Xerox delivers iGen3 to University of St. Thomas

- Xerox announced it has sold one of its iGen3 90 production color systems to the in-house printshop at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota:

- Replaced a Xerox DocuColor 6060 and two Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 1050s
- Added a Xante’ Ilumina Digital Envelope Press (relabeled Okidata color LED printer)
- Purchased two Hewlett Packard Edgeline CM8050 color inkjet units to print letterhead

-=cheers=-

Urner Barry Printing Deploys Canon imagePRESS C6000 Digital Press

Canon U.S.A., Inc. and a leading provider of document imaging and office solutions, today announced that Urner Barry Printing & Mailing, a one-stop-shop for design, print, and mail services, has installed the Canon imagePRESS C6000 digital press to support the growing demand for short-run quality color output.

“The Canon imagePRESS has helped us sharpen our competitive edge on digital short run offerings and absorb short run work from our pressroom. We have reduced our click charges, broadened our range of print media, improved our quality, and eliminated the production issues we experienced with our previous machine,” said Chris Ashley, Director of Operations.

The Canon imagePRESS line represents the largest single-engine R&D investment in Canon's history. Capable of printing images up to 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution with a superior level of quality, the imagePRESS C6000 prints at 60 letter pages per minute, including media up to 110lb cover stock. With its robust set of image-processing, color-management, and in-line finishing technologies, the imagePRESS C6000 digital press enables you to handle almost any type of job a customer might request.

“Urner Barry Printing & Mailing has been a Canon customer for years because of our high quality equipment and strong service organization,” said Denis Griff, Sr. Director of Production Print, Canon Business Solutions, Inc. “The addition of the imagePRESS C6000 will help Urner Barry Printing & Mailing to expand their product line and generate a stronger ROI.”

Source: http://solutions.canon.com/home/homePage.shtml

-=Good Selling=-

Heidelberg's last quarter’s financials

- Heidelberg, the world’s largest offset press maker, announced its last quarter’s financials:
- operating loss of 110 to 150 million euros ($165-$225 million) predicted for the fiscal year
- 65 million euro loss for quarter
- Received more than 800 million euros in emergency state (Germany) aid
- secured a new 1.4 billion euro credit line backed by German government
- order backlog was down 50%
- has laid off a total of 2,400 employees in last year

-=Cheers=-

This Week in Kodak "TWIK Notes"

- More details on the high speed color inkjet presses from Kodak:
- called the Versamark series
- was originally started by Kodak, who sold technology to Scitex of Israel
- Kodak reacquired the division in 2004
- Uses continuous inkjet technology, where ink droplets are continually ejected and are steered to or away form the paper using electrostatic forces
- Versamark VT3000 and VX5000 have top speed of 3080ppm
- Versamark VL2000 offers 75 meters per minute at 600 x 600dpi
- Versamark VL4000 offers 125 meters per minute at 600 x 360dpi
- Versamark VL6000 offers 150 meters per minute at 600 x 600dpi (4 bit)

- Kodak announced it is reducing its staff in British Columbia and shifting work to Israel. This will reduce the Canadian staff from 1265 to 500. The Canadian office was part of the $980 million acquisition of Creo in 2005. Also, Kodak sold some of its office space in the area for $43 million.

-=Cheers=-

Estimator Corp Completes Sale to Schiele Graphics Inc, Major Chicago Printer with Rave Review from Owner...

Estimator Corp Completes Sale to Schiele Graphics Inc, Major Chicago Printer with Rave Review from Owner...

Schiele Graphics Inc.
From John Schiele President
11/5/2009

Founded in 1948, the Schiele Group has grown to be one of Chicago’s largest commercial printers. Keys to the Group’s success include a conservative approach to business and its ever growing array of products and services.

Schiele operates its Digital and Sheet-fed presses out its Schiele Graphics facility and its Heat-set half webs and continuous forms presses out if its Repro Graphics plant, both facilities located in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.

Creating customized portholes for online order entry is one of our fastest growing markets. Schiele receives 30 plus orders a day, for both static and customized on demand products. These orders often create work beyond digital printing, most require some bindery work, fulfillment, and/or mailing services. Being able to produce a wide variety of different products has helped the company survive through this difficult time

I came across the Estimator booth at Print 09 and wasn’t even interested in a new estimating system. I had given up all hope after bad experiences with two of the major software providers. I heard many horror stories about printing companies spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and years trying to implement a fully integrated system. We had PSI for at least 15 years and were never able to get the estimating portion usable and EFI is now going to stop its support.

The companies of the Schiele group have diverse capabilities with Digital, Sheetfed, Heat-set Web and continuous forms presses. Mark Myers Estimators President showed me during the demo that the Estimator software already had most of our presses built in. During the ten minute demo, I threw the kitchen sink of estimates at him. He was able to do most of them with the software on his laptop. I asked him about the cost and was shocked at how little it was. At that price, I had to at least show my staff back at the plant. Estimator did a Webinar and our people were as impressed with the system and Mark as was I. The all in price was low and if it didn’t work we could easily take the hit. Once we bought the system Estimator was all over customizing it for our applications. I think they worked nights and weekends. Another great thing is when we call with questions we are talking to the developer, who knows the system inside and out, not some call center.

We are testing Estimator against our current system and are close enough to feel comfortable using it because it is almost fool proof and so very much faster that ours.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Estimator provides unique programs for Wide-Format, Standard Sheetfed, Web Offset, Flexo and Digital.

Estimator is fully compatible with XP and previous Windows programs as well as the I-Mac. Creative features make Estimator the Fastest, Easiest Single-Screen, Mistake Proof, Intelligent, High-Speed... Print-Estimating & Management System available.

Estimator’s easy-to-use low-cost solutions deliver an e-mail-able Quote, Order Acknowledgement, Job-Ticket, Stock & Services PO, Services Auto (RFQ) Request For Quote, Standard and Custom Shipping Labels for Brokers, Invoice and Job Scheduling & Tracking Reports and a detailed Internal Report showing costs and profit, all in an error-free, single screen environment. Additional Management Reports provide analysis of sales and productivity and department production load schedules.

Estimator includes Set-up and installation in 2 weeks or less and annual releases, updates and full live maintenance.

Interested parties may contact Estimator to arrange a short Webinar and have the unrestricted 60-day trial program installed in their plant.

E-mail requests to EstimatorCorp@aol.com or call: Mark Myers at 203 682 6436, or download the full run program from: www.EstimatorCorp.com Login: Full Run Trial Password: demo in lower case.

Estimator Corp. 35 Evergreen Parkway Westport CT 06880, P: 203 682 6436, Fax: 203 227 4549
Website: www.EstimatorCorp.com

Local printing manufacturer expands product range

Local printing manufacturer expands product range
Bizhub adds several new models to its existing product range

With the introduction of the bizhub PRO C6501 series and the bizhub PRO C5501 digital colour production printing systems, Bidvest company, Konica Minolta South Africa is extending its existing successful production printing systems.

With a print speed of between 55 A4 colour pages per minute for the bizhub PRO C5501 and 65 colour pages for the bizhub PRO C6501 series, they offer a large throughput. All systems offer heavy duty cycles. The bizhub PRO C5501 now also supports three print controllers: the external controllers IC-304 Plus powered by Creo, the IC-305 EFI Fiery and the internal IC-408 EFI Fiery controller.

“We are confident that the bizhub PRO C6501 series and the bizhub PRO C5501 will top their predecessors in terms of success,” says Leon Minnie, product specialist: production systems at Konica Minolta South Africa.

“Not only does the whole series of new bizhub PROs provide our customers with the three essential elements of high quality colour production printing, which are outstanding colour, superior image quality and high production speed. Their sturdy yet compact built and various in-line finishing functions also mean a further ‘scale up’ in benefits for our customers.”

-=Cheers=-

Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast Focus on Growth With RICOH Pro C900

Digital Imaging System Enhances Productivity and Color Output Quality



WEST CALDWELL, N.J., Nov. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- The Production Printing Business
Group (PPBG) of Ricoh Americas Corporation today announced that the Girl
Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast, which serves more than 28,500 scouts in more
than four counties, installed the RICOH Pro C900 in the print shop located at
the organization's base in Milwaukee to help improve the Girl Scouts' image
through high-quality communications materials.

When the print shop was established several years ago, it featured a small
offset press. Later, the shop went digital and purchased a Ricoh
black-and-white production copier along with a small Ricoh color printer.
Faced with exploding growth of both membership and staff, the print shop had
to outsource nearly all color printing. However, increased cost in outsourcing
all color projects led the organization to the decision to bring all printing,
including color materials, in-house which required an equipment upgrade. The
Girl Scouts looked at several brands, but the organization's long-standing
relationship with Ricoh, combined with the advanced capabilities of the RICOH
Pro C900 made Ricoh the natural choice.

"The RICOH Pro C900 is the right fit for us. It is affordable, the color is
true and the customer service is excellent," said Amy Drezka, director of
information services for the Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast. "In spite of
coming from a very small environment, quickly moving into a larger
organization, and having to meet new high-capacity needs for production, we
were able to do it easily with this machine, which for us, has been huge."

Almost immediately after the RICOH Pro C900 was installed, the Girl Scouts of
Wisconsin Southeast realized cost savings, improved their color output quality
and increased their productivity. Taking advantage of the Pro C900's ability
to print at 90 pages per minute (ppm), the Girl Scouts are now quickly turning
around a variety of items with runs from 50 to 20,000 including membership
certificates, training materials and solicitation letters.

"The Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast is a great example of customers who
are experiencing growth, and require solutions that not only accommodate
present conditions but can anticipate future needs," said Carl Joachim, vice
president of marketing, PPBG, Ricoh Americas Corporation. "The RICOH Pro C900
is one of many solutions we offer to our customers that maximize output and
increases quality."

To learn more about Ricoh's full line of products for production print
environments, please visit http://www.ricoh-usa.com/ppbg.

About Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast
Girl Scouts of the USA is the pre-eminent leadership development organization
for girls. Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast (GSWISE) serves more than 28,000
girls and is the leading authority on girls' healthy development.

Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the
world a better place.

For more information, visit www.gswise.org, or call 1-800-565-GIRL (4475).

About Ricoh's Production Printing Business Group
The Production Printing Business Group (PPBG) of Ricoh Americas Corporation is
dedicated to delivering state-of-the-art, high-speed production systems that
provide efficient document workflows with high-volume production printing and
finishing. Incorporating superior engineering, service, reliable technology,
and extensive software and finishing options, PPBG helps production centers to
cost-effectively modernize and streamline their operations to meet today's
rapid turnaround and high-quality demands.

Ricoh Americas Corporation, founded in 1962, is headquartered in West
Caldwell, NJ and is a subsidiary of the $20 billion Ricoh Company Ltd., the
73-year-old leading supplier of office automation equipment.

Information about Ricoh's Production Printing Business Group can be accessed
on the World Wide Web at www.ricoh-usa.com.

All referenced product names are the trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: Linda Montefusco Rebecca Maas
Ricoh Americas Corporation Peppercom
(973) 882-2172 (212) 931-6126
Linda.Montefusco@ricoh-usa.com rmaas@peppercom.com



SOURCE Ricoh Americas Corporation

Linda Montefusco, Ricoh Americas Corporation, +1-973-882-2172,
Linda.Montefusco@ricoh-usa.com, or Rebecca Maas, Peppercom, +1-212-931-6126,
rmaas@peppercom.com