Josh Romberg · President · MBO America
At PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas, Morten B. Reitoft meets Josh Romberg, President of MBO America, for a conversation about something far bigger than finishing equipment: the future of local newspaper production.
The discussion is inspired by a recent installation at Amedia Trykk in Norway, where a traditional 64-page coldset newspaper press is being replaced by a digital production platform based on Canon inkjet printing and MBO finishing technology.
For Josh, who spent many years working in the newspaper industry before joining MBO, the transformation is significant. Traditional newspaper presses are extremely productive, but they were built for volumes that many local and regional newspapers simply don’t have anymore.
Digital inkjet changes the economics.
Instead of producing very large runs, a printer can move quickly between multiple titles and smaller circulations — potentially 5,000, 10,000 or 20,000 copies — without the makeready requirements associated with conventional newspaper production.
That creates an interesting opportunity for hyperlocal journalism. Smaller cities and communities can maintain printed newspapers with highly localized editorial content and advertising while sharing a single digital production platform.
But printing is only half of the equation.
MBO’s role is to make the finishing process as flexible as the digital press itself. Unwinding, buffering, cutting, folding, and downstream finishing can be combined in a modular production environment designed to efficiently handle frequent job changes and various newspaper formats.
The result is not simply a replacement for an old newspaper press. It is a completely different production model.
Could digital inkjet printing and automated finishing make local printed newspapers economically viable again?
Watch Morten B. Reitoft’s conversation with Josh Romberg from MBO America at PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas.
No Data Found.
Content for this section will appear here once available
Thu September 24th
Enrico Barboglio · Group CEO · Stratego Gr...
Italy has a long and important history in printing and converting technology, but technology alone isn't enough to build an international market. You also need connections. At PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas, Pat McGrew meets longtime industry friend Enrico Barboglio at the Italian Trade Agency pavilion to talk about why Italian companies are exhibiting in the United States — and why an international trade show is about considerably more than selling machines. The Italian Trade Agency, together with the Italian printing and converting industry, has brought a group of companies to Las Vegas representing different parts of the production ecosystem. There are machinery manufacturers, software developers, color and process-control specialists, personalization technology and companies providing knowledge and communication to the graphic arts industry. It is only a small representation of the Italian printing industry. Many more Italian manufacturers are exhibiting elsewhere at PRINTING United through American subsidiaries, distributors and partners, illustrating just how significant Italian technology has become across printing, packaging, converting and finishing. For Enrico, however, the most important reason for being in Las Vegas can be summed up in one word: connection. Companies come to PRINTING United to meet customers and potential partners, of course, but they also come to learn. They meet other manufacturers, discover technologies, understand how markets are developing and create relationships that can ultimately lead to entirely new business opportunities. And those relationships work in both directions. Italian companies can introduce American printers and converters to technologies they may not already know, while conversations with the North American market provide Italian manufacturers with new ideas, requirements and perspectives to bring home. PRINTING United is therefore one stop on a much longer international journey. That journey leads toward Print4All in Milan in 2027. Print4All was created to bring together technologies and applications from across printing and converting rather than treating individual print segments as isolated industries. Commercial printing, digital, offset, flexo, gravure, converting, packaging, finishing and increasingly software and automation are all becoming part of a much more connected production ecosystem. That thinking is now being developed further through closer cooperation between ACIMGA and ARGI and the creation of the Printing & Converting Technology Alliance. The objective is to represent technology across the complete printing and converting value chain and create a stronger platform for manufacturers, suppliers, printers, converters, brands and international markets to meet. And perhaps that reflects the industry itself. A printing company rarely buys technology in isolation anymore. Presses need software. Software needs data. Printing requires finishing. Packaging requires converting. Automation requires communication between systems. And increasingly, the companies building those technologies need each other just as much as their customers need them. The machinery may be what visitors initially come to see. But relationships are what ultimately move an industry forward. Watch Pat McGrew's conversation with Enrico Barboglio at the Italian Trade Agency pavilion at PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas — and hear why international connections are such an important part of the future of Italian printing and converting technology.