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Brett Dashwood, EDP For the most part of two decades, Brett Dashwood edp, has been working in the electronic document systems industry – in both service provider and vendor management roles – throughout the Asia Pacific region and the world. Dashwood is based in Australia and is OutputLinks’ Asia Pacific vice president and managing director of Dashwood Consulting. He can be reached at bd@OutputLinks.com.
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PacPrint 2009 Review and Wrap-Up (Segment One, Two, Three & Four)
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Brett DashwoodHVTO in Asia Pacific
The Asia Pacific region covers about 1/3rd of the world's land mass, about 2/3rds of the world's population, and contains countries with the second and third largest economies on the planet. Are you aware of the industry happenings in this diverse region?
In this column Dashwood will focus on his regional and technological areas of expertise. Requests for column topics and discussion are welcomed by emailing bd@outputlinks.com.
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PacPrint 2009 Review and Wrap-Up
By Brett Dashwood, EDP, OutputLinks
PacPrint is staged every four years (since 1970) and is one of the largest and most significant trade exhibitions for the printing and graphic technologies industry in the Southern Hemisphere.
Presented by the Graphic Arts Merchants Association of Australia (GAMAA) and the Printing Industries Association of Australia (PIAA), PacPrint 09 was held at the Melbourne Conference and Convention Centre in the last week of May 2009. The event brought industry leaders together under one roof and, as an event that the industry acknowledges as a conduit for new information and global directions, visitors attended PacPrint from throughout the Asia Pacific region and the world.
Although still down on the 2005 event, nearly 20,000 people came through the doors over the five days. Early research shows that almost 40 percent of attendees held executive or managerial positions, with 60 percent of these identified as CEO, Managing Director, Owner, or Partner, confirming that the decision makers were strong in attendance, minimising “tyre kickers” and maximising value to the exhibitors.
The traditional audience for PacPrint is typically commercial print, but just like similar trade events globally, as printing technologies have evolved so to have the needs of the visitors to PacPrint, and the high volume transaction output (HVTO) industry was definitely catered to.
This year, the overwhelming theme across many of the exhibitions was digital workflow. In the commercial print world, “digital” not only covers digital print, but also digital computer-to-plate (CTP) technology, too.
If we look at the two sides of the print industry involved – traditional/commercial print and the high volume transactional output side (data service bureaux) – we also see two kinds of hybrid printers that have evolved:
- The traditional printer with offset, moving (or moved) to digital. Initially these guys are typically looking for digital for the logistics savings of printing short run static applications, but now they’re also asking themselves, “Now I’ve got the technology, what else can I do?” These are the guys that want to get into data-driven applications, but are looking at low personalisation levels with high impact...for now.
- The data service bureau moving to digital colour. These guys have typically been printing data driven monochrome for years and see the benefits of full colour DM work paying more and looking for additional revenue streams by adding promotional marketing content to their existing transactional applications.
Although I’ve heard many people from both sides of the industry talking about their dominance for one reason or other, the fact remains that the traditional printers have been working on value of the document for longer than the data guys, who are often more focused on the cost per thousand.
In many markets in many countries, print has definitely been commoditised, and if I had to go out on a limb, I would say that it is the data service bureau businesses that have allowed this to happen.
If PacPrint showed me anything this year, it was that the data service bureau side of the industry (typically the HVTO service providers) better make sure that their sales models reflect their value added services rather than simply the ability to print at a cost.
But if this is not you, great, I am hopeful that every reader of the OutputLinks eNews and every visitor to the OutputLinks site falls outside this bracket because they already “get it” – that there’s more to our industry than toner on a page.
And even in these troubling times, it is at trade shows like PacPrint where we see first-hand the technology and the ideas that will drive our businesses and our industry forward.
As I’m sure you would expect, there were major technologies shown and announcements made at PacPrint this year. So that you don’t have to delve through different press releases, over the next few weeks, I will highlight a few of the major ones for the HVTO and printing industries in general.
Stay tuned for segment two of this PacPrint 2009 series, as I look at more of the specifics of one of the major print industry events held in the Asia Pacific region.
Brett Dashwood, EDP, is the vice president of Asia Pacific, OutputLinks. He can be reached at bd@OutputLinks.com.
Note: Make sure you also keep your eye out for Brett’s other articles from PacPrint week, including his presentation of an EDSF award to an Australian industry educator, as well as his wrap-up of the National Print Awards.
Segment Two
By Brett Dashwood edp – Vice President Asia Pacific, OutputLinks
Continuing on from where I started a couple of weeks ago wrapping up PacPrint 2009, this week I wanted to start looking at the major technologies shown and announcements made at PacPrint this year. Over coming weeks I’ll hit each of the major technology announcements that I feel is appropriate to the HVTO audience, but I’ll start with news centred around Kodak, specifically Nexpress, Versamark, and Prinergy Workflow.
One of the most unexpected announcements made at PacPrint was on the first day by Kodak and Konica Minolta. Konica Minolta kicked off PacPrint with a bang after revealing a Kodak Nexpress on its stand. Although there were a number of jokes and comments floating around about a delivery mistake, it wasn’t, Konica Minolta is now the official distributor of the Kodak Nexpress digital production colour presses throughout Australia. Kodak will remain as the service partner for all Nexpress press installations.
Kodak Australia’s Managing Director Steve Venn said that, “Konica Minolta is a very good fit for Nexpress Press technology within their product range. We look forward to increasing our footprint in the Australian digital print market and increasing opportunities for our customers.”
Hiro Kaji, managing director of Konica Minolta’s Business Solutions in Australia, has no doubts that the machine will continue to prove popular while also adding to Konica Minolta’s portfolio. “Konica Minolta’s driving force is our focus on partnership. We are thrilled to be working with Kodak.”
On day two of PacPrint I attended the Kodak press session. This was facilitated by Anthony Harvey (Marketing & Channel Manager GCG, Kodak Australia) and attended by Kevin Joyce (WW Vice President Sales and Marketing Digital Printing Solutions, Eastman Kodak) as well as Steve Green (Asia Pacific Regional Manager Director CDG & GCG, Eastman Kodak).
After a short session we went on a tour around the Kodak stand. The main production unit on the stand was the new Versamark VL2000. This unit was running an IJS/PReS demo application and was shown ramping up from 50 to just under 250 ft/min in under 60 seconds. This is 75 metres per minute and printing with water-based ink up to 18.67” (~475mm) wide, or half that running duplex on the single machine. The engine is also able to be implemented in a dual engine configuration (VL2200) which allows printing of 1000 A4ppm. The system supports most common transactional and promotional data streams, “the Versamark VL2000/VL2200 Printing System offers high print quality, low running costs, and mid-volume production capability,” said Anthony Harvey. “(At PacPrint) there was great interest in Kodak's Trendsetter NX digital flexographic system and the VL2000 high speed inkjet system which illustrated to the industry the new possibilities of print.”
On this, his first trip down under, Kevin Joyce mentioned that he thought that the Australian market was similar to the US and very similar to Canada. I asked him about the strength of the technology in other areas of Asia Pacific, as I know that Japan has always been strong for the Scitex and now Kodak high-speed inkjet technologies. He commented that although colour inkjet for transactional is very strong in Japan, it’s not strong for direct marketing applications. Short run colour is big for the technology as well, however Kevin indicted that only 4% of Japanese users have web-to-print solutions. Users around the region – like the rest of the world – are also utilising the Kodak technology for book printing. Users are enjoying book production with the speed and quality of the stream technology. This is a particularly growing market and solution with 80% the worldwide book market now requiring under 10,000 copies.
Another market that is extremely strong is the newspaper market and now the dynamic newspaper market. Publishers of newspapers and magazines are falling apart around the world and only the strong will survive in the new world of publishing. As reverse publishing – where the community drives the content – becomes stronger, those who survive will have addressed the fundamental issue of their income model.
In addition to the printing technology, we also looked at Kodak’s unified workflow products, in particular the new version of Prinergy and Kodak’s Colorflow software.
Personally, I wanted to understand a bit more about these products, especially when they started talking about the idea of shared digital resources and true colour management across the entire workflow, whether the output was offset or digital, printed or electronic, static or variable.
A series of new features and functions in Kodak’s Prinergy Workflow version 5.1 allows users to process static and variable print jobs through the same workflow, manage end to end colour on multiple devices, as well as allowing automation of complex rule driven routines in production workflows. This new version of Prinergy seems to put a new slant on workflow that truly addresses the needs of hybrid printers, whether they were originally commercial printers moving to digital, or data service and HVTO providers moving to or enhancing their digital colour offerings.
The other powerful feature I loved about Prinergy was the fact of it being vendor independent for the output. Although there are those printers who are single vendor shops, many HVTO printers and other data service bureaux have printing technology from multiple vendors. In addition, when a single company offers both digital and commercial offset print solutions, in many cases these devices are still managed in separate physical locations, but almost definitely managed with separate workflows.
Prinergy offers a single connected workflow solution to drive both offset and digital print presses from multiple manufacturers, giving constant status updates and estimated completion times. Companies that have these mixed printer environments can now easily move jobs from offset to digital output with a few simple clicks or through automated routines that route jobs based on job intent.
Anthony Harvey was very excited about how well Prinergy and the other Kodak technologies presented at PacPrint. “Terrific show, it was the first time Kodak demonstrated the integration of digital print into Prinergy workflow plus its powerful range of integrated portal products. Many opportunities came from non-Kodak customers who were looking at ways to improve efficiency by having one workflow that will handle all of their computer-to-plate (CTP) and digital printing needs.”
Kevin Joyce, Eastman Kodak’s VP Worldwide Sales & Marketing - Digital Printing Solutions, with OutputLinks’ Brett Dashwood edp in front of the Kodak Versamark VL2000 at Kodak’s booth at PacPrint 2009.
About PacPrint in general, Kevin Joyce had to say, “the interest shown by the attendees at PacPrint gave no indication of trepidation for the future. To the contrary I can say that the attitude was about innovation and success for the graphic arts industry.” He then went on to say, “Kodak surpassed all goals for the show and appreciates the great opportunity PacPrint provided for us and our partners.”
Stay tuned over coming weeks as I look at major technologies shown and announcements made by other vendors at PacPrint this year.
PacPrint 2009 Review and Wrap-up
Segment 3
By Brett Dashwood edp – Vice President Asia Pacific, OutputLinks
For this week’s segment wrapping up PacPrint 2009 (www.pacprint.com.au), I wanted to continue looking at the major technologies shown and announcements made for the local and Asia Pacific region at PacPrint this year.
Fuji Xerox had a great PacPrint this year, with a great number of orders for their latest technology. Since launch earlier this year, Fuji Xerox’ new DC700 Digital Colour Press has been extremely popular with varied markets and orders have now reached 150 systems since launch. Many of the orders for the DC700 have been signed by customers who are new to digital printing.
Brett Maishman, Fuji Xerox Australia’s national commercial print business manager, said that “it was a terrific show, with an enormous amount of interest shown toward our entire range of production solutions. The visitors were extremely well versed with today's digital offerings and the majority were planning to create or refresh their digital printing departments throughout this year.”
On the larger production side, Xerox iGen4 Australian sales have now exceeded 10 units, being sold to both new clients and existing iGen3 users. This top of the line digital colour production system is being installed across sites covering industries such as commercial printers, mailing houses, and photo book manufacturers.
Simon Lane, national manager for production services business at Fuji Xerox Australia, attributed the success to both timing and the Australian government investment allowance. “We launched paradigm-shifting print platforms at PacPrint, which grabbed the market’s attention” he said.
PacPrint also saw the Fuji Xerox Australia announcement of its Hire Purchase finance agreement. This is designed to assist eligible businesses to take advantage of the government’s investment allowance that gives small businesses the opportunity to gain tax benefits on the purchase of capital equipment through to the end of 2009.
Lane went on to say how genuinely impressed he was by the “resilience and entrepreneurial nature of our many customers, who are seeing 2009 as an opportunity to win customers and grow their business.”
In addition to customers and business on the stand, Fuji Xerox Australia sponsored the Leading Commercial Printers Group evening, held at the Lagerfield Bar and Beer Garden at Crown. It was at this event I had the honour of presenting Robert Black, the director of the International Centre of Graphic Technology (ICGT), School of Design, at RMIT University, with the 2009 Innovation in Continuing Education Award on behalf of EDSF and Xerox.
Making the presentation to Robert Black in conjunction with Fuji Xerox at PacPrint. From Left to Right: Brett Maishman (National Commercial Print Business Manager, Fuji Xerox Australia), Brett Dashwood, EDP, Robert Black, Paul McLean (Go to Market Strategic Marketing Team Manager, Fuji Xerox Asia Pacific).
PacPrint was a great hit for Océ too. Herbert Kieleithner, Océ-Australia’s manager, marketing and strategic accounts for production printing, suggested that even though exhibitors may have been expecting PacPrint to be something of a disappointment, “the actual event however turned out to be the exact opposite, with many more visitors than expected and some solid interest in the products on display.”
Océ was very happy with the level of enquiries, which translated into a good number of sales off the stand and some excellent prospects for the near future. Although they were unable to present an actual JetStream on the stand, the Océ Production Printing division showcased the JetStream and ColorStream systems in a virtual environment with life size images, samples of printed output and large sample reels demonstrating various applications, stocks and presentations.
“This was also complemented by the visit of Robert Koeckeis from Poing, director business development, inkjet technologies, who helped with the JetStream technology presentations, and customer discussions. Kieleithner was happy to say, “this worked very well and the level of enthusiasm among potential customers for both systems was very high. There was similar interest in our document printing and wide format offerings which points to a very promising 12 months. I would rate PacPrint ’09 as a highly successful event from Océ’s point of view.”
I actually caught up with Robert Koeckeis, and PacPrint was a culmination of what we had achieved on earlier successful trips to Australia, but now with more excellent case histories to discuss and new JetStream models to showcase. “There was certainly a very positive feeling about the whole enterprise and this was reflected in the number of people I spoke to with a positive interest in production print, particularly continuous feed”, said Koeckeis. “Our staff on the Océ stand were kept busy from the first day fielding questions and hosting in depth discussions about our production printing equipment. Given that Australia has yet to see an Océ JetStream model, the level of enthusiasm and knowledge concerning the product is exceptionally strong.”
From the software side, it was great to see new technology announcements from PrintSoft and from Objectif Lune.
The theme for the PrintSoft stand was “Document Lifecycle Production,” highlighting how PrintSoft’s suite of systems work together as a solution to deliver outstanding results and performance for business. Specifically, PrintSoft demonstrated several of their key integrated technologies; PReS Designer, WebDirect, Workflow-Q and MailDirect Server.
Andrew White, PrintSoft’s Asia Pacific general manager, said that PrintSoft “had a terrific response from visitors to the exhibition.” He went on to indicate that since PacPrint they have been very “busy responding to requests for further information, product demonstrations and trial systems.”
From Objectif Lune, we saw the launch of PlanetPress v7.0. Didier Gombert, global managing director, said that the latest version has about 60 new features. Objectif Lune’s software is designed to automate document workflows, for the likes of transactional, transpromo and label generation requirements, through both its PlanetPress and PrintShop Mail products.
PrintShop Mail is also now compatible with DirectSmile, the leading solution for image personalisation, and Objectif Lune also launched PrintShop Web at PacPrint. PrintShop Web is an integrated web to print solution for personalised document print management over the Web.
...and before I close off this segment on PacPrint, I wanted to go back to
Océ briefly. The Océ company band belted out a few tunes after the show on a number of days. Servio Notermans, Océ Australia’s managing director, is part of the band’s line-up, who three months before the show picked up a saxophone for the first time and played it like a pro. The band is led by Mike Boyle, business unit manager, and according to Notermans the band practised every day for three months leading up to PacPrint. “After all”, he said, “if you don’t sell anything at a trade show, you can at least have some music!”
Here is a photo of Servio Notermans rocking it out on the sax!
Photo courtesy of www.print21online.com.
Segment Four (the conclusion of the PacPrint 2009 review)
By Brett Dashwood edp – Vice President Asia Pacific OutputLinks
Over the last couple of months, we’ve spread out my review and wrap-up of PacPrint 2009, which was held in Melbourne, Australia in the last week of May.
I started with an overview and summary of the event, then hit some specifics for different hardware and software vendors. Now I wrap-up the event and look at the show and its future.
I think that the Managing Director of Heidelberg Australia New Zealand, Andy Vels Jensen, puts it best when he calls for the need for wider support from the printing community for future PacPrint shows to survive.
Heidelberg themselves had significantly less metal on the stand – when compared to other shows I have seen Heidelberg at around the world – but they still had one of the largest stands at PacPrint this year.
Vels Jensen believes that PacPrint is “an important investment in Heidelberg's future and our industry,” but doesn’t feel that all suppliers agree with this sentiment. He also mentioned that the greatest problem with PacPrint is that there is no common understanding about what to do with the show and what its function should be.
It was interesting to hear the statistics from the Heidelberg boss too. According to Vels Jensen’s own projections, PacPrint was planned to cost Heidelberg AU$42,000/hr (~US$34,000) to run and they expected to take AU$300,000/hr (~$US240,000) in orders (which is less than half what their cost and orders were at both PacPrint 2005 and 2001).
One of the things that were looked forward to at PacPrint were the PacPrint Forums:
- Wednesday: Visions for the Future, with keynote speaker Professor Neville Norman
- Thursday: The Environment, with keynote speaker Dr Peter Ellyard
- Friday: Future Leadership, with keynote speaker David Parkin
All forums lasted for a couple of hours and were facilitated by Elaine Canty. One of the most talked about Forum was the first, giving a great look into our industry in these troubled economic times.
A renowned economist, academic, teacher and researcher, business consultant and analyst, Professor Norman is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Melbourne and is an accomplished media and video performer who has addressed more than 4000 business and community groups in over a dozen countries.
In “Visions for the Future” Professor Norman looked at the current economic and business climate and discussed how businesses in the graphic arts and printing industries could plan their future directions and maximise opportunities.
When looking specifically at the printing industry here in Australia and how things have been effected by the market, Professor Norman suggested that the worst effected were the Victoria and New South Wales, the states with the largest populations and economies. Looking at the verticals within the industry, he reported that the worst affected areas were security printers, packaging, labels, and media publication such as magazines and newspaper printing.
Accompanying Professor Norman up the front was a panel consisting of some of the regions’ key printing industry CEOs. The panel consisted of Graham Morgan (GEON Group www.geongroup.com), Cliff Brigstocke (OPUS Print Group www.opusprintgroup.com.au), and John Wanless (Bambra Press www.bambrapress.com.au). Print21online (print21online.com) wrote that although the three businesses each cater to different needs and markets, their CEOs all maintain an undeniable optimism for the printing industry as a whole, speaking positively of the future that is (according to Professor Norman) not the majority view.
Graham Morgan from GEON feels that printing has a strong future and talk of print dying off is a long way off the mark. He feels that “technology drives change” and that printing’s future will be driven by multi-channel demand from clients who are becoming more sophisticated. “We’re in an industry that has been around a long time and it’s no accident that it has survived for thousands of years,” Morgan said. He went on to warn managers that they must “look forwards, not backwards”, and “not to cut back on marketing and other essential spends like apprentices.”
Cliff Brigstocke from OPUS made an interesting prediction in that he feels the printing industry will be one of the first industries to recover from the economic crisis. With the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) now talking about interest rate increases for the first time since 2008, Australia is looking good for recovery in these troubled times and we may get to see if Mr. Brigstocke’s prediction comes true sooner rather than later.
Another good comment from the panel came from John Wanless from Bambra Press. “Clients want better equipment and new technology,” and because of this his company has not stopped investing in new technology.
The fact that each of these three companies have their major operations in the states that were apparently worst hit, has only got to show good prospects for a great future in the printing industry in Australia.
As to the future of PacPrint, John Gorton – Group Exhibition Director from Reed Exhibitions Australia (the organisers of PacPrint) – had a message for all PacPrint 2009 attendees, “we hope that PacPrint 09 armed you with information, ideas, and inspiration which will help equip your business to improve, diversify, and prosper, into the future. We look forward to seeing you again in 2013.”
And writing an article about PacPrint 2009, there is one thing on a lighter note that I couldn’t help but mention.
Although they are often found in America, we haven’t seen many true cowboys from this region – the Sushi Cowboy in the 2006 Australian movie Kenny may have been the last (??) – however PacPrint didn’t let us down.
One stand that almost every attendee to PacPrint knew about was that of D2P (www.d2p.com.au). Known for his “left-of-centre” thinking, Managing Director John Weichard decided to go Western with their booth this year. PacPrint attendees were drawn to the their stand by a brightly coloured painted bull, as well as all of the booth staff dressed as cowboys and cowgirls...and of course a padded circle with a mechanical bull!
Throughout PacPrint, exhibitors, students, staff, and general attendees alike attempted to ride the raging bull with only a few lasting more than a few seconds.
Here is an action shot with John himself riding the wild bull:
If you’re interested, you can checkout more of the action online at http://pacprintrodeo.d2p.com.au.
Of course not to limit himself to being “in character” on the stand, John wore cowboy inspired, embroidered attire to the National Print Awards, which this year were held in conjunction with PacPrint.
Brett Dashwood with John Weichard and his wife Meeka at the National Print Awards held during PacPrint week.
Images courtesy www.pulsephotography.com.au and D2P.
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