great resistance from their customer base. As Betsy Kahn, President of Copycat Print Shop in North Carolina states, “We basically drew a line in the sand one day and started charging [for digital

services]. We sent out a statement stuffer informing everyone and made a diligent effort to convey the information over the counter. Except in only a very few cases, the charges were not even acknowledged. Those who balked are those who balk about everything, including the weather.”

Similarly John Davis, C.E.O. of Alabama Graphics reports that his company sent out a letter to all their existing clients explaining why they would need to begin charging for digital services and outlining what those charges would be. They also received very little negative feedback from customers.

Astonishing though it may sound, this has been the universal response. For the most part, your customers have also experienced tremendous additional expense to go digital and they can readily understand that you have too. There will still be customers you have to negotiate with and your negotiations are bound to vary according to the business that customer brings, but that shouldn’t stop you from charging for services you provide.

Like everything else in sales, if you don’t ask for it, you won’t get it.

Those companies which have begun to charge for digital services are using three main methods: 1) hourly, 2) a la carte or 3) a mix of the first two.

Hourly charges are easy to implement and relatively straight forward to understand for both employees and customers. Those using hourly charges generally have minimums. One company has a $20 minimum for up to a half hour of processing time for every digital job. They find that most jobs fall within this range. Most other digital service charges are billed at a similar rate, except ‘creative’ work in the color department is billed at $75/hour.

Another company bills a “rip” time at $75/hr in 10 minute increments for all digital files processed. Additional file manipulation is billed at $100/hr with a minimum charge of $25. These charges appear on an invoice with the department name and either “computer rip” or “computer charge.”

The advantage of hourly billing is simplicity and the fact that the minimum always appears on the invoice. A disadvantage can be in ensuring that all staff accurately and consistently record time. Training is essential! A problem can occur if a customer is billed differently when the same job is processed twice—simply because one employee or piece of equipment may be more efficient than another.

Occasionally a customer may also call and inquire as to exactly what happened in the time for which he was billed, but both companies say that this is fairly rare and a simple explanation generally suffices. One company is considering going to a la carte pricing because it feels the current system may miss additional revenue opportunities.

The advantage of a la carte pricing is that it is very clear exactly what services the customer is being billed for.

It is clear that changes must occur for success to follow.

These changes can take two primary avenues—workflow

must become more efficient and services provided must

be adequately compensated.



This can be a disadvantage as well….particularly if there is any lack of consistency in the billing. Skip a charge once and the customer believes it should never appear again. It also seems to be a challenge for employees to remember all the different items for which they should be charging. One company ran a “mystery shopping” job through all their sites and found considerable variation both in how it was billed and ultimately on the invoice total.

Customer perception is an issue with either billing method. Some like knowing exactly what services they are being charged, while others feel like they are being “nickel and dimed” when a whole list of relatively small (or large) charges appear on their invoices.

Some companies only bill a digital charge for jobs that require any kind of “special” handling. This works only if the square foot pricing is high enough to offset the increased equipment, labor and overhead costs associated with digital file processing.

At least 20 percent of all digital jobs received require some special attention! And in some shops that percentage is considerably higher. The most common problems are files missing fonts, images or xrefs; corrupt files; jobs missing files/pages; or incorrectly saved files which require inordinate processing time.

While some problems will always exist, obviously the fewer they are, the more efficient job processing will become. It is somewhat surprising then that few reprographics shops seem to have given much emphasis to customer training. Offer your customers choices but give them guidance as precisely as possible about the file formats you prefer and give

them directions on how to set up and save the files to most efficiently process on your particular equipment. This can be done on your Web site, through handouts or by sales calls.

One company reports that the best training tool is the extra charges incurred by the customer when he submits files that need help. But it is important to also be able to mention to that customer that the information he needed was clearly available—so that the next time the files will be prepared correctly…if he wishes to do so. Some customers simply prefer to have their reprographics company “hold their hand.” This too is fine so long as the reprographer has appropriate pricing in place to accommodate this need.

While many may base their pricing on costs, it is also important to consider “value” pricing. What is the value of the service being offered to the customer? The value will usually have little to do with the cost. It can be difficult to put a price tag on the knowledge, capability and reliability to perform a particular service. In general, your customer cares little about per unit costs. What is important is to consistently meet his expectations, hopefully better than the competition.

Other industries are using subscription models for pricing and this may be something reprographics companies can successfully incorporate into their pricing structures as well. Most subscriptions offer discounts for pay-in-advance and/or commitments for a substantial time period. This allows more accurate forecasting of revenue while ‘locking in’ your customer.

The digital world is still evolving. The potential for additional services

is practically limitless. AEC is going increasingly digital. Listen carefully to your AEC customers. What makes up the new AEC workflow and where do the pain points exist that the typical AEC office is not well-equipped to handle. If it is an area where the reprographer can effectively step in and help out, you got it. Look at other customers and potential customers in the same way.

Think ahead. Use your investment in equipment, training, and people in even broader ways than you currently think possible. Get involved in organizations in which your customers are involved...not just to sell to them, but to listen carefully to where they are headed. And figure out how to help them get there. listen carefully to where they are headed. And figure out how to help them get there. As Chuck Gremillion, Regional President of A&E – The Graphics Complex, A Division of Thomas Reprographics states, “We are customer service oriented—we go out of our way to help our customers be successful…recognizing that if we can help them be successful, we will always be part of their team!”

Madeline Wilson of Universal Reprographics in Los Angeles also emphasizes, “We sell on service, fast turnaround, print-on-demand… If you sell on price alone, you make the industry wide open to commoditization. We do negotiate price if necessary but something is always charged for digital processes!

Remember that there will be no commoditization of intelligence. •

Navina Waterman is an independent consultant with over twenty years experience in the reprographics industry. She now provides process analysis, technical, marketing, and web development services as well as a newsletter for reprographers to use to better communicate with their AEC customers. www.reproscene.com

Continued from page 15

While many may base their pricing on costs, it is also important

to consider “value” pricing. What is the value of the service

being offered to the customer?


Darlene Billings is sales manager for Phoenix and Tucson for Thomas Reprographics in Phoenix, Ariz. Thomas Repro has been offering FM to clients for

at least 10 years now. Architects and engineers represent Thomas’s core client base for FM services.

“That’s all very attractive to them because this allows them to do third-party billing and turn that (part of their business) into a profit center,” observes Billings. “We also have a couple of general contractors and some home builders.”

Thomas Reprographics has about 40 unmanned FM locations and five manned FM locations in Phoenix and Tucson. Billings estimates that about 8 to 10 percent of Thomas Reprographics’ yearly revenues within Phoenix and Tucson are derived from FM operations. The company’s goal for 2008 is to increase that number substantially.

NRI in New York City has been offering FM services for 15 years. It currently has 120 FM clients, who represent about 33 percent of the organization’s revenue. This portion of the company’s business has been growing tremendously over the last five years with sales up more than 300 percent. Dan Gabrich, vice president of Outsourcing, attributes that surge to NRI’s service offerings. “It’s not just placing equipment onsite, or labor onsite, it’s the tracking solutions, color management, and the variety of services like IT that we offer as well.”

The company’s biggest success within the FM arena over the past three years has been with smaller architectural firms. “It’s great to get a customer that has 150-250 people in it, but it’s just as great to get five customers that have 10-20,” states Gabrich.

FM BenefitsReprographic firms who offer customers an FM option have found that it tends to strengthen that relationship.

“It really locks in your customer for a period of time,” says Billings. “We try to get a three-year contract whenever

possible. We’ll do less than three years if the client requests that, but it gives you the ability to

be in there for a certain period of time. And you’re the printer of choice because

they’re getting their third-party invoices and tracking information from you.”

“The first thing we look at is if our client is looking for additional ways to increase their revenue,” says Layton Zellman, division president of Engineering Repro Systems (ERS), based in Minneapolis, Minn.

If clients don’t assist in reimbursement ERS looks to assist them in providing

more equipment functionality and better control of their overall expenses. By providing

outsourced printing services to clients who may want to add or increase their in-house capability,

also provides ERS with an opportunity to expand its revenue stream. “If we don’t, we’ve opened the door to be challenged for our existing outside service revenue,” notes Zellman.

He explains that by having an FM agreement with a client, the reprographer has the revenue controlled and is positioned to add additional services and technology that will ultimately increase their

revenue. “Tracking FM’s have a tendency to grow,” adds Zellman.

For example, if the client finds print tracking on the one device a reprographic firm is supplying beneficial, they might also find it beneficial to add other devices. It also exposes them to more service offerings. Many of ERS clients have started with one large-format device and then added small-format equipment and color equipment along with distribution services.”

If you don’t do it, somebody else will. That seems to be the consensus about facilities management (FM) services among reprographers who already offer clients these services.

The Question isn’t Why Offer FM Services,

but Why Not?By Scott Cullen



“If we have equipment there, it gives us an anchor into their account,” adds Gabrich. “Not only do we have equipment, but we get the overflow work that goes with that. We show them our support, we get to know their people a lot better, and then we get the work that comes back to our shop that goes along with it.”

ERS has some clients who in the past only needed to print small quantities for one type of file format in black and white. Today those clients may need to print multiple file formats, many times in color, and occasionally scan documents in color. If they originally purchased the equipment, they would

either have to trade-in that device or perhaps invest additional capital for more equipment. An FM contract allows them to seamlessly upgrade the equipment. “And who is better at providing this flexibility than a reprographer?” asks Zellman.

An FM installation also allows reprographers to derive additional revenues from added services and support. By adding technical support, a reprographer can build that into the price per unit and/or separately on a cost-per-need basis. There’s also the client who needs to track and have a third-party bill so they can pass it on to their clients. Since the FM provider is already doing the work in house for a client’s overflow or their big projects, this places them in an ideal position to provide those services too.

Pricing ModelFlexibility is the name of the game when pricing FM services. “I think you have to provide whatever the client is looking for,” says Zellman. “I don’t think one model fits all.”

“There really isn’t one model that fits all,” agrees Billings. “That’s the beauty of it. You can customize it based on what the client needs.”

Thomas Reprographics’ pricing model is based on a monthly minimum and a per square footage price. “After they meet that monthly minimum, then we go to an overage price which is typically a little bit lower than that original per square footage price to make that monthly nut,” explains Billings.

Pricing varies from client to client based on the type of equipment they have and what Thomas determines is their average monthly square footage. For example, if Thomas doesn’t have anything to base it on, it offers clients three different levels—1,000 square foot, 2,000 square foot, 3,000 square foot a month. It then determines their average square footage per month and then locks them into a figure after 90 days.

NRI’s pricing is based on volume.

“We roll all of these different costs into unit prices and we take advantage of our buying power to get better pricing than the customer,” says Gabrich. “And even with the mark up we can still offer them a better price.”

The ContractWhat should be included in the FM contract? It depends on the client, contends Zellman. “If they don’t have any reimbursement stream, and there are some of them, we need to give them the ability for upgrades and flexibility for different volumes.”

It’s also important to consider if a client averages, say 1,000 prints a month, but has spikes three to five times a year where he does five times that amount, there has to be flexibility in the price structure to accommodate those spikes. With larger clients where ERS does reimbursement, it needs to take a look at how it can combine the client’s in-house and outsourced printing into the same agreement.

Much of what is included in the typical Thomas Reprographics FM contract is fairly obvious. This encompasses the obvious, such as equipment and the serial numbers, what kind of tracking, how many users they’re tracking, the certificate of insurance for liability insurance from the client on the equipment, paperwork so it can file UCC


“We roll all of these different costs into unit prices and we take advantage of our buying power to get better

pricing than the customer,” says Dan Gabrich.


forms with the state, and the usual boilerplate stuff—“you’re expected to do this and we are expected to do this,” and then a detailed explanation of the pricing.

Service DepartmentThomas Reprographics services Océ and KIP large-format printers internally. Any small format black and white or color, or if it places inkjets with a client are all handled via third-party service providers.

NRI handles 90 percent of service themselves.

“It’s great to have the flexibility of having my own technicians and not having to rely on an equipment manufacturer,” opines Gabrich. “Our service and support is our biggest selling point.”

Marketing FMHow do repro firms identify the best clients to offer this kind of service to?

“It’s like anything, you’ve just got to ask questions,” says Zellman. “Listen closely to what the customer is telling you. If he’s having a problem and he can’t get his IT staff to spend enough time to solve his problem because they have other issues they’re dealing with, there’s an opportunity. If the device he’s had for X number of years isn’t doing what he needs it to do and he can’t get capital funds from his company, can we provide it on a per use basis? Sure we can. So we have to ask the questions.”

NRI has an aggressive sales force that markets its FM services. Most of it is old-fashioned door-to-door selling, visiting architects’ and engineer’s offices. NRI’s approach to marketing FM focuses on support and cost recovery.

“We show them our support, our help desk, our response times, our different array of services, because anybody can go in there and give them a plotter,” says Gabrich. “It’s the back-end stuff that we sell. The last thing we talk about in our proposal is the equipment.”

FM ObstaclesThe FM arena is not without certain obstacles, especially since today’s environment is much different than it was a few years ago. “We have to be concerned about changes in file formats and the programs clients use,” states Zellman.

With the release of new platforms and applications, FM providers have to ensure that equipment remains compatible as the technology changes.

“With the increasing transfer and sharing of digital files, we must make adjustments as necessary,” says Zellman. For example, a client may receive files from an architect or a consultant, then all of a sudden the format has changed because of a change in his CAD program. A recent change is the DWF file form. FM providers need to be aware of those things and build its responsibility on the technology side into the FM agreement.

Overcoming some of these obstacles requires vendor alliances. Some reprographers only offer repro services.

“They don’t have a vendor product line or alliance they can leverage or that’s available to them,” notes Zellman.

First and foremost, he recommends partnering with a manufacturer. And because many small reprographers don’t have good in-depth technology to support the equipment, they should consider hiring or developing this expertise or partnering with a vendor who can supply it. “The ability to connect equipment to a client’s network is a significant hurdle for many small reprographers,” says Zellman.

When asked what Thomas Reprographics’ biggest challenge is in offering FM to clients, Billings concedes that it isn’t much of a challenge at all when approaching

existing customers. “The FM model is offered to our typical client base, so we already understand their business and have the opportunity to consult with them on the best solution, becoming more of a partner rather than just a service provider.”

Billings agrees with Zellman about the importance of vendor alliances. “Thomas being Thomas and having lots of locations and being prominent in the repro world, we have the good fortune to have some really great relationships with many different vendors,” she notes. “That makes it easier for us to get the kind of service we need when we are third partying the service.”

Why Not?There are a lot of unknowns in the reprographics world, and this creates a lot of unknowns for the reprographer’s clients as well. “Clients are taking a hard look as to whether they want

to spend the dollars themselves for their equipment purchases or do they want to partner with somebody like us who has the ability to increase or decrease the capacity as their needs change,” says Zellman. “We have the availability of a much larger client base to move that equipment around as necessary. If we don’t as reprographers assist our clients in meeting these basic needs, they’re going to look for other sources. Let’s not let that happen.”•

Scott Cullen has been writing about business and technology issues since 1986. He is managing editor of OfficeSolutions and OfficeDealer magazines and a frequent contributor to numerous imaging industry publications. He can be reached at [email protected].

The FM arena is not without certain obstacles, especially since today’s environment is much different than it was a few years ago.

SEVEN TIPS By Ed Avis

for a Better Color BusinessFind new methods to increase new business and revenues.

Tip 1: Expand beyond AECThe architecture/engineering/construction business is your bread and butter, so it’s logical that you’ve focused your color work in that area. But color can be way bigger than AEC. If you focus on the areas of color you do best in, and market your services effectively (see tip 7), you can bring in some serious new dough.

The first step towards tapping a non-AEC market is deciding what color abilities your shop has that makes it stand out from other color shops, such as photo labs, service bureaus and quick printers.

For example, do you have a staffer who’s a wiz at color correction? Or someone who knows mounting and laminating so well that he or she never makes mistakes? Think about what non-AEC markets these services could be used in.

For Blair Graphics in Santa Monica, Calif., one area that has brought its color department competitive success is trade show displays.

“I haven’t seen a lot of other labs cater to that market,” says Dan Davis, who was director of information technology at Blair Graphics for 15 years until becoming a consultant to American Reprographics Corporation, Blair’s owner. “It’s a nice way to bring in customers you might not see otherwise.”

At Blair, getting into the trade show market meant tapping the talents of its best color people. “The work is very labor intensive, and you have to know what you’re doing,” Davis says.

Some other important color markets outside of AEC include advertising (posters, billboards, signs, etc.), municipalities (signs, banners, decals, etc.), retail (point-of-purchase displays, advertising signage), law (courtroom displays), and many, many more. Tap one or more of these markets, and your color profits will multiply.

Tip 2: Do More for AECOK, so this is a contradiction, but the truth is you’re probably not even fully tapping the color market of AEC. If you’re just duplicating renderings now, you’re missing out.

Color engineering drawings, for example, is a market that should grow in the coming years. This is huge in Europe and probably will eventually catch on in North America. Color engineering

Color reprographics has been an important profit center for many

reprographics shops for well over a decade, but sometimes even reliable

money makers need a little freshening up. From expanding the market to

expanding your marketing, here are seven tips to keep your color department

humming well into the next decade.


drawings offer the advantage of using different colors for different disciplines, making the drawings easier to use.

If you have a decent color inkjet plotter in your shop, it can print CAD documents just as easily as the posters, banners and such that you’re using it for now. Or you could invest in a system designed for color CAD output, such as those from Océ or Hewlett-Packard.

The key to color CAD is convincing your clients that it’s worth the extra cost. That’s probably more persuading than you want to do, but you could position it as a competitive advantage for the AEC business that does it. Imagine the impact in a competitive situation when one architect provides his preliminary drawings in color, and the others all are monochrome.

Kaye Kloster, executive vice president of Ford Graphics in Portland, Ore., says her firm has sold CAD drawings done in color already but mainly just to show redline corrections. Kloster says Ford’s Oce TCS 500 inkjet plotter is ideal for that kind of CAD color printing.

Tip 3: Focus on Color ControlIt’s likely there are other businesses—including other repro shops—in your community that offer color services. But you can distinguish your shop by focusing on an essential skill that many color businesses do not do well: color control.

Good, consistent color from print to print (and in reprints) is essential for many applications, such as advertising and corporate signage. Can you imagine the Coca-Cola logo in pink? Businesses like that depend on color providers that know color management.

How do you get good color management? It’s a combination of having well trained staff, good software and an equipment maintenance program that keeps your color printers running well. Plus, it requires a commitment from management to make sure it’s done right.

“You have to have someone who will be the champion of color management and oversee implementation and updating and measurements,” Davis says. This person has to work closely with the operators to make sure the work is done correctly. “There are a hundred ways to do it wrong, and one way to do it right.”


Davis says good color management is a hallmark of Blair Graphics’ color department. “Blair was an early adapter of color management, so we offer better color control than our competitors,” he says. This control has snagged Blair clients in the entertainment and advertising industries, who need their projects to have consistent color print to print.

Tip 4: Sell UpThe next time someone buys a color print, don’t let his or her walk out the door with only a color print! There are few color projects that couldn’t be improved with an accessory.

For example, frames add a wonderful touch to many prints, such as family posters, semi-permanent advertising signs or directional signage. You don’t need to be a frame shop to do this—just create simple custom frames from systems such as those sold by Trim USA.

Many prints benefit from mounting and laminating, or one or the other. Davis says about 40 percent of Blair’s color jobs are mounted, and 20 percent are laminated. Your mounting and laminating department should be a serious profit maker for your shop. Encourage your salespeople to evaluate every color job and see if it would benefit from mounting and laminating.

Other possible color accessories include grommets, hooks, Velcro strips, hangers, poles, eyelets and many other items. These small items can add tremendous value to a print and bring a few more dollars to your bottom line.

Tip 5: Reduce Waste Your color department can be a large source of waste. Prints that are trashed because the color isn’t right, laminating film trimmed off the edges of a print, inkjet cartridges that are ruined because lack of maintenance…the list of potential money-wasters is endless. Every dime that you can save in reduced waste is a dime that goes straight to your bottom line.

“We reduce waste by doing it right the first time,” says Kelly Pitt, co-owner of Zen Reprographics in Louisville, Ky. “It’s better to spend a little more time upfront getting a job right than rushing it and having to do it over.”

Davis says an important waste-reduction tactic used at Blair is to print samples of projects that the customers approve before they run the entire job. That way there’s no question that the customer will be satisfied with the final product.

However, this method only works if a shop has good color management, because each print has to look the same as the one the customer signed off on. “Without color management you’ll never reduce waste because the colors won’t be right,” Davis says.

Tip 6: Make Design AvailableMost of your color department’s work will come to you ready to print, but having a designer available—even freelance—could be competitive advantage. Some of your customers won’t have their own designers, and they’ll appreciate the “one-stop-shop”

service you can provide if you have a designer available. And all your clients will appreciate the comfort of knowing that anything your in-house designer prepares will be in the right file format, with the right fonts, colors, resolution, etc.

Naturally, you’ll charge for that service. Even if you use freelance instead of in-house designers, be sure to mark up the fee to generate some profit.

At Zen Reprographics Pitt says their in-house staff will turn PowerPrint files into print files and other simple conversions like that. However, Pitt warns that if you have designers as clients—as many reprographics color departments do—they might resent the fact that you have in-house designers taking away their work.

“You don’t want to compete with your client base,” Pitt says.

Tip 7: Market BetterYou might have the greatest color department in the world, but it will never succeed if your customers—and potential new customers—don’t know about it. Marketing is essential to the success of your color department.

Make sure you market your color department with the basics—flyers, your Web site, your on-hold message, etc.—but also consider some special efforts specifically for color.

For example, a great way to let people know you do color is to donate color signage to a charity event. The chamber of commerce would love a color banner announcing its coming activities, and when the chamber president announces that you’ve donated it, all the members will become aware of your services. Is your church holding a pancake breakfast fundraiser? Donate a sign for that, and every church member will become a potential customer. Did the high school band win a medal in a marching competition? Create a banner to hang at the school congratulating them—every band parent now knows what you do.

Kloster says Ford Graphics often donates signage for meetings of local chapters of the American Institute of Architects, Associated General Contractors and other related groups. “That really helps to connect that audience with Ford Graphics,” Kloster says. “We’ve sponsored a lot of events over the years.”

To market more color services to your AEC clients, try adding color to one print for every set you send out in a given week. Your CAD plotter operator should be able to color code the disciplines with ease to create that one print. Staple a flyer about your color CAD services to that print, and your AEC customers will get a glimpse of the future.

Your color department should be a great profit center for your shop. Hopefully, one or more of the tips above will make that become a reality. •Ed Avis is a freelance writer in Oak Park, Ill., who specializes in imaging issues.



management, because each print has to look the same as the one the customer signed off on. “Without color management you’ll never reduce waste because the colors won’t be right,” Davis says.

Tip 6: Make Design AvailableMost of your color department’s work will come to you ready to print, but having a designer available—even freelance—could be competitive advantage. Some of your customers won’t have their own designers, and they’ll appreciate the “one-stop-shop”

IRgA.com • January/February 2008IRgA.com • January/February 200822

PrINTI.T.


By John Marquardt

If you’ve followed my column throughout the years, you’ve picked up on the fact that I’m what they

call an “Excel Hater.”

They all ask me, “Why do you hate Excel?” Fair question. It’s not so much Microsoft Excel itself. It’s a great program. It’s has a rewarding user experience. It’s intuitive. It’s fast. The new print previews are great and for anyone doing financial duties, it just can’t be beat. For financial duties. For financial duties. No it’s not a typo, let me say that one more time for effect: For financial duties.

If you have numbers in cells that you want to add, subtract, average, etc...it’s awesome. Think of how much power we have in a modern PC with Excel. At some point in the not-too distant past, only the largest of governments had the kind of power each of us have on our desktops for $1,000 or so.

So Excel is awesome. Great program! Because of it’s flexibility, however, and the fact that many of us do use it for financial tasks means that we are familiar with it and not intimidated by it, so it ends up doing things it was never designed to do—mainly being treated as a database. This is especially poor form on our part because we want to use it like a database, but Excel has none of the mechanisms of a database to keep us in line (primary keys, relationships, referential integrity, etc...).

How many of us use Excel to make lists with no financial functions at all and then email that file around? This might not be insane by itself, but when there are so many better alternatives around, why do we continue to use a screwdriver to pound in a nail? I can only assume it’s my fault. I haven’t properly described an alternative. Many apologies, I’ll deal with that right now—SharePoint.

Why SharePoint?If you know about SharePoint, you can stop reading. You have long abandoned

your abuse of Excel and have switched to this Web-based solution. Then again, you are twice as productive as the rest of us since switching so you’ve got time to burn. Might as well stick around for the bad jokes and elitist comments.

There is a lot going on with SharePoint lately. You definitely have a lot of customers using it, especially the Architecture crowd. They are all at least trying it, if not using it regularly. It’s been around a long time but it gained wider acceptance after a recent update. So even if you don’t use it yourself, you would do well to install it or buy a SharePoint account from an ISP and play with it and then ask some of your customers if they are using it.

So what is it already? This will be over-simplified but it’s essentially a Web-based system for making Excel-like lists and storing documents. It’s true document-management as well with automatic revision control, check-in/out functions, work-flow and document routing, etc.

Lets say you want to keep a list of FMs and related data. Normally you might open up an Excel spreadsheet, put some columns at the top and start loading up data. You can do this exact same operation with SharePoint but it will be 100 percent Web-based and you can share this list with anyone you choose while locking others out.

You can use this list to populate other lists you might keep, like a list of equipment you own. The beauty of it is that you can take existing spreadsheets and just tell SharePoint to make that into a list and begin using SharePoint immediately.

You can also design the pages of SharePoint to display data, filtered data, include and exclude specific columns, create groupings that expand in a tree-view and simply drag various components and lists around the page to create the view your users see. This is just the very beginning. SharePoint lets you keep online calendars, multi-

stage tasks that can be assigned to users, discussion boards, contacts, picture libraries, wiki pages—the list goes on.

So where’s the catch? It must be expensive and you’re probably limited to just one site or something like that, right?

No, there is no catch. Seriously.

It’s probably already running somewhere in your company since it comes free with Windows Server (or it’s an easy install if your IT staff have left that component off). On top of that, SharePoint is arranged in a self-managing hierarchical structure. This means you can have a top-level site and just create another site “below” that one which can spawn an unlimited number of child-sites. Each site has that same capability.

For instance, you might have an operations manager who runs a SharePoint site and stores information and lists for top-level execs. This manager might “spawn” a SharePoint site for each department in the company and let each manager run their own site. These sites can share user credentials or have separate users. If you don’t have a server to put this on, you can buy time on a SharePoint server for just a few dollars per user and begin using it immediately with little or no effort through ISPs like 1&1 or other larger ISPs (and some small ones!).

If it’s not obvious, I’ve become quite a fan of SharePoint because of it’s simplicity and power, but mostly because it allows us to keep doing all the stupid stuff we’ve been doing but in a more organized, secure and elegant way.

If you have any questions at all about SharePoint feel free to e-mail me. I’d love to help you get started or just explain things in a more casual way. •

Formerly the IT manager for Engineering Repro

Systems in Minneapolis, Minn., John Marquardt

is an industry speaker and educator. You can

reach him at [email protected].

Microsoft Excel Works but Why Stop There?

Need photo

IMAgeAREA


Let me begin by saying hello to all of you. In my short absence from the reprographics industry,

I have been missing the interaction with colleagues and friends that I had made in the past many years. In a sense, it’s nice to be “back,” if only in print.

My column—Image Area—will focus on marketing, which is my occupation in this life and was a passion of mine whilst I swam in the ocean of reprographics. I’m fortunate to be working with the most talented, gifted, creative, energetic and focused group of designers, writers and strategists. My goal is to infuse some of what we’re doing here at Fathom into how you think of promoting your business. Call this first article Marketing 101 if you will.

What’s the difference between marketing and advertising?

Often, business owners decide to take out advertising in a given publication or to address an upcoming event. Marketing is a more continuous process, one that companies engage in at every stage of their interaction with prospective and current clients, from the way your staff answers the phone to how you present yourself in brochures and online. In fact, some business owners never think of marketing at all, missing valuable opportunities—some of them free, some at relatively low cost—to win a permanent spot at the top of mind of their target customers.

Marketing is far deeper than some ads placed in the local business journal or newspaper. Marketing is broader than

a radio spot on a local news station or some collateral materials and sell sheets. Marketing is a culture. It’s a way that you lead your organization that says, “We do things better.”

Every business aims to be somehow different and better than their competition. That’s the leverage that they use to gain a competitive advantage. If you’re exactly the same as everyone else, all that you can compete on is price. Don’t get me started on that.

Here are some aspects of the reprographics business that fall under the marketing umbrella:

•Thenameofyourcompany.Whatis it and why is it what it is? If you were starting your business today, would you name it the same thing? Is the name of your company doing

everything that it can for you? Is it working against what you are trying to achieve or causing confusion in the marketplace?

•Thenamesofyourproductsandservices. Along with the name of your company, your products or services can have names. This is common in today’s digital age of reprographics. There are all kinds of names or naming conventions out there for digital prints, color output etc. Are you taking advantage of any of those names that are available to you, or have you even created your own?

•Taglines.Ataglinecansayalotabout your business, especially if the name of your business is not related

to your services. They can be memorable, informative, humorous and can even convey the personality of your company to your clients.

•Positioning.Positioningisalsotheattempt to control the way the public perceives a product or service in relation to competing products. I’ll get more detailed about positioning in future articles.

•CoreStory.Sometimesalsocalledan “elevator pitch,” the core story is a brief statement crafted chiefly for spoken (rather than written) use. The story unfolds in stages, with each statement meant to invoke “tell me more” from the listener.

•Collateralmaterial.Folders,sellsheets, business cards, stationery, even your email signature is an opportunity to capture the imagination of your prospects.

•Website.TheWebisthefirstplacethat your customers and prospects will go to search for a new product or service or to vet your business. In more recent times, the Web has become a portal for customers to transfer documents to the reprographic community. Every visit a customer makes to your Web site is a marketing opportunity. Think of your Web site as your top salesperson who can deliver the best possible message about your company.

In my next column, I’ll focus on Web sites.•

Bob Margolis is vice president of Business Development for Fathom in Hartford, CT. Fathom is an interactive, brand strategy and graphic design firm. Bob is a past-president of the IRgA, and for nearly three decades was in the reprographics business at Crest Graphics in Farmington, Conn. Feel free to contact Margolis at [email protected] or visit his Web site at www.fathom.net.

Bob Margolis

Often, business owners decide to take out advertising in a given

publication or to address an upcoming event. Marketing is a

more continuous process, one that companies engage in at every

stage of their interaction with prospective and current clients.

Marketing 101: Marketing is More Than Advertising


SuSTAINABle IMAGING

Deciding to make your reprographics shop “green” can be an important step in

your business’ history. The potential advantages are numerous—save energy, entice some environmentally conscious new customers, help reduce waste. But one big green advantage that many shop owners overlook is the employee advantage.

Many employees want to be green and would rather work for a company that is green. They become happier, more productive workers who care more about their employer.

A recent survey of more than 4,000 people by the recruitment job site MonsterTRAK found that 80 percent of young professionals are interested in securing a job that has a positive impact on the environment. And 90 percent of the respondents said they would rather work for an environmentally friendly employer.

Consider how those statistics affect your recruitment. If 90 percent of your prospective employees would rather work for a green company, being green is going to make filling those openings much easier.

Why do your employees care? Because they want to feel that their work—even if it has nothing directly to do with the environment—is helping in some small way.

Sounds great, right? But you know your employees better than I do, and maybe some of them don’t give a rip about the environment. Or at least it appears that they don’t. Then you’ve got a challenge on your hands, because you need to have everyone on board when you go green.

Here are some tips to convincing your staff that going green is vital.

First, start by convincing your upper management. Hold a meeting with your managers and explain your rationale: Being green is good for the environment, good for our

employees, good for our wallet and is a competitive advantage. Three common retorts you may hear:

1) We’re much too small of a company to have any possible effect on the environment.

Not true. According to Conservatree, a nonprofit environmental group, for every ton of 30 percent recycled content paper—which is about 85 500-foot, 36-inch rolls of bond—you use, you can save about seven trees. If you set up a recycling program for your clients, you can probably keep a ton of wastepaper out of landfills. If 99 other shops like yours start doing this, together we could be saving 700 trees and keeping 100 tons of waste out of landfills.

2) OK, but recycled paper is inferior. It’s going to gum up our machines.

When was the last time you tried recycled content paper? Two decades ago? When it first came out, yes, it was inferior. That’s no longer the case. Now recycled content bond is virtually indistinguishable from virgin bond. It runs in our equipment exactly the same way as what we’re using now.

3) Being green costs more.

Recycled content bond does cost 10 to 15 percent more now. However, we may be able to charge a little more for it, since it’s a premium product. And, as more shops start using recycled bond, the volume will increase enough to reduce the cost. Replacing our old copiers with energy-efficient new copiers would be an investment that we would recoup with increased energy savings.

Same goes for replacing our old lightbulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, caulking around the windows and adding more insulation to the ceiling—all of these things will cost us some in the short term, but should pay for themselves in increased energy savings quickly. Plus, remember the competitive advantage—if you snag one or two more clients because you’re green, all the costs will be covered.

OK, you’ve convinced the bosses. Now move on to the frontline employees. A great way to convince them is to start a green committee.

Here are some ideas for making an effective green committee:

•Makesurethecommitteechairhasa clear understanding of the green concept. Use the same arguments (above) you used on your senior management to convince the committee leaders that they have a vital job.

•Appointpeopletothecommitteefrom all areas of your shop, from management to delivery drivers. Ultimately, you’ll need buy-in from all levels, so including representatives from each level in the committee is essential.

•Havethecommitteewritealltheideas it can come up with—no limits on creativity—and then assemble them in a document share it with you. Together with the chairman, go over those ideas and whittle them into a doable plan.

•Topmanagementshouldhavefinalsay on the plan, but make sure you take the committee’s plan seriously and communicate that fact to them.

•Onceyourplaniswritten,keepyouremployees on the green bandwagon by listening to their suggestions for other green ideas. Remember, they’re probably closer to the day-to-day situation than you are, and they’ll see things you don’t. Take their comments seriously.

Being green is a competitive advantage in many ways, not the least of which is employee satisfaction. Even if you have to convince your staff at first, eventually they’ll be a happier crew working for a firm that cares about the environment.•

Ed Avis is the author of the Green Reprographics

Manual, being published this spring. Contact

him at [email protected].

Going Green: The Employee Advantage

By Ed Avis

Hrinsider


Hiring a new employee is like making a high-stakes gamble. Will your newest worker turn

out to be a fantastic addition or a fantastic failure? Finding the right person will help you grow and build productivity. Finding the wrong person will cost you in wasted expense and lost customers.

For years, I have been writing and speaking about the need for a disciplined hiring process. Often in their haste to fill a vacancy, many owners and managers do not follow a process or they skip critical steps so they find themselves ill-prepared to get it done right. In these fast-moving and challenging times, hiring the right people is a strategic imperative. This is no time to take chances.

It is critical to prepare for every step of the process. One such step is the structured interview. It is a critical step in the hiring process and it is important that hiring managers perfect their interviewing techniques. They must be well versed in how to effectively conduct interviews while being fully aware of federal and state legislation that precludes them from asking certain questions during the interview or in any discussions with a potential employee.

So often I hear from hiring managers, “That interview was a waste of time.” Often that is because there is a rush to get to and through the interview. The fact of the matter is that there are going to be many applicants who do not possess the skills, experience,

education, personality and intelligence to meet your needs. You can avoid wasting time by using prescreening tools to pre-qualify the candidate for the formal interview.

Prescreening will help you quickly sort through the pile of paper and weed out the applicants who are not viable candidates. Do not waste valuable time on applicants who do not fit the requirements of the job.

While there are different types of interviewing styles, this step is called the structured interview because it involves approaching the interview with a pre-planned agenda. The interviewer knows ahead of time what he/she will ask the applicant. This structured approach provides the interviewer with the information needed to make the

hiring decision. It is also important as a defense against discrimination in hiring and selection, since all applicants are asked the same questions.

Consider the following in preparing for and conducting the interview:

• Interviewersshouldbewell-versedin federal and state laws that regulate the types of questions that may be raised in an employment interview. If you are not sure if a question is permitted, you are better off not asking. As a general guideline, questions relating either directly or indirectly to age, sex, race, color, national origin, religion or disabilities should be avoided. Every question should relate to a bona fide occupational qualification.

•Revieweachcandidate’sapplication,resume and other pre-submitted information. Note any areas needing further clarification. Thoroughly familiarize yourself with the job description. Determine what competencies are important for success in this job and what behaviors will differentiate the top person from the average person.

•Createalistofquestionsthatwillgive you the information that you need to make an informed decision. The outcome of your interview depends on the quality, not the quantity of the information you obtain from each candidate. The information received will in turn depend on the quality of your questions. Use behavioral based questions related to past performance regarding specific competencies. Eliminate hypothetical questions. Ask people what they have already done, not what they might do.

Remember that the interview is only one step in the hiring process. The results of the interview become one more measure that is integrated with the results received from the resume and the application and though prescreening, testing, reference and background checking. Don’t let the results of the interview be your single source for the hiring decision but do make sure that the interview results contribute to a thorough understanding of the capabilities of your suitable applicants and provide a fair and equitable comparison.•

No More Rotten Eggs – 13 Steps to Hiring Grade AA Talent, the new book

written by Debra Thompson and Bill Greif

has even more information on interviewing as

part of a disciplined hiring process. Go to

www.tgassociates.com/IRGA/ for a free

download of Step 6, The Structured Interview,

from No More Rotten Eggs, to learn all of

the criteria for conducting a successful

structured interview.

Don’t let the results of the interview be your single source for the

hiring decision but do make sure that the interview results

contribute to a thorough understanding of the capabilities of your

suitable applicants and provide a fair and equitable comparison.

Making the Interview Work for You

By Debra Thompson

PrODuCTINNOVATIONS


Ricoh Introduces Aficio Mp C6000/C7500 Digital Imaging System

Ricoh Americas Corporation, a leading provider of digital office equipment, today introduced the Aficio MP C6000 and MP C7500, two new high performance, color multifunctional products (MFPs). Whether the task is printing, copying, scanning or faxing, these digital imaging systems deliver output speeds beyond any other in their class.

The new Aficio MP C6000/C7500 Series is not only an ideal solution for general office environments looking to cost effectively incorporate color into their documents, but is also well suited for CRDs and commercial print shops as well as graphic houses looking to augment their current printing services. Bringing the production of documents to the next level, the Aficio MP C6000/C7500 Series is a versatile system that offers an array of document management functions coupled with print speeds of 55 pages per minute (ppm) full-color/60 ppm black-and white and 70 ppm full-color/75ppm black-and-white, respectively. Both systems also provide standard duplexing at 100 percent of rated speed.

The Aficio MP C6000/C7500 Series delivers sharp, vivid and consistent color printouts and stylish black-and-white documents at 600 dots per inch (dpi). Ricoh’s new toner technology, which has smaller, more uniform particles, produces sharp image definition and smooth transitions in gradients. To ensure consistent color throughout production, the Aficio MP C6000/C7500 Series has a sequence of internal calibrations running in the background to maintain toner consistency and registration.

Neenah Paper Releases Products for Ink Jet and Laser Printing MarketsNeenah Paper, an industrial leader in the development of heat transfer papers, launched two new products for the ink jet and laser printing markets: JET-PRO SofStretch and TECHNI-PRINT 4.0 Heat Transfer Papers.

JET-PRO SofStretch was created to offer the look and feel of screen printing yet provide the ease of desktop ink jet printing. To work with the latest toner chemistry and the lower priced laser printers, Neenah created TECHNI-PRINT 4.0 Heat Transfer Paper. Using both JET-PRO SofStretch and TECHNI-PRINT 4.0 is cost- and time-efficient. They run well on most ink jet printers and laser color printers, respectively (including less expensive models), to produce shirts more quickly and economically.

JET-PRO SofStretch, which was designed for improved hand with a soft feel and excellent stretch, is used on light colored fabrics. It is Neenah’s first product for hot, warm and cold peels. It creates vivid colors and the coating holds ink for maximum color saturation. The finished garment has the soft hand and stretchability that is in demand by professional shirt makers and screen printers adding desktop to their line-up. Boasting great washability, its excellent hand actually improves with washing. After 15 or more washes, color retention remains strong without bursts or cracks. The product is designed for cotton, poly and blends.

Xerox Launches New Monochrome SystemAs it prepares for the world’s largest printing exhibition later this year, Xerox Corporation launched its fastest yet continuous feed printing system that helps print providers capitalize on the high-speed, high-volume monochrome printing market. The new high-speed system makes it easier to produce books, manuals and trans-promotional applications. It’s called the Xerox 650/1300 Continuous Feed Printing System.

The Xerox 650/1300 can print up to 1,308 duplex 8.5" x 11" images per

minute. The system uses dry toner, xerographic imaging and flash-fusing technology – a unique process that does not use heat or pressure or make contact with the paper, allowing the device to print on a wider array of substrates than competitive systems. It is part of an array of offerings that Xerox will bring to drupa, May 29 – June 11, showcasing how graphic communications companies can expand their businesses and profit from growth opportunities in digital printing.

Legend 72HUV Printer Offers Unrivaled Versatility, Reliability

The affordable Legend 72HUV industrial inkjet printer from LexJet enables graphics firms of all sizes to cost-effectively produce signs, banners, displays and exhibits on a huge variety of popular sign materials. Engineered and built by Digital Equipment Company, the Legend 72HUV uses UV-curable inks to print photo-quality images and graphics up to 72-inch wide on rolls of flexible materials or sheets of rigid substrates.

Because the printer is built for reliability and switches so effortlessly from rolls to rigid sheets, users can produce a higher number of jobs every day, as well as the wide assortment of signs and displays commonly required for graphics packages.

Priced under $100,000, the Legend 72HUV includes top-grade components, built-in automated maintenance technology, and a 24-month written warranty. To provide smooth, trouble-free production immediately after installation, the price also includes a comprehensive, rigorous training program for current and future operators.



New: Xerox 7142 Wide-Format Printer

Xerox increased the size of its portfolio of wide-format printers with the release of the 7142 colour wide-format printer that delivers high-speed and cost-effective printing, and the 6050A wide-format black-and-white printer for producing construction plans and engineering renderings.

Specifically designed for the computer-aided design (CAD) and geographic information systems (GIS) markets, the Xerox 7142 colour wide-format printer is a high-speed, cost-effective option for the engineering, architectural and construction sectors. The Xerox 7142 has printing resolutions from 360 to 2880 dpi and a maximum print speed of 40m2 per hour, making it a standout in the industry.

The device uses the latest inkjet printing-head technology that allows control over each individual droplet size, giving finer lines and contours even at lower resolutions. The variable droplet technology allows low-cost uncoated media to be used for check plots at lower resolutions, and at higher resolutions with coated media it produces high-quality output for presentation and artist impression applications.

In addition, the inkjet heads are permanent, so they never need replacing and improve reliability and drive down running costs. Printing up to nine 594mm x 841mm (A1) images per minute and equipped with the Xerox FreeFlow Accxes Print Server, the new system enables users to keep up with the growing demand for printed architectural and engineering renderings, electrical diagrams, GIS/mapping and construction plans and drawings.

Océ Introduces New Thick Original, Large-Format Color Scanner Océ, a global leader in digital document management and delivery systems, announces the availability of the Océ TCS4XT color scanner, which supports rigid and thick originals up to 0.6" thick while retaining all the functionality of the current Océ TC4 scanner.

Similar to the Océ TC4 scanner, the Océ TCS4XT high-quality scanner supports monochrome and full color scanning in one easy-to-use system. The efficient, flexible Océ TCS4XT scans documents at 600 dpi at over 16' per minute in black & white and at an exact 1:1 ratio without any user intervention. To support thick original scanning, the Océ TCS4XT scanner features a flat 10" feeding table in front of the scanner; a flat, retractable 30" receiving table in the rear of the scanner; and a lever in the scanner top cover to allow adjustments for originals thicker than 0.12”.

An attractive option for reprographers and government users, the Océ TCS4XT easily captures information from thick originals, like applications involving mounted maps or legal booklets, for immediate copying, electronic distribution and archiving. This new scanner is available for use as part of the Océ TDS450, the Océ TDS700 and the Océ TCS500 multifunction systems.

Colortrac’s CopySmart Enhances CAD, Reprographics ColorColortrac has released CopySmart v1.3H2, the latest version of their professional scan-to-copy software solution for accurately duplicating color technical drawings and maps, etc, as well as superb, full-color, reprographics artwork.

CopySmart supports the complete range of Colortrac SmartLF Cx and Gx wide-format scanners. It simplifies the process of managing and accurately matching the original drawing or artwork through the scanned image to the printed result. CopySmart

extends the highest level of color fidelity and accuracy to the most demanding reprographics professionals.

Among CopySmart’s new features are support for the i1 X-rite (aka Eye One Gretag Macbeth) spectrophotometer; printer linearisation; adjustable detail/brightness optimisation control; third party RIP support; additional drivers for popular HP, Canon and Mutoh wide-format reprographics printers; and an integral “assist” browser-based Help system (text and video based) to reduce the learning curve and facilitate productive copying in a work environment. All CopySmart users can upgrade free of charge.

BXerox Unveils New Wide-Format Color Printers for Creating Posters, Outdoor Signs, BannersXerox Corporation is increasing its portfolio of wide-format color printers with two new offerings – the Xerox 8265/8290 and 8365/8390 Color Wide Format Printers.

They are designed for commercial printers and in-plant operations, are available in 65- and 90-inch models. The new printers open up an entirely new set of high-value print jobs for customers looking to complement their current capabilities or enter the expanding graphic communications color wide-format market.

The 8265/8290 printer is compatible with a wide-range of media types and produces vibrant graphics on indoor and outdoor point-of-purchase displays, banners, life-size photos and floor graphics. The printers use a combination of inkjet technology and environmentally-friendly eco-solvent inks, which means no ventilation or purification systems are required during production and prints can last up to three years without lamination. The 8265/8290 print at resolutions that range from 360 to 1,440 dpi at typical-quality production speeds from 162 to 215 square feet per hour.

PrODuCTINNOVATIONS

PrODuCTINNOVATIONS


Roland Introduces 2008 SOLJET PRO III XC-540 Printer/Cutter

Roland DGA Corporation, a leading provider of wide-format inkjet printers and integrated print/cutters, today introduced the 2008 SOLJET PRO III XC-540 print/cutter featuring revolutionary new Roland Intelligent Pass Control technology, a white ink configuration option and other enhancements that deliver even higher levels of speed, print quality and versatility. With the release of the new 2008 XC-540, Roland is making the new performance upgrades available to existing XC-540 customers across North and South America (except Brazil) free of charge.

The SOLJET PRO III XC-540 printer/cutter is widely recognized as the industry’s highest performing and most flexible production tool for a wide variety of applications including partial and full vehicle wraps and graphics, signs, POP displays, banners, labels, decals and more.

The new 2008 XC-540 features award-winning ECO-SOL MAX inks and is available in the following ink configurations: six-color CMYKLcLm, four-color CCMMYK, and five-color CMYK+W featuring new, improved White ECO-SOL MAX ink. The XC-540 white ink configuration is ideally suited for packaging comps, decorative window displays and other graphics involving clear and reflective media.

Roland Announces White ECO-SOL MAX Ink for SOLJET PRO IIIRoland DGA Corporation, a leading provider of wide-format inkjet printers and integrated print/cutters, recently announced White ECO-SOL MAX ink, the company’s most advanced eco-solvent white ink to date.

Formulated specifically for use with Roland’s high-performance 54" SOLJET PRO III XC-540 inkjet printer/cutter, White ECO-SOL MAX is new and improved over original Roland white ink, introduced in 2005 as the industry’s first white eco-solvent ink.

New White ECO-SOL MAX ink offers even higher levels of brightness, opacity and durability and delivers superior imaging across a variety of transparent media for text and graphics that reflect crisp, defined edges and smooth gradations. Enhanced scratch and chemical resistance adds durability to finished prints and ensures performance with a wide range of media options.

On a variety of transparent media, White ECO-SOL MAX ink prints flawless highlights, graphics and text, and can be printed as an undercoat to increase the opacity and vividness of four-color printing. White ECO-SOL MAX ink has been tested, profiled and certified for outstanding performance on both coated and uncoated media options including Roland’s SCM-SPVCT Clear Adhesive Vinyl and ESM-CCVP Clear Calendared Vinyl with Permanent Adhesive.

Paradigm Imaging Group Announces New, Improved Rocket Scanner Controller

Paradigm Imaging Group, a leading supplier of large-format scanning, printing and document archiving solutions, announced the enhancement of the Rocket Scanner Controller. Paradigm’s exclusive Rocket Controller is now equipped with a powerful 2.4Ghz Quad-Core processor, 2GB of RAM and a 250 GB SATA hard drive.

The Rocket Controller is included with all of Paradigm’s EIS Systems and is also available separately as

a valuable addition to a variety of popular scanners and printers. The Rocket takes large-format scanning and copying to a whole new level, bringing performance, ease of use and excellent scan quality for Graphic Arts, Fine Art, Photography, Pre-press, Reprographics, Point of Purchase, GIS, Mapping, CAD, AEC and document archiving applications. Used for large format copying, the Rocket Scanner Controller is a powerful solution that supports several high-quality large-format printers from leading manufacturers.

LexJet Introduces True Photo Quality Papers for Solvent, UV-Curable PrintingLexJet recently introduced Prime Gloss SUV and Prime Satin SUV.

Prime Gloss SUV and Prime Satin SUV allow users who have transitioned to solvent and UV-curable printing from aqueous-based printing to win back customer and market share for higher-end production graphics and photographic reproduction. For long-time users of solvent and UV-curable technologies, the true photo-quality papers open up a range of profitable applications in both emerging and existing markets.

In addition to photo and fine-art reproduction, the 10-mil glossy and satin photo papers can be used in a range of applications, from trade show graphics to point-of-purchase signage and posters. It’s also an ideal photo paper for décor applications, such as corporate lobbies, hotel art and retail environments.•

Do you have a new product ready to hit the market? Please send all new product information to Dennis Coyle, managing editor, [email protected].

ClASSIFIeDADS


Positions Available

REPRO REPORT shall not be held liable for the accuracy and/or warranties of equipment, supplies and services advertised in this publication. For information about placing ads, contact [email protected].

OpportunitiesOpportunities

A traditional bricks and mortar company that provides document management services to the construction industry is looking for an executive to manage its On Site Services (Facilities Management) operations in Southern California. The worldwide construction industry is about $3.4 trillion and is in desperate need of more reliable, customer centric, On Site Services, also known as Facilities Management, alternative in our area. This company is investing heavily in personnel, equipment and technology to bring new products and service to market to compliment its traditional services. We are looking for someone that can manage sales and operations in this highly competitive market. Experience in top-to-top sales, planning, staffing and launching a new business model is required.

C2 Reprographics is five years old and has achieved the distinction of being the fastest growing reprographics supplier in Southern California. You will be joining a winning management team of professionals dedicated to offering superior solutions to our customers. We offer tremendous opportunity for growth in all areas, both professionally and personally. Our benefits and compensation packages are competitive.

Please send your resume and salary requirements to [email protected]. Alternatively, you may call 714/545-2743, extention 1206 with any questions.

NGI, a fast growing provider of reprographics and digital imaging solutions in the southeast needs production management, digital imaging technicians, customer service and sales personnel for our expanding organization. This is a great opportunity for the right people to join one of the most dynamic teams in the industry. All applicants must be highly motivated, possess excellent communication skills and enjoy working in a fast paced environment. NGI offers competitive pay with incentive compensation, health/life/dental insurance, 401k, paid vacation and more. Reply to [email protected] and reference REPRO REPORT in the subject line. EOE/DFWP.

Color and Digital Specialist: an expanding houston based company is looking for a qualified individual for leadership role in our color and digital services department. Graphics experience needed. Please email resume to [email protected].

Advertising Information:The IRgA thanks the above companies for advertising in this issue of REPRO REPORT. If you wish to advertise in REPRO REPORT or require additional assistance, please contact Bill Spilman toll-free at 877/878-3260 or e-mail [email protected].

National Reprographics Inc. is looking for acquisitions within the reprographic and digital color industries. Interested in well-managed firms of any size located in larger metropolitan markets. Contact Doug Magid at [email protected] or 212/366-7063.

For sale a full service reprographics firm established in 1964 grossing between $400K and $500K annually in beautiful Corpus Christi, Texas. Financing available to qualified buyers. Less than two-year payoff of $150K purchase price from profits if managed properly. Get the snow and ice out of your life. Contact Joe Watson – 361/882-5575.

For sale Oce TDS 810 Scanner and Controller/Monitor/Cabinet and document stacker. Excellent Condition. $30,000. Contact Bob – Florida 800/780-7377.

ClASSIFIeDADS


Merchandise Mart

REPRO REPORT shall not be held liable for the accuracy and/or warranties of equipment, supplies and services advertised in this publication. For information about placing ads, contact [email protected].

Design Presentation is a leading provider of raster to vector CAD conversion services. Contact us for a free trial: [email protected] 646/792-2093.

Engineering Copier Parts & Supplies for use in Calcomp, C-4, Dietzgen, Gestetner, JDL, JRL Systems, K+E, Kip, Lanier, Mita, Océ, Regma, Ricoh, Savin, Visual Edge & Xerox. Image Products of California carries toners, developers, photoreceptors, cleaning blades, fuser rollers, pressure rollers, fuser webs & much more. IPC carries both OEM as well as IPC (our own private label) brand products. Make IPC your one-stop-shop and call us at 800/221-8831, 714/282-5678 or fax us at 714/282-5680, or visit www.imageproductsca.com.

ENGINEERING PARTS for the complete line of Xerox, Kip, and Océ systems. OEM parts at a quarter of the price of the manufacturer. We have been supplying the large-format industry for over 10 years and carry over 1,000 parts and supplies. Call Reprographic Technology today for a competitive quote on your engineering parts. Call 888/746-1802 or visit www.reprographic-intl.com.

DIGITAL ES has the industry’s largest inventory of used wide-format copiers, printers,and plotters. All major manufacturers’ machines in stock. Available as full refurbs or “as is where is”, from our dock or delivered and installed, 20 years plus in the business. We speak your language. Call us 800/749-1138 or [email protected].

DISCOUNT LAMINATOR ROLLERS New: In stock – SEAL – GBC – AGL – Sales, Service – Tehan & Company 800/283-7290

We repair Skrebba Staplers. (Factory Authorized Service Agency) Model 23, 117 and all current models. Contact Zack & Associates Inc., 847/462-1460 or FAX 847/462-1580.

Ad Index5 American Reprographics Company www.e-arc.com

BC KIP America www.kipamerica.com

iFC Oce North America, Inc. www.oce.com

3 PLP Digital Systems www.plp.com

iBC Seiko-I Infotech www.seiko-i.com

1 Sepialine www.sepialine.com

Advertising InformationThe IRgA thanks the above companies for advertising in this issue of REPRO REPORT. If you wish to advertise in REPRO REPORT and/or in News Digest, IRgA’s monthy e-newsletter, please contact Bill Spilman toll-free at 877/878-3260 or e-mail [email protected].

eNDOFTHeROLL


Steve Bova, CAE

Executive Director

All member companies, reprographers and industry suppliers alike, should proudly

associate themselves with their industry association by posting the new logo and membership association on their Web sites, company literature and company signage. The IRgA has created a toolkit of information to make this easy for our members to do.

The IRgA Branding Toolkit includes:

• IRgA Logo Files and Logo Usage Standards – that clarify proper usage of the new IRgA logo and tagline – what you can and cannot do. It is essential, for brand recognition purposes, that the IRgA logo be used properly and consistently;

• IRgA Brand Perception Study – containing the perceptions of the construction industry of the reprographics market;

Your Role in Re-Branding the Industry – Action RequiredNote to IRgA member companies: After reading, immediately go to www.irga.com, log in and download the new IRgA logo from the IRgA Branding Toolkit.

In the MailThe IRgA 2008 Membership Directory and the 2008 IRgA member decal will soon be mailed to the key membership contact at all member companies. Proudly display the decal prominently at your company, where customers can see that you are a part of your industry association.

A Message to Non-Member Companies:Only IRgA member companies may use the logo and tagline. The IRgA beefed up its logo police force; staff will be checking member and non-member companies and their Web sites to ensure that the logo is being used properly and that non-members are not making false claims to being IRgA members.

There is growing value in the IRgA, and it is critical that only member

companies have access to and use the branding information.

It is so easy to join the IRgA! If your company is not an IRgA member, simply go to www.irga.com, click on the join tab, complete the information and submit with payment. Or, you can call 800/833-4742 and the friendly staff will personally sign you up over the phone.

To know if your company is a current IRgA member, simply go to the Web

site, click on the directory tab and enter your company’s name. If it does not come up, you’re not a member!

Now is the TimeThe IRgA will be blitzing the AEC industry in 2008 with our new look, feel and messaging. We are actively creating relationships with AIA, AGC and other targeted industry groups. The IRgA Web site is undergoing an “addition” of sorts that will appeal to the construction industry. It is our goal to drive AEC interest to the IRgA Web site and to IRgA member companies.

It is important that every IRgA member company align with this effort during the first quarter of 2008 so we can maximize our impact.

Finally, be sure to add me to your contact list. Let’s stay in regular touch regarding the IRgA and how your association can help your company. I want to hear from you:

•Howdoyoulikethenewlogoand tagline?

• Inwhatcreativewaysareyouusing the logo and tagline within your company?

•Whatsuggestionsdoyouhaveforthe branding effort?

•HowcantheIRgAdoabetterjobserving you and your company?

I look forward to hearing from you!•

You know where to reach me at – call 800/833-4742 or e-mail [email protected].

All member companies, reprographers and industry suppliers alike, should proudly associate themselves with

their industry association by posting the new logo and membership association on their Web sites, company

literature and company signage.

•Branding the Reprographics Industry Presentation – A presentation providing an overview of the brand perception study;

•Branding Presentation – A presentation to share within your company on how they can uphold your company’s brand; and

•Otheritemswillbeaddedinthecoming months including templates, Web banners and pass-along information to your customers.

TRUE WEB-BASED VIEWING, PRINTING AND JOB QUEUE MANAGEMENT

KIP PrintNET is a web-based print utility that benefits users with versatile viewing, printing, job queue management and system administration features without the need to install any software applications on network PCs. Users may select and send single or multiple files to KIP digital systems via a local network or the internet. In addition, KIP PrintNET generates customizable Email reports detailing all system usage on demand or at preset intervals. These reports contain data compatible with spreadsheet applications for easy customization and analysis.

Contact KIP today to learn more.Call (800) 252-6793 or visit www.kipamerica.com

PrintNET_fullpage_ReproReport.indd 1 12/6/2007 2:17:19 PM

repro report - apdsp.com · company’s overall waste production and energy consumption. ... his...

Documents