Agfa Graphics

With digital cameras rising in popularity, and drum scanner lines being pulled from the market, is there a future for scanners? by MARK SMITH When Heidelberg announced it was discontinuing "all scanner development and production operations," it sent a few shock waves through the industry. After all, high-end scanning used to be all but synonymous with Hell drum machines, a tradition Heidelberg inherited when it acquired Linotype-Hell. According to Heidelberg, the market for scanners has experienced a downturn in recent years, with declines as great as 20 percent in 2001 alone, depending on market and product. "This move is a timely

In-plants that have installed high-speed digital color printers have had tremendous success—and a few disappointments along the way. We got their stories. by Cheryl Adams On September 13, two days after the World Trade Center attack, administration officials at Arizona State University, in Tempe, placed a call to the school's Design Print Services center. Bruce Whitehead, DPS manager, answered the call and took the request for 2,500 "No Hate" posters that would be put up across campus. "We have a lot of international students on campus, many of whom are Muslim," Whitehead explains. "The university administration was concerned about hate crimes and didn't

Is there a CTP device in your future? To get the scoop on CTP, we asked the experts a few questions. Their answers will help you decide. Sharing their expertise on computer-to-plate topics were: • Mark Vanover Marketing Director of Advanced Solutions, Creo Inc. • Marc Johnson Product Line Marketing Manager, Off-Press Products, Presstek • Jeff Hopkins President, basysPrint • Stu Gallup Director, Digital Systems Marketing and Product Planning, A.B.Dick Co. • David Furman Agfa Product Marketing, CTP • Peter Vanderlaan Product Development Manager Electronic Imaging Hardware Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Graphic Systems Division . What advantages does a computer-to-plate device have over

Implementing a color management system will require you to work with more than one vendor, but the payoffs include material cost savings, color-consistent products and improved customer satisfaction. by Caroline Miller THE DECISION to implement a color management system was a no-brainer for Multi-Visual Products' owner Craig Graves. The Murrieta, Calif.-based company—which prints trading cards for youth sports leagues, magazine covers, calendars, magnets, stickers and mouse pads—had a color problem. When MVP began eight years ago, it had a code blue calibration process, including a scanner and an output device. The company had to tweak the output devices as best it could, but there

Even as platesetters flourish, many in-plants are sticking with imagesetters. We asked several in-plants why they chose the imaging technology they use. by Bob Neubauer With so many printers turning to computer-to-plate technology, why are some in-plants sticking with imagesetters? We decided to ask a few managers. Providing their comments were: Mike Schrader -Printing & Publications Manager -Mercury Marine -Fond du Lac, Wis. -15 in-plant employees _________________ Dan Kovalsky -Director Print & Digital Media Services -Constellation Energy -Baltimore, Md. -22 in-plant employees _________________ Charlie Tonoff -Manager Corporate Printing Services -Highmark -Camp Hill, Pa. -20 in-plant employees _________________ Sticking With

By merging or working closely with their data centers, in-plants are expanding their operations, saving money and ensuring their survival. by SCOTT BURY Across America, businesses and institutions are merging their in-plants into their Information Technology departments' print output organizations. It makes sense. After all, both operations use much of the same equipment: copiers, high-speed laser printers, powerful computer workstations and robust networks. We've taken a look at how three organizations have made such mergers work using different approaches. Georgia Tech: Rethinking Leads To Reorganizing "Contrary to what we in the printing business want to believe, printing is going away," contends Paul

State of Washington Olympia, Wash. Despite being one of the country's largest in-plants, the State of Washington's Department of Printing behaves much more like a small company in the way it treats its employees. "We're very pro-people," remarks Dan Swisher, assistant director of the Olympia, Wash.-based operation. "We like to grow from within. We like to involve everybody in our operation. And we like everybody to have fun doing it." To show employees how important they are, Swisher says the department's director, George Morton, visits each employee every single day. With 105 employees, that's a tough task, but the payoff is great. Trying

Kansas Division of Printing Topeka The Division of Printing for the State of Kansas is already a large operation—$7.3 million in sales, 83 full-time employees, three satellite locations—but Director Richard Gonzales would love to see it expand. "We've consolidated [work from in-plants in] the Departments of Health, Revenue and Human Resources, and have assumed a large portion of the work from the Department of Transportation," says Gonzales. "We visited the print shops, researched their jobs and showed them in black and white what it was actually costing them." Those hard figures helped convince the departments to pool their workloads. For example, the division's newest

Schwab Litho San Francisco Schwab Litho, the printing arm of the financial firm Charles Schwab & Co., is a survivor. When recent company cutbacks brought the most layoffs in Schwab's 30-year history, the in-plant stayed intact—and with good reason. With the third highest sales-per-employee figure of all the in-plants on this year's Top 50, Schwab has made a spot for itself on the corporate landscape at Schwab. "Until the culture goes paper-less, I believe we have a solid future," remarks Mark Geyer, director of the in-plant. Operating on a chargeback system, Schwab Litho doesn't "officially" have an annual budget. However, as a department

Four Blocks From Terror Jeffrey Allen was hard at work in the New York Stock Exchange's fifth-floor in-plant when terror struck from the skies. Just four blocks away, two hijacked airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center, filling the blue September sky with smoke, fire and fear. "We heard the explosions," Allen recalls. But that was only the beginning. Told to stay in the building, he and his coworkers experienced the double horror of watching the towers collapse on television and feeling the earth shake beneath their feet. "All the dust and the smoke came over here and we couldn't even see