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Volume 3, Issue 1 Eyes
Wide Open
Eyes
Wide Open: Sheridan
Group Becomes First Branded Printer Site on printCafe.com In
an era when technology is changing at blinding speed, how does a company
keep its eyes open for opportunities to improve customer relationships?
Ask the folks at United Litho and at its parent company, the Sheridan
Group. "We've
always wanted to stay on the leading edge of technology," said Doug
Ehmann, vice president and chief information officer of the Sheridan Group.
And they've done just that, recently signing with printCafe.com,
the only Web site providing e-commerce solutions for printers and publishers.
With printCafe, print customers will be able to order and access job information
via the Internet. "We
believe printCafe's business-to-business e-commerce systems will enable
us to provide new and significant benefits to our customers," said
Sheridan Group President and CEO John Saxton. "On an overall basis,
we believe that our relationships with our customers will be strengthened
and enhanced as a result of being able to provide these new capabilities." How
does it work? ULI installs one software package on its premises to streamline
the order entry end of the workflow. They then provide the customer with
a second software package (called Proteus),
plus installation, training and support. "These two packages communicate
with each other," explained Phil Salvo, client service leader. "Customers
can export files directly to us with a keystroke." The
software previously cost $10,000 per workstation, with an average installation
running around $40,000. This often made it prohibitive for smaller publishers.
"With this partnership with printCafe, we can now offer the software
free of charge to our customers," continued Salvo, who explained
that having been on the market for roughly eight years, Proteus has been
through a series of developments and is a proven system. In
fact, publishers nationwide have benefited from Proteus' user-friendly,
intuitive features, which help them save time and reduce expenses. Ken
Garner, president of United Litho, said that the software makes some fairly
complex capabilities much simpler. "Customers can run a number of
'what if' scenarios to determine their pricing. They can ask themselves,
'What if I increase the number of pages or add four-color process?'"
explained Garner. This ability makes for fewer surprises further along
in the production process. "It gives publishers a financial dashboard
indicator to give them a real-time idea of the effects of their changes,"
he said. In
addition to the benefits to financial planning, Proteus gives publishers
the ability to impose pages the way they will be printed. "It automatically
alerts the publisher of separation requirements for competitors' ads,
or placement requirements, such as right or left page," continued
Garner. Other
advantages to the Proteus system include automatic U.S. Postal Service
ad-edit ratio calculations, electronic dummy book development, template
issues and auxiliary insert placement. "Having these tools, customers
can more easily and accurately plan and manage their publications, which
is often a time-consuming and burdensome task," said Doug Ehmann
at the Sheridan Group. "This way, the carefully laid-out details
and specifications of a job come right to us electronically, saving time
on both ends and eliminating possibilities for error." Client
Service Leader Salvo anticipates a few-week installation with a two-day
customer training and additional courses offered on the ULI premises.
"The software can run on Mac or PC platforms," he said. "Customers
typically won't need to make hardware changes. The training will focus
more on acclimating publishers to a new workflow." ULI
is hiring a dedicated staff member to support customers with installation
and integration. "It's a great investment for us to make," explained
Garner. "We really believe that Proteus will be a real benefit for
all of us, but it won't work optimally if customers don't learn how to
use it most efficiently. It's just part of our commitment to ongoing customer
support and service." The
U.S. Postal Service filed "R2000-1 Omnibus Rate Case" with the
Postal Rate Commission at its Board of Governors meeting on January 12.
R2000-1 proposes a 12-15 percent rate increase in the periodical class.
Lobbyists for the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) and the American
Business Press (ABP) had expected this proposed increase for several weeks
prior. The increase, which could cost the publishing industry an estimated
$300 million more each year if passed in the current format, would go
into effect January 2001. Magazine
publishers, led by their trade groups and representatives from Time Inc.,
Meredith Corp. and McGraw-Hill, have been fighting the increase for months,
arguing that measures such as tighter bundling restrictions and increased
automation have cut costs, which should mean a smaller rate increase.
In November, U.S. Postmaster General William Henderson told publishers
at the American Magazine Conference in Boca Raton, Fla., that such efficiency
measures could keep the postal increase in the single digits. However,
it was a double-digit increase that was proposed. Once
filed, the Postal Rate Commission has 10 months to make its decision.
During this time, lobbyists and critics plan to testify against it. The
MPA and ABP are expecting to testify in March or April of this year. And
just two weeks after the proposal was made, the MPA's board of directors
approved unanimously a $10 million war chest to fight the increase and
push for long-term postal reform. Additional
increases that are part of this proposal would be a first class and postcard
increase of one cent - from 33 to 34 cents for first class and 20 to 21
for postcards. Increases were also proposed for business mail and Standard
A. For
more information on R2000-1, visit the U.S. Postal Service Web site at
www.usps.com/rates/. The website contains a current vs. proposed rates
chart, making it possible to compare your recent mailings to proposed
changes. Effective
March 1, 2000, United Litho customers experienced an increase of 7-9 percent
on Mead #3 Expression and 3-5 percent on #4 Dependoweb. Another increase
is expected on these papers sometime in the second quarter of the year.
Circumstances driving these increases include an expanding U.S. economy,
rising pulp prices, recent mergers with paper mills decreasing competition
and overseas markets continuing their strong economic rebound. Bryant
Wilson of Parsons Paper predicts that "... in spite of the factors
listed, I feel the mills will not go overboard on price increases. The
increases will be paced so as not to crush publishers' budgets (as has
been the case in the past)." United
Litho is proud to announce winning seven first place awards and 17 Awards
of Excellence in the 1999 PIVA Graphic Communications Competition. Each
year, the Printing Industries of Virginia (PIVA), our regional affiliate
of the Printing Industries of America, holds its competition for printers
in various fields. The judging is done by a panel of some of the most
knowledgeable professionals in the printing industry - members of the
Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (GATF). GATF has long been recognized
as the research center and manufacturing procedure elitists in North America.
Each category is judged on mechanical print quality, technical difficulty
and overall production of the submitted piece. We are honored to be acknowledged
by the industry experts at GATF. We
would like to thank our customers - whose publication excellence is exhibited
in this competition - and our press crews; digital prepress, bindery and
client support specialists; and planning and sales staff who take a special
interest in each publication we print and do an outstanding job of ensuring
quality production. The
following were winners in the "Magazine" category of the competition. First
Place Awards
of Excellence Contingencies
- September/October 1999 No
More Stripping: CTP
Technology Takes the Negative Out of Prepress Computer-to-plate
(CTP) imaging makes the entire prepress workflow digital, eliminating
the need to output negative film that must then be stripped and burned
onto plates. With CTP, all text and images are burned directly onto an
emulsified plate from an electronic file. Even though the idea of an all-digital
CTP workflow has been around since the early 1980s, computer technology
is finally catching up to allow digital pagination, imposition, trapping
and proofing. In
mid-December, United Litho installed an Agfa Galileo S platesetter to
help make the magic happen for its clients. "With CTP, we've eliminated
all problems associated with making conventional plates," said Chris
Azbill, vice president of operations. The same file used to produce a
digital HP blueline proof is used to make
the plate. "It's one less step in the process, so it's one less thing
to worry about."
Issues
like dust on the film, and problems with vacuum frames and registration
are things of the past. "Another advantage to CTP is that we no longer
have to archive the film," explained Azbill. "Aside from saving
us space, time and money, it saves the financial and environmental cost
of disposing of film, which is considered hazardous waste." The
changes at United Litho began long before the Galileo S arrived on the
scene. "About two years ago, we recognized that we needed to redesign
our front-end prepress workflow to be all digital," said Azbill.
"We began making conventional plates with just a single piece of
8-page imposed film." This step alone cut out the need to strip negatives
for platemaking. Proofing,
imposition and trapping have been digital processes for some time, making
the change to CTP much easier for ULI. "For us, the transition has
been very easy," said Azbill. ULI clients will also enjoy the easy
change. "The transition ULI is making now to CTP is absolutely transparent
and smooth for our customers," he said. "They won't have to
change a thing." The
printing industry is seeing more need for a CTP workflow than ever. "We
said that we would move to CTP when our customers asked for it,"
said Azbill. In 1999, some of ULI's accounts said that their situation
demanded a CTP workflow. "We're now responding to that need." "When
we decided to go with the Galileo, we decided to go with other Agfa products,"
explained Azbill. These products, including conventional plates and film,
as well as trapping and platechecking software, helped ease the transition.
Thanks
to planning and a smooth workflow implementation, ULI customers can now
move to CTP without any bumps in the road. An
Extraordinary Service Experience: American Gas There's
a saying that you can't get good service, good pricing and good quality
from one printer, but I think that's a cop-out," said Stacey Bell,
publisher and editor in chief of the award-winning magazine American Gas,
a publication of the American Gas Association
(AGA). "We get all three from United Litho." American
Gas, produced 11 times annually by the advocacy group, recently won an
American Society of Association Executives' 1999 Gold Circle Award for
most improved publication. "We've changed the editorial, replacing
some columns with new ones and shifting our editorial focus," explained
Bell. "We've also redesigned the magazine, developing a color template
so we can continue to create interesting, exciting layouts while maintaining
a cohesive look throughout the publication." "Our
readers have really liked the changes, too," added Bell. "In
a recent survey conducted by an independent research firm, more than half
of the respondents said they think the magazine's presentation and readability
have improved during the past year." The
four-color publication reaches more than 8,000 professionals in the natural
gas industry, in addition to members of Congress and other pertinent groups.
"We
began working with United Litho with our February 1999 issue. It coincided
with the publication's redesign, so it was a very exciting time,"
Bell explained. "We chose to work with United Litho partly because
of our increased press run (now 10,000). We had been working with a sheetfed
press, and the web press was simply more cost efficient." A
"typical day" for Bell is nonexistent. "Almost every day
is different," she said. "I'm primarily a juggler, as I think
most people are in the field of magazine publishing. From minute to minute,
I'm juggling different balls. The important part is to decide which balls
are rubber and which are glass—which
items I absolutely cannot drop." Aside
from producing a regular publication, Bell also works on other projects
for AGA. "I'm always on deadline," she said. "Some months,
everything seems to come together easily. Other months, there's a fresh
challenge every 10 minutes." "Each
issue of the magazine has about 15 columns or articles," Bell explained.
"Because we're an advocacy group, some of our topics demand a more
lengthy review process, sometimes pushing back the deadlines and making
things a little crazy." With
this kind of schedule, how does ULI help? "Heather Baker is the best
client support specialist I've worked within my entire career," said
Bell. "In addition to that, United Litho offers excellent courses
on different aspects of publications and printing. I don't think many
printers offer that kind of resource," she said, citing ULI's mailing
services as another big help. "In
the 19 months that I've been at AGA, we've never missed a ship date,"
said Bell. "We have always gotten our issues to the printer on time,
and they have always turned it around for us." Those
of you who read the title of this article and got really excited, shame
on you. Since we process so many titles, we see lots of pages go through,
and occasionally we will find an advertisement or editorial page that
violates the government's rules for reproducing currency. As the printer,
we are responsible for what we print; and if we break the law, the penalty
can be 15 years in prison and a $5,000 fine—something
we don't particularly want to experience! Time Magazine learned this the
hard way in 1985 when they featured U.S. currency in actual size and full
color on the magazine's cover. The
Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992 permits color illustrations of U.S.
currency provided:
Note
that the word "part" is used—it
doesn't matter if you are just using a corner of a bill or the portrait—it's
got to be less than 75 percent or more than 150 percent. It also doesn't
matter if the illustration is distorted or modified (e.g. another portrait
in place of the one in the original). Photographs
and printed illustrations of U.S. and foreign coins may be used for any
purpose. I guess they're not worried about someone trying to pass off
a bunch of paper coins. Stamps
have a different set of rules. If
they are cancelled (by a true cancellation stamp, not one modified in
Photoshop), they can be printed in color at any size. But if they're brand
new, they are restricted to the same 75/150 percent dimensions as currency. There
are other documents that need to be treated as currency (reduced 75 percent
or enlarged 150 percent). They include: traveler's checks, money orders,
check drafts, bonds, gold certificates and register receipts and tapes. Finally,
some identification materials are required to be printed only in black
and white to uphold the laws against counterfeiting. They include: passports,
badges, birth certificates, diplomas, immigration papers, certificates
of U.S. citizenship, parking permits, driver's licenses, ID cards, transportation
tickets, auto titles, signatures and school transcripts. More
information about the reproduction of currency can be found at the Secret
Service's Web site, See you next issue! |
