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USPS to Increase Stamp
Price May 12
The U.S. Postal Service will increase the price of a 1-oz. First-Class stamp from 41 to 42 cents on May 12. Prices for other mailing services, such as Standard Mail, Periodicals, Package Services (including single-piece Parcel Post), and Special Services will also change. The average increase by class of mail is at or below the rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index, the USPS said. New prices for shipping services, including Express Mail and Priority Mail, will be announced in March.
DemandBridge Grows Revenues
DemandBridge, a provider of software solutions for print distributors, announced that revenue from new customers for 2007 increased nearly 400 percent from the previous year. To keep pace with its growth, DemandBridge, formerly TopForm Inc., has doubled its development and technical services staff.
Western States Envelope &
Label Turns 100
Manufacturer Western States Envelope & Label, Butler, Wis., celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. The company was founded in 1908 by George French Moss, who opened the company’s first location in Milwaukee. By 1922, Western States Envelope housed one of the world’s largest inventories. It continued to invest in technology, and beginning in the 1990s, Western States had the latest envelope printing and production equipment, doubling its size and expanding its product lines. By 2002, Western States became the country’s sixth largest envelope producer, creating 14 million envelopes each day.
Through 2008, Western States will promote its anniversary to customers and vendors with a one-of-a-kind diorama style letter holder depicting the first manufacturing plant with an early replica of one of the delivery trucks parked in front. Inside each holder are engraved cards, gold embossed labels and gold trimmed envelopes. Western States will also honor its 100 years through special print industry advertising initiatives and an anniversary celebration held at each of its five locations.
Glatfelter Earns Triple
Chain-of-Custody Certifications
Glatfelter, a global manufacturer of specialty papers and engineered products based in York, Pa., has achieved chain-of-custody certification to the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) standards at its North American production facilities in Spring Grove, Pa., and Chillicothe, Ohio. The certifications indicate that the company has implemented responsible forest management to its longstanding policies, and that chain-of-custody procedures exist to pass certified fiber from the forest, through the manufacturing processes and onto customers and end users.
Industry Leaders ‘Connect’ with New Software
Distributors in the print channel have a long history of developing efficient workflows for their customers and making purchasing custom items simple and affordable. Connect Four51, a new program from Four51 Inc., Minneapolis, brings the same efficiencies proposition to print providers and their partners. The program is an e-commerce platform, a custom-build product catalog and a lights-out XML data stream that can provide ERP data.
The Connect program, which was unveiled at the PSDA CEO Summit in Tucson, Ariz., Feb. 7, began as a discussion last year between distributors Dan Schroer, Prograde, Cincinnati; Greg Gill, Performance Press Inc., Apopka, Fla.; Four51, and executives from Ennis Inc., Midlothian, Texas.
“Our industry is struggling to automate the order flow from a distributor to a manufacturer,” Schroer says. “I’m a customer of both Ennis and Four51, and I wanted to be able to put an icon on my customer’s desktop, using the Four51 software, of an Ennis product the client orders from me.”
Schroer asked the two companies to meet with him in Minneapolis to talk about a potential solution, and Gill joined later discussions in Texas. “This program highlights the distributor who is reliant on his channel partners, and it connects all of us to drive maximum efficiencies to the end client,” Schroer says.
Printers upload their product data and photos to Four51, and distributors literally “drag and drop” items from any Connect trade printer to create a custom website for a client. “Distributors won’t have to build templates or manipulate the images ourselves to set up websites, and that will make a huge difference,” Gill says. Typically, websites take him 15 to 20 hours to complete.
Connect also combines some of Four51’s established e-commerce offerings as well as the back-office reporting capabilities released with Business One, the company’s ERP software released Jan. 31 in partnership with SAP America. While printers have been able to pull orders from the Four51 system for some time, little time was saved because most of them had to be keyed in again. If a printer so desires, the software can simply send the job to a print device without any touches. This “lights-out” software also generates back-end reporting data to printers and distributors, filling gaps in accounting, inventory and CRM programs.
Ennis does not plan to retrofit its traditional machines to take data this way, but the company still anticipates efficiency savings by setting up an electronic tool to share data with distributors and back-end systems.
According to Eli Sackett, director of Connect Four51, the program can also benefit traditional equipment by segmenting jobs. In testing the system, he found that printers can save six to seven percent of their cost. “We’re asking for three percent of the wholesale cost, not upfront,” Sackett says. “Ultimately, everyone wins, and everyone saves money. We haven’t had a single company say ‘no’ so far.”
In addition to Ennis, Connect brings together many companies in the distribution channel, including Acculink, Business Stationery Inc., Business Cards Tomorrow, CE Printed Products, FormStore Incorporated, Graphic Dimensions, and others. [See box for the complete list.] Schroer, Gill and Four51 hope that number continues to grow.
Ennis has been working on the company’s e-commerce strategy, says Steve Osterloh, Ennis’ director of marketing, and Ennis’ Business Forms and Supplies catalog will be online in two or three months, with the balance of Ennis’ offerings in six months. “A lot of this came from our homegrown e-commerce tools, such as MICR Link or our ChangingInc connection. We’re not abandoning those tools, we’re just adding to them,” he says. “Our goal here is to grow sales for the long term, not concentrate on the hours or money savings.” He added “Of course, going forward, things will become more and more automated. We want to connect with the tools our customers are using.”
In the future, Schroer says, he hopes to bring the solution to end user franchises and to find more products, such as office supplies and promotional products, on the network. “For the first time, there’s a process that enables both distributors and manufacturers to seamlessly pass information, and for both of them to realize workflow efficiencies. I need manufacturers who ‘get it’ and want to live in the e-commerce world,” Schroer says. “This is very exciting.”
Ward/Kraft Wins Awards
Ward/Kraft Inc. won 14 awards in the 33rd International Gallery competition sponsored by IAPHC, an international organization for individuals in the printing and graphic arts industry. The company won awards in the graphic design, flexography plastic cards, sheetfed offset waterless printing, and digital small-format devices categories.
Staples Cuts Off Paper Supplier
Staples Inc. severed all contracts with Singapore-based Asia Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd. (APP), one of the world’s largest paper companies, according to a Wall Street Journal story. Until recently, Staples sourced about 9 percent of its total paper supply from APP and used the paper for its own Staples-branded stock, mainly photocopy and office paper. Staples had stuck with the company even as other large paper sellers in the United States, Europe and Asia, including Office Depot Inc., stopped buying from APP in recent years because of alleged environmental misdeeds.
N.Y. Printing Company Closes
Tech Valley Printing, Watervliet, N.Y., closed due to unspecified economic difficulties as reported in a company filing last week with the state Department of Labor, according to a story in The Business Review. The firm closed following a series of layoffs dating back to November 2007. The company had annual revenue of $17 million in 2005. In December 2005, it acquired Staffield Printing Co. of Clifton Park, N.Y., adding 20 employees to its workforce. It had previously purchased Baronet Litho Inc., a specialist heatset printer in Johnstown, and State Color, a printer in Schenectady.
Global Imaging Acquires Better Quality Business Systems
Global Imaging Systems, a Xerox company based in Tampa, Fla., has acquired Better Quality Business Systems Inc., New Albany, Ind. The acquisition continues Global’s development of a national network of office technology suppliers to serve its expanding base of small and mid-size businesses. Better Quality serves customers primarily with products from Kyocera-Mita. The company will continue supporting its Kyocera-Mita customers as it begins offering Xerox’s full range of office printing products.
HP Strategy Unveiled at PMA
HP announced its strategy to help customers create, access, manage and publish their content; generate new publishing occasions; use the web and other software assets to enable the entire content creation, management and publishing ecosystem; and apply these capabilities to high-growth vertical markets. The effort is being led through HP’s Web Services and Software Business, which was created last fall within the company’s Imaging and Printing Group. As part of the announcement, HP unveiled several retail photo printing solutions and services that provide consumers the tools to personalize their photos and publish customized creative output. HP also announced it is now offering its Snapfish by HP members the ability to order posters online to be picked up the same day at any of Staples’ 1,400 “Copy and Printer Centers” nationwide.
Hot Off the Press
Manufacturers—get the word out about your new products, equipment, capabilities and services. Email details to abrown@psda.org.