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  • More Reconditioned Equipment: Signs of Our Economic Times
    By Mark Vruno - Wednesday June 15, 2011
    A MyPrintResource.com exclusive By Mark Vruno, MPR Portal Editor Akin to automakers, press manufacturers face the sullen fact that not very many commercial printer budgets can withstand brand-spanking-new hardware investments. That explains why still-struggling OEMs are more warmly embracing the idea of selling their own used or “pre-owned” output devices, be they conventional iron or digital presses. Why fight the online auctioneers that are so prevalent these days? If you can’t beat them, join ’em, seems to be the revamped vendor thinking – thoughts seldom uttered just a few short years ago. Like the rest of us, they’ve done the math: zero percent of zero equals zilch. Six years ago, Graphic Partners (GP), a 50-employee...

  • 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...

  • Less Yellow Is “Green†
    By Mark Vruno - Friday April 22, 2011
    It comes as no surprise that printed phone books are going the way of, well, computer documentation booklets. When the first Earth Day bloomed in 1971, telephone directories still were a mainstay in American households -- and directory presses in printing plants like RR Donnelley’s Dwight, IL facility thundered with work. Some 90 years earlier, the telephone was a new invention, and R.H. Donnelley (one of R.R.’s sons) was a clerk in his father’s then-subsidiary Chicago Directory Co.   But this week, it wasn’t tree-huggers who made the Yellow Pages Association change its name to the Local Search Association. Technological shifts and online/mobile search habits have led to the decline of phone book use on the East...

  • Does web-to-print add value?
    By Mark Vruno - Friday April 15, 2011
    Web-to-print solutions can add value to a printing operation; however, that’s not always the case. The value answer depends, says NAPL senior consultant Howie Fenton, on what you’re printing. “Printers ask me all the time why they’re not selling [web-to-print] better or why more people aren’t using their web-to-print,†Fenton reports. Consider whether it’s something that your customers can work with, and ask yourself, he says, “Does this take away from my value proposition?†Most web-to-print solutions include estimating, preflighting and proofing components. For example, PagePath Technologies’ MyOrderDesk is an eCommerce solution that combines web-to-print, automated...

  • 'Power On' for Resources Galore
    By Mark Vruno - Wednesday April 6, 2011
    Broadband Internet pipes are chock-full of web tools and online e-business solutions for all phases of your printing business. Power on your desktop computer, laptop or 4G smartphone and there are online tools available today for virtually everything print, from online quoting and colour management to remote proofing systems and media storage. This, of course, is the good and bad of the Internet, which can be a tremendous resource -- but there also is a lot of junk out there. So, how does a print firm owner or manager separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff? Your friendly Printing News editor can help to vet and harvest some high-quality online content.   When it comes to navigating websites, where to start? Not really a search engine...

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