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  • Does Your Business Suffer from Disorganitis?
    - Thursday June 2, 2011
    By Philip Beyer, president, Beyer Printing and Ebiz Products (Nashville), and author of System Busters Disorganitis? You may have heard it called Reworkitis or Noclueitis, It’s even  been referred to as This-is-Normalitis, within the printing industry. This is a disease that is difficult to cure, especially if you don’t recognize the symptoms -- or are in denial that you have it. Symptoms may vary from mild to severe: HEADACHES over recurring mistakes HAIR LOSS due to losing money from wasted time & resources PANIC ATTACKS from missing deadlines ULCERS from making excuses to customers  INSOMNIA from long hours training & retraining personnel  RED EYE from over working and no personal life ANGER OUTBURST...

  • Printing Politics
    By Bob Hall - Tuesday May 31, 2011
    At the annual Capitol Hill Fly-in, NPES and Printing Industries of America members will buttonhole members of Congress to promote issues that affect the printing industry. Fair trade, small business taxes, health care, and “legal reform†all are on the agenda. While I may have questions about some of the industry positions on these issues, there are two with which I am in total agreement – the importance of a healthy and viable U.S. Postal Service and the need to oppose the so-called “Do Not Mail†efforts sprouting up across the country. For some odd reason, those latter two issues got me to thinking about Ben Franklin. Most in this industry are aware that Franklin was a printer. Some may not know that he was the...

  • In the Eye of the Storm
    By Karen Hall - Monday May 23, 2011
    Spring is always a busy time for the Quick Printing staff. First there’s the Annual Franchise Review in the April issue, followed by the Top 100 for the June issue. Spring and number crunching just seem to go together around here. This year’s Top 100 is finished and looking good. Overall sales were up by 7.27%, sales per shop was up, sales per employee grew, the number of locations held steady, and for the first time in years, the number of employees was also on the rise. In previous years that would be a job well done and we would settle into the rhythm of our regular production schedule as we reach the season for attending franchise conventions. That’s not the case this year. We have a new project in the works that is...

  • Graphic Designer's Perspective: Technological Innovation + ROI = Marketing Oxymoron?
    - Monday May 23, 2011
    by Gale Grimmenga, Principal at Creative Impulse (www.creativeimpulseinc.com) Marketing technologies may change, but the goal remains the same: to capture the attention of and make a connection with a specific audience in order to inform, promote, educate, or influence -- increasing return on investment. Or is it? We used to develop innovation to a forecasted demand or anticipated need. But now that we are in a media and technology frenzy of evolution, we must sense and respond to demand 24/7. Whether you are trying to keep your company current with leading-edge equipment, digital technology, or marketing opportunities, you probably are asking, "Where are the controls to drive this baby?" The swift, fast-paced, immediate, no-editing...

  • Take Time
    By Bob Hall - Monday May 16, 2011
    Vacation, Urlaub, vacances, vacanza, vacaciones, holiday – everybody needs one from time to time. In our 24/7, constant contact world relaxation is often hard to come by, but it is necessary for both physical and mental health. As one wag once put it, vacation is what you take when you can’t take what you’ve been taking any longer. Well, we are taking a vacation next week and going back to the Gulf Coast, where Karen spent the summers of her youth. We have absolutely no concrete plans other than arriving, but I have been looking on the Internet for restaurants and attractions we might consider. In doing so, I ran across a site with advice for Northerners moving to the South. For no other reason than it’s...

  • GPO Work Has Signifcantly Decreased for Private-Sector Printers (But It Makes No Sense/Cents)
    - Wednesday May 11, 2011
    By Deborah Snider Sr. VP, e-LYNXX Corp. Less than half of all printing handled by the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) is now produced by private sector printers. Previously, for many years back to 1982, the GPO procurement system had been one of the strongest public-private sector partnerships that existed, and it had served as a model for how business and government could work together to accomplish a common goal. In this case, that goal had been delivering top-quality printing, on time, with competitive pricing. When Congress passed Title 44 of the U.S. Code, its idea had been to have all federal government printing channeled through the GPO by all federal agencies, including the Executive Office of the President, Congress, the...

  • Making More With Less
    By Bob Hall - Monday May 9, 2011
    Last week I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of franchise leaders at the Ricoh Franchise Print Council in San Francisco. It was a little strange, since I had known some of them for many years and had learned a great deal of what I know about the quick and small commercial printing industry from them. One of the topics I addressed was the changing face of both the franchise segment and the top companies as monitored in QP’s annual Top 100 survey over the past 20 years. For the franchise segment, the total number of franchise systems declined from 23 in 1991 to 14 in 2001 to six in 2011. Of course, not all of the 1991 systems have disappeared. Many have been acquired by the remaining systems and operate under their...

  • Connecting with Moran Printing
    By Mark Vruno - Thursday May 5, 2011
    At the EFI Connect user group conference last week in Las Vegas, I sat down with Neill Cato, chief information officer of Moran Printing in Baton Rouge, LA. Moran, a 130-year-old firm with annual sales of approximately $17 million and 130 employees, offers offset and digital printing as well as fulfillment services. While sales have suffered over the past couple of years, “We’ve been fortunate,†Cato said -- more on why in a moment.   Sheetfed presses in Moran Printing’s 55,000-square-foot plant include a 4-color, 40-inch Komori Lithrone perfector, installed in 2007, along with a 6-color, 26-inch Komori of 1990s vintage, and an even older, 40-inch Heidelberg Speedmaster 102. On the digital side, Moran runs an HP...

  • Keyboard Nostalgia?
    By Bob Hall - Monday May 2, 2011
    If I were to mention Royal, you’d probably immediately think of a wedding. Here in West Virginia, if I were to mention Remington, the first thought would probably be shotguns. However, I’m talking about typewriters – for those of you who remember these now ancient machines. In their day, typewriters were the bee’s knees of technology. The steno pool morphed into the typing pool, and this mechanical marvel ruled the world of written communications for decades. I was even forced to take a typing course in high school, although I suspect it was as much about my handwriting as it was about course requirements. Nowadays if you want extra copies of a document, you just hit the print button. In the typewriter era, you...

  • Where Are The Young Guns in Quick Printing?
    By John Giles - Thursday April 28, 2011
    Industry consultant John Stewart recently released the 2011-2012 Quick Printing Industry Pricing Study. The document is packed with interesting pricing information, but to me one of the most striking observations was not in pricing, but in the Basic Company Data section. According to the report, the average age of the 350 printers participating in the report was 55 years old. The average age of the company was 28 years. If this report is representative of the industry, then quick printing is going to go through some major changes in the next 10 years. The age factor raises more questions than answers. Are younger people not coming into the industry? The baby boomers who started the quick printing industry are still here, but where are...

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