Press Release Almanac: 15 May 2008

Keep up-to-date with the latest industry releases.

Sun chemical turns up the heat in drupa build-up
Roland DG launches the Roland Cartridge Recycling Programme
GS joins XEROX Business Partner Program
LithoTechnics Releases Metrix(r) 3 for PowerPC Platform
PLANATOL Adhesive at drupa 2008

At drupa, Sun Chemical will be announcing 'world firsts' in UV curing printing inks and flexible packaging, advances in water-based printing technology and international strategic partnerships. The company will be on stand B75, Hall 6, at the show in Düsseldorf from May 29 to June 11. 
 
For the first time at drupa, Sun Chemical will be showing security and brand protection solutions, is one example of the specialist markets within which the company has an ever-expanding presence. Sun Chemical Security has been active for several years and has grown a customer profile of national governments, major brand owners around the world and converters interested in offering brand protection features as part of their own portfolio.  Visitors to the show will be able to explore the company's products that go from generic entry-level up to very high security proprietary technologies. Sun Chemical's speciality is product and document authentication, which means being able to distinguish a fake item from the genuine product at the touch of a button using covert machine-readable inks and coatings.
 
A new range of market-leading sheetfed offset process inks will build on the unparalleled success of the World Series launched at drupa four years ago. Sun Chemical will also unveil a 'world first', a new range of UV curing inks - called SUNCURE(r) Advantage - that comprises around 30% sustainable materials.
 
In packaging, Sun Chemical will be using drupa as the platform for advanced colour management solutions for brand owners and designers as well as printers. Latest developments on Sun Chemical's FastJet(r) digital presses and new coating technologies will also be a key focus at the show.

In order to meet the challenges of the printing industry even better, Sun Chemical and UPM-Kymmene, both world leaders in their respective fields, are jointly developing a new magazine paper and ink concept for heatset printing. This is part of Sun Chemical's Publication sector initiatives, where the company will be showing at drupa ways in which printers can enhance print quality and press productivity as a way to increase operating profits.  The offerings will include a unique, 'next-generation' matrix of products and services, which includes consumables, training, technical service, R&D and value packages for customers.  This robust set of services complements a range of innovative products designed specifically to add value for printers operating in the heatset, coldset and publication gravure markets. 

From industrial, there will be updates from the screen, optical discs and digital aftermarket. Felipe Mellado, corporate vice president and group managing director for Sun Chemical Europe, said: "We continuously push the limits of efficiency and strive to adopt the best operational practices to create value and remain competitive. Drupa is the perfect showcase to demonstrate our world-class initiatives that are helping our customers through quality, service

With industry estimates that over 1 billion ink jet cartridges are used worldwide every year, and by 2009 that number will reach 2 billion, Roland DG is very proud to announce one more very importantinitiative with the introduction of Roland DG's Cartridge Recycle programme (CR), all of Roland DG's cartridges can now be recycled, including ECO-SOL MAX, EcoXtreme and EcoXtreme LT cartridges.

Roland DG's environmental pedigree started along time ago and in 2003 Roland DG revolutionised the digital ink jet print industry by announcing the introduction of ECO-SOL Inks. Breaking new ground, Roland's eco-solvent inks finally eliminated harmful VOC's that required expensive and cumbersome ventilation extraction units. ECO-SOL inks maintained a wide colour gamut, excellent durability and most importantly required no special ventilation or extraction systems and met the demands of high quality output printing demanded by the industry.

By the end of 2005 Roland DG released the second generation eco-solvent inks, ECO-SOL MAX. ECO-SOL MAX retained all of the attributes of the original inks, with the added refinements of faster drying times, reduced costs, an even wider gamut, extremely high colour density, supreme durability and again no harmful VOC's.

To compliment the ECO-SOL MAX inks Roland DG introduced the Eco-MEDIA range. The Eco-MEDIA range hosts a variety of media specifically designed to work with Eco-Solvent printers with BIODEGRADABLE substrates to replace traditional PVC substrates.

With Roland DG's commitment towards a cleaner, safer and an environmentally responsible workplace, 2007 saw the release of the ECO labelling system. Roland DG is committed to ensuring that Roland products meet strict environmental guidelines such as:  the prevention of global warming, the use of recyclable resources, the increase in environmental awareness and finally to disclose information on the environmental aspects of the product.

"The Eco-MEDIA range of specifically designed media was chosen to further Roland DG's environmental initiatives" stated John Wall, Sales & Marketing Mgr of Roland DG "Roland DG's mandate of environmental protection is an issue we take seriously and are proud to be leading the way as we did when launching the range of Eco-Sol inks."

CGS Publishing Technologies, the leading manufacturer of inkjet color management solutions, announces it has been approved as a Xerox Business Partner. ORIS Press Matcher product integrates with Xerox iGen3(tm) Digital Production Press and Xerox DocuColor(tm) 8000/260/250/242 enabling Xerox users to automatically create high quality color files for multiple press conditions. Its advanced color mapping process applies to wide format output, digital printers and digital presses.  Users can produce long run first prints on a sheetfed press and short run reprints on a Xerox digital press, producing consistent and repeatable color results on both devices.
 
CGS will be exhibiting ORIS Press Matcher, ORIS Certified Proof(tm), and ORIS Soft Proof(tm) in the Xerox booth at Drupa to be held May 29 through June 11.  Xerox will be exhibiting in Hall 8B at the Düsseldorf Messe.
 
Trevor Haworth, CEO of CGS Publishing Technologies commenting on the relationship with Xerox stated, "We are pleased that Xerox has invited us to be a Xerox Business Partner.  We have worked closely with the Xerox engineering team to create a front end solution combining the powerful color management tools of ORIS Press Matcher with the quality and production capabilities of Xerox digital presses."
 
ORIS Press Matcher integrates with the Xerox FreeFlow TM Process Manager system to create a highly automated workflow solution to produce printed results supporting SWOP, GRACoL and Fogra standards and the G7 process. The color management tools of ORIS Press Matcher are combined with the automation of FreeFlow incorporating the automated spot color management and prepress tools of Process Manager to easily prepare files for print with the highest level of color accuracy.
 
"ORIS Press Matcher is ideally suited for current and future users of the Xerox iGen3 and DocuColor presses who require color accurate results between digital color and conventional sheetfed offset presses", states Mike Wolfgang, CGS Director, Digital Print Solutions. "Also, ORIS Press Matcher is an ideal product for iGen3 customers needing accurate management between multiple iGen3s, especially those in different geographic locations."
 
As a Xerox Business Partner, CGS sales, pre-sales and post-sales personnel work directly with the Xerox sales team to provide ORIS color management solutions to users of Xerox digital presses.  ORIS Press Matcher integrates with both existing FreeFlow Process Manager users and with new installations.

LithoTechnics, Inc., developer of Metrix, award-winning, intelligent job planning and imposition system, announced today they have released an update that enables Metrix 3 to run on the Mac PowerPC platform.
Rohan Holt, President of LithoTechnics, said, "Our initial focus for Metrix 3 Mac was the Intel platform. After learning from our customers that there was a significant demand to run Metrix on the older PowerPC platform, we got to work and developed an update that extended the compatibility of Metrix 3 to PowerPC Macs." Holt added, "We pride ourselves on being responsive to the needs of our customers, who help us prioritize our development efforts through enhancement requests and feature/functionality suggestions."
Mark Lancaster, Manufacturing Manager of Transcontinental Dartmouth, who initially requested the PowerPC version, shared his thoughts: "We had wanted to use some of the older Macs in the prepress department to run Metrix, so we contacted LithoTechnics to see if they could create a PowerPC version. To our surprise and delight, LithoTechnics responded immediately that they would move this to the top of their priority list, and within two weeks we had a PowerPC version in house. We were very impressed with the responsiveness shown by LithoTechnics, and are very happy with the new release."
The Metrix 3.0 family includes Metrix Commercial, Metrix Max, Metrix X-8 and Metrix X-80, targeted at different segments of the commercial print market. All editions are available on Mac OS X and Windows, and all automatically plan and impose flat, folded, and bound work. All editions can import JDF and export imposed PDF. Select editions include Auto Plan, and export various forms of JDF for prepress and finishing. The entire Metrix family is available in English, German, Spanish, and French.

PLANATOL is worldwide one of the leading providers of adhesives for the graphic arts and coating industry, represented in Australia by Ferag. The company has been the competent partner of bookbinders, printers, along with the packing and coating industry for 75 years and offers the relevant adhesive for manual small or machine-produced large editions. Visitors at drupa can find information about the complete production range of adhesives: cold glues, hot melts, PUR, pressure sensitive adhesives on water, water-free and solvent-borne base. The company is specialist in fold glues for web presses. In addition, the product range PLANATOLITH fountain solutions for the IPA-containing, IPA-reduced and IPA-free rotary and sheet-fed presses can be seen.

Dispersion formulas phthalate-free
As important news in the dispersion sector can be mentioned the switch to phthalate-free dispersion glues. Due to a voluntary agreement as reaction to increased food packaging requirements, PLANATOL has withdrawn all products containing phthalate from its range from February 2008. This commitment includes all PLANATOL adhesives, even paper and packaging adhesives which have not been developed for the use in the food industry. The development department was able to convert most of the mixtures completely without plasticizers. One or two adhesive formulas could not be produced without plasticizers and in these cases alternative phthalate-free plasticizers will be used.  PLANATOL maintains its high quality standards. Machine tests for the product conversion are not necessary because the adhesive properties do not change.
Flexibly usable PUR
If books or brochures have to withstand extreme temperature conditions, as is the case, for instance, for car maps, or if full surface printed highly glossy brochures are bound, the bookbinders turn to reactive polyurethanes, known as PUR. The new PLANATOL PUR 2765 fulfils all requirements and is flexibly usable for nozzle and roller.
Wide range of HMPSA
The PLANATOL product programme contains a wide range of hot melt pressure sensitive adhesives (HMPSA). PSA 1120, PSA 1122 und PSA 1510 are fugitive adhesives, which are less fattening. They have a very good cohesion and are suitable for many different papers. For the labeling of PET bottles PLANATOL recommends the low viscous adhesive PSA 2210. PSA 2610 was specially developed for the production of mailings (e.g. for DVD covers, which will be fixed into magazines). PSA 3571 is the top packaging adhesive product. PSA 5511 is used as side glue providing a low viscosity and best fattening properties.
Successful lamination of glossy films
PLANATOL offers interesting products for the lamination of glossy films. The subsidiary PLANATOL Milker Adhesive produces PSA dispersions, e.g. Micryl P 3575. The advantage: After drying, the cross-linking process is effected at room temperature, allowing the production of glossy films with high grooving and punching stability