Kevin Kern

Finch Paper has launched its FIT (Fluid + Ink + Toner) Color Management and Workflow Services progra

More features. Better finishing options. Lower cost. Manufacturers of black-and-white copiers see these trends and more. by Mike Llewellyn Last year, Drew Bilotta, director of Lockheed Martin Management and Data Systems, oversaw the installation of 150 black-and-white Konica copiers, mostly 7020s and 7030s. "At the end of the day, everything comes down to cost, and that's where they [Konica] had a significant advantage," says Bilotta. He explains that he was able to use a company-wide contract with Konica to leverage the best price. But while keeping costs down is certainly important to copier manufacturers, this is not their only strategy. Their black-and-white copiers

Despite the push for color, the future for black-and-white printing looks bright, especially as variable data applications grow. by Caroline Miller A WALK through any print trade show in the past year might leave you feeling that black-and-white printing is a thing of the past. Giant banners have been proclaiming the power of color printing. But actions speak louder than words. "There is an old phrase in marketing that says what you talk about and what you sell are often two different things," notes Mike Murphy, manager of marketing for DocuTech printing at Xerox. It's a sentiment that Kevin Kern, Konica's vice president of

Two years ago, Konica replaced the offset presses in its in-plant with digital printing and copying equipment. The operation has become a showcase for the company. Ray Embury looked around the industrial park in Windsor, Conn., where his shop and several other corporate in-plants were located, and noticed some of them shutting their doors. Determined that Konica's Printing Services wouldn't become "a dinosaur" like some of those shops, Embury began making changes. "A lot of the in-plant operations around us were closing because their work was being outsourced to other printers," says Embury, Konica's manager of office services. "We've never outsourced, but we saw

Some copier vendors see a strong future for black-and-white copier/printers as part of a cluster printing system. T/R Systems pioneered this model, but others are now touting their own cluster solutions. Minolta's MicroPress can support up to 12 output engines that can be a combination of black-and-white and color engines. The Unified Konica Solution also links to both black-and-white and color engines, with the server routing pages to the appropriate devices. "This creates a tremendous boost in efficiency, because operators can run several jobs simultaneously, instead of completing one job before starting the next," says Kevin Kern, of Konica. "The result is much faster

With color copier technology improving daily, what's in store for black-and-white? by Cheryl A. Adams Duplicating speeds and paper capacity were the specs by which black-and-white copiers were evaluated in the past. Today, customers want scanning, Internet connectivity and e-mail capabilities—not to mention mega speed. And, they want color. In a world where color has become a phenomenal communications tool, what is the future of black-and-white copiers? Surprisingly, it will be color that has to compete, according to several leading printer/copier manufacturers, including Canon, Konica and Minolta. These experts—which sell both color and black-and-white devices—feel the future of black-and-white looks quite