More on Memjet-enabled Excelegraphix 4200 wide-format ink-jet printer

The following is a portion of an article authored by Patrick Henry, who reviewed product announcements and product releases at the Graph Expo trade show. The portion of the article that I’ve reprinted below is the portion that deals with the first commercially available Memjet-enabled wide-format printer. (The new printer will not be available until sometime next Spring.)

Commentary & Analysis

Whole is Greater than Sum of Parts in KBA-Donnelley, Xanté-Memjet Joint Ventures Announced At Graph Expo

By Patrick Henry
Published: September 13, 2011

As print technology providers go, Xanté is not a large company, but it innovates at a pace that would distinguish a vendor of any size. Its desire to offer small printers an affordable wide-format inkjet production system led it to seek a partnership with Memjet, whose color inkjet advancements have been recognized with a 2011 InterTech Technology Award.



Robert Ross, CEO of Xanté, said that high-volume Memjet inkjet heads enable the 42" wide device, named Excelagraphix 4200, to print at a speed he described as "unreal"-more specifically, one foot per second in full color. Xanté built the printer platform and supplies the controlling software.



The Excelagraphix 4200, according to Ross, is 90% complete in terms of application intent. "We want the customer to tell us what the remaining 10% should be," he said. Xanté will use Graph Expo and other upcoming trade shows as market research opportunities to identify optimal end-uses.



Ross said he believes that the packaging market, in particular, is "screaming" for an inkjet solution that can create prototypes and economically handle personalized short runs. One such type of customer, he said, might be a pharmaceutical company with hundreds of SKUs that it typically distributes in very small batches.



Xanté expects to ship the Excelagraphix 4200 next spring, Ross said. It will be the first wide-format equipment built around Memjet printheads, which presently are used in office and label printers.



Len Lauer, president and CEO of Memjet, praised Xanté for bringing the device to technical completion within a year of the project's commencement. He said that Memjet has been striving for a commercial wide-format implementation of its printhead technology for four years and that Excelagraphix 4200 represents that milestone.



Michael Puyot, president of Memjet's wide format division, said that the Excelagraphix 4200 owes its exceptionally high speed to a stitched array of five 8.7" wide Memjet printhead channels comprising more than 350,000 separate nozzles. This array can print at up to 1,600 dpi on materials as thick as corrugated packaging stocks, thanks to an adjustable printhead-height feature engineered into the Excelagraphix 4200 by Xanté.



Both technology partners emphasized the affordability of the Excelagraphix 4200 for small- and mid-sized printers, a segment that can find itself priced out of the market for production inkjet systems.



Frank Romano, print technology authority and professor emeritus at RIT, was on hand for a Graph Expo media briefing at which the Excelagraphix 4200 was announced. He said that the device could be "disruptive" in enabling smaller firms to compete with big ones for inkjet market share.



The Excelagraphix 4200 is "a high-level machine for small companies," Romano said. "It is a new kind of machine for the marketplace that needs it most."

ARC's China-based operation acquires company in Shenzhen, China area

News Release

ARC's Chinese Joint Venture Acquires Shenzhen Firm

WALNUT CREEK, CA, Sep 27, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --

ARC (NYSE: ARC), one of the nation's leading document solutions companies, today announced that UNIS Document Solutions ("UDS"), its joint venture in China, has acquired a leading print-on-demand service provider in Shenzhen, China, through a newly- formed subsidiary which will operate under the brand name "UNIS Print General," or "UPG."

UPG operates a centralized service facility in downtown Shenzhen, one of the world's fastest growing cities. The city is Southern China's financial hub, and is headquarters to a high concentration of technology, business service, and manufacturing companies. UPG offers a variety of outsourced print-on-demand services, onsite services, and equipment sales. The company employs 40 people and had year-end revenues of USD $11 million in 2010.

"Shenzhen is a bright spot, even in a vibrant economy like China's," said K. "Suri" Suriyakumar, Chairman, President and CEO of ARC. "While we have moderated our M&A activity in the past several years, UPG is one of a handful of great opportunities to meaningfully grow our market share in China. There are hundreds of technology, financial and business service companies in the area, several of which are already our customers. With UPG joining our team, it helps us consolidate another strategic hub in China and provides an excellent platform on which to expand our business."

ARC and UDS already have a significant operating presence in the Northern and coastal parts of the Chinese mainland with three locations in Beijing and two locations in the industrial hub and port city of Shanghai. Along with the UDS office in Hong Kong, UPG anchors the company in the South. Maintaining a strategic footprint is an important part of ARC's business model as it facilitates the distribution and adoption of the company's outsourced services, improves access to its cloud technology offerings, and consolidates market share.

Henry Shen, General Manager of UPG and one of the company's founders, said, "We're looking forward to working with UNIS and ARC. Their experience, geographical distribution, financial strength and technology expertise are huge advantages we can use to grow our business. We're very excited about becoming a part of the team."

About UDS UDS is a joint venture between U.S.-based ARC, and China-based Unisplendour Corporation Limited (UNIS), the high- technology manufacturer and retailing giant closely associated with Tsinghua University in Beijing. ARC holds a 65% controlling ownership stake in the venture. UDS pairs the digital document management solutions of ARC with the brand recognition and Chinese distribution channel of UNIS to deliver reprographics equipment, document management services, and digital reprographics services throughout China.

About ARC (NYSE: ARC) ARC (American Reprographics Company) (NYSE: ARC), is one of the nation's leading document solutions companies providing business-to-business document management technology and services to the architectural, engineering and construction, or AEC industries. The Company also provides document management services to companies in non-AEC industries, such as technology, financial services, retail, entertainment, and food and hospitality. ARC provides its services through its suite of technology products, a network of hundreds of service centers around the world and on-site at more than 5,500 customer locations. The Company's service centers are digitally connected as a cohesive network, allowing the provision of services to more than 120,000 active customers.

Joel’s comment:

In the Press Release, it mentions that UPG’s has 40 employees and annual revenues (in 2010) of $11,000,000 (USD.) That works out to $275,000 annual revenue per employee, which is an extraordinarily high annual-revenue-per-employee number, even for reprographers in the U.S., where prices and wages are reportedly much higher than in China. In fact, I don’t know of any U.S. reprographer who has ever achieved such a high annual-revenue-per-employee. (I am aware of one U.S. reprographer who came close to that number, years ago, but, sorry, I ain’t gonna say who that was.) Anyway, I’ve been told that wages in China are ultra-low compared to wages in the U.S. If that’s the case, I find myself wondering how in the world a reprographics company in China can generate annual revenues of $275,000 USD per employee. Anyone know how that could be???

Pitney Bowes Management Services, one of the leaders in the Managed Print Services Industry, announces new sector leaders

Pitney Bowes Management Services Appoints New Sector Leaders

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Press release from the issuing company

Patrick Fogarty, Timothy Healy and Stephen Whetstone Join PBMS
 


STAMFORD, Conn., – Pitney Bowes Management Services (PBMS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc., today announced the appointment of three new executives to lead its commercial, legal and public sectors, including:

Patrick Fogarty, vice president and commercial sector leader;

Timothy Healy, vice president and public sector leader; and

Stephen Whetstone, vice president and legal sector leader.

These three sectors currently make up the vast majority of the company's service contracts and represent significant growth opportunities for its document and customer communications management services. 



"We are very excited to be entering a new phase in our global services business," said Vicki O'Meara, executive vice president and president, Pitney Bowes Services Solutions. "Our organization is now aligned with our customers and markets and we are very pleased to bring aboard three very successful and dynamic leaders to develop and grow each sector. Pat, Tim and Steve each bring vast experience and industry leadership as well as a proven ability to build long standing client relationships."
 


Patrick Fogarty has more than 22 years of experience driving strategic account growth in document solutions and services. He joins PBMS from Williams Lea, where he was national vice president, Business Development and Enterprise Solutions. Fogarty was responsible for development, strategy, marketing and solutions across North America and drove customized and transformational client solutions through process re-engineering and leveraging technology. Fogarty earned a J.D. from St. John's University and a B.A. from Fairfield University.

"I am pleased to be joining Pitney Bowes and to have the opportunity to lead its Commercial Sector business," said Fogarty. "Having been in the document solutions and services industry for more than two decades, I have gained immense respect for PBMS, their blue chip client list, and the quality and innovative services they offer. I am looking forward to building on that winning tradition and driving the commercial business to the next level of success." 



Timothy Healy brings 39 years of experience in the mailing industry. He joins PBMS from the U.S. Postal Service, where he most recently led the Retail Products and Services business. In this capacity, Healy drove more than $18 billion in retail sales in 2010 through direct U.S. Postal Service sites and retail partnership locations. He was also an Officer of the U.S. Postal Service for the last two years.

Stephen Whetstone brings a wealth of legal market experience, having practiced for 13 years as an attorney and partner at two top global law firms, as well as building and leading legal services and global legal discovery businesses. Whetstone joins PBMS from Iron Mountain where he led their Legal Discovery business. Prior to Iron Mountain, Whetstone was a senior executive at Stratify, Inc., a legal services and eDiscovery cloud technology business, from 2005 to 2007, when it was acquired by Iron Mountain. His law firm experience was at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, LLP, where he was an equity litigation partner, and Skadden, where he was a securities litigator. Whetstone earned a J.D. from Northeastern University and a B.A. from Bates College.



Pitney Bowes Management Services designs, implements and operates global solutions that provide enterprise clients with customer communication, mail, print and document lifecycle services that help create more effective, efficient and compliant business processes and operations.

NRI issues Press Release about project in Massachusetts

NRI, Suffolk Construction Move Fast-Track Project Forward for UMass

NEW YORK— September 19, 2011— NRI is supporting Suffolk Construction’s efforts to rapidly move forward a major construction project for the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester without using traditional construction documents to direct the efforts.

Typically, construction projects begin with full schematics created by architects and engineers and approved by contractors. But when Suffolk was tasked with building the Sherman Center for UMass, the project’s tight time frame required a different approach.

“Because this was a fast-track project, Suffolk was working only from design packages, which were constantly evolving as the project continued,” said Peter Sarapas, NRI regional manager. “That makes it difficult to keep everything in order.”

Suffolk called on NRI to manage the frequently changing documents to ensure that everyone involved in the project had the right versions with the most up-to-date information, ensuring that everyone on the construction team and all subcontractors were working from the latest information. In addition to the extensive document management services, NRI is providing Suffolk with a complete rate of equipment to allow for on-site printing and scanning with full support for continuous availability.

“By partnering with NRI and their on-site equipment and services, we’ve gained the advantage of access to real-time digital information,” said Jason Seaberg, Suffolk Construction Project Manager. “Through this we’ve been able to gain a competitive advantage, which translates to time and money savings on our project management and coordination costs with subcontractors and suppliers.”

Building from design packages is becoming more common as a method to decrease the time between project concept and the beginning of construction. By creating the construction documents in phases as the project moves forward, contractors can begin work while architects and engineers design subsequent phases of the building.

While design packages more projects forward, they also add complexity to coordination, communication and timing of projects, requiring extensive document management services such as on-line document availability and approval for all parties involved.

“Anyone can do the easy projects,” said Sarapas. “The speed of this project increased both the complexity and the importance of keeping everyone on the same page. That’s what we do well.” The Sherman Center project is on track for completion in 2012.

Contact: Marc Fromowitz

NRI (212) 366-7163 marc.fromowitz@nrinet.com

NRI currently has locations in New York, New Jersey, Washington, DC, Pennsylvania,

Massachusetts, California and Georgia.

Triangle Printers Builds Confidence with Canon's Revgen Program

HE LOOKS REALLY EXCITED, HUH?

Triangle Printers Builds Confidence with Canon's Revgen Program

Published on September 20, 2011

In part 1 of our 2 part Educational Video Series we learn about Triangle Printers, some of the services they offer and how they've reached their full potential with Canon's Revgen Program.successwithprint.com.

Please allow video to load before playing if you do not have a high speed connection or if you are having network problems.