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President and CEO Joe Straka, Priority Group, appreciate being back to eProductivity Software/EFI Connect for the tenth time and underscore the importance of human-to-human interaction. Joe Straka also explains his eight operations that ALL utilize solutions from eProductivity Software/EFI.

Hunkeler is among the most successful companies in the graphic arts industry, and being a family-owned company with success, the future looks bright. Today Michel Hunkeler is the CEO in close collaboration with his brother Stefan Hunkeler, who used to be the CEO but today has a role as President of the board. With increased interest in digital print from PSPs, the need for smart binding increases, and Hunkeler is well-positioned in the global market - but listen to what Michel Hunkeler has to say! LinkedIn Profile

In the VIGC Hackathon, the goal is to come up with an innovative solution or an innovative business model for the printing industry in a limited amount of time. The next step is a pitch where the participants (in this case 13 teams) present their prototypes to a professional jury, who will analyse and pick the winners. GOLD: Team Interaction Design - Luca School of Arts (Ghent, Belgium) Winning Project: SMILES The team of 5 students of the Luca School of Arts won the very first Graphic Arts Hackathon. “Smiles” uses the digital content from your smartphone for the content of a printed book. In this case, photos of smiling faces on the smartphone are detected via 'smile detection' software. Both the front camera picture from the person taking the snapshot as well as the actual back camera picture are being recorded and used in this smiles photobook. These memories are then collected in a personalized book along with all the content that made that person laugh. This winning 'Smiles' project with their clever idea also brought a smile on the faces of the jury, amongst our own Morten B. Reitoft from INKISH. A well-deserved victory! SILVER: Team “Print Quality Map” a team from Esko / AVT. Represented by Dries Vandenbussche (Director of Ideation – Software / ESKO) The second place is for Team “Print Quality Map”. This is a solution that visualises quality problems in print runs and visualizes this on a screen in a way like a weather / heat map shows, for example, storm or heat areas. These Print- “heat maps” are generated by cloud-based algorithms that use the data from the press inspection systems and communicate in real time. This advanced measuring software optimizes the colour stability in packaging printing on the actual printing press by detecting and predicting possible problems early on in the printing process. BRONZE: Team “Textiveroo” with members from DSN Artwork Systems, Conics and Hybrid Software. Represented by Dries Maerten – Owner Conics Third place goes to Textiveroo and is a solution for automatic text & barcode extraction. This artificial intelligence-driven software package ensures automatic conversion to other languages and the corresponding positioning of information on packaging. The files are analysed, and the relevant text is extracted from existing packaging artwork files. The benefit of this is the reusability of these elements for publications on online web portals or for streamlining the translation processes. *Next year’s VIGC graphic arts Hackathon is scheduled for October 11th and 12th 2021.

David Zwang has been in the industry for a long time and continues to be 'everywhere' :-) And this time in the BOBST Open House in Alpharetta, Georgia. In this almost ten minutes long interview, we get to know a few of the many roles David Zwang has covered in the past years - but for now, enjoy the interview where you get different perspectives!

As with so many companies, Grafisk Maskinfabrik or GM started 40 years ago in the current Director Uffe Nielsens parents' kitchen. Today GM is a recognized supplier of roll-based finishing equipment for digital and flexo labels, both under their own brand and an OEM supplier. Recently GM has moved to a new headquarter where the company now enjoys both a larger showroom and new and modern facilities with space for growth. In this Conversations, Director Uffe Nielsen talk to Editor Morten Reitoft about the history, the current situation, and the future. Great story - so please enjoy.

Martin Overgaard Hansen is the relatively new CEO of Glunz & Jensen. The company has deep roots in the pre-press industry, producing equipment for high-quality plate-making. With administration and R&D in Denmark and production in Slovakia, the company is in a restructuring mode where the company is scaled to meet the future's needs. Martin Overgaard Hansen comes from outside the printing industry and has the tough job managing the restructuring. In this INKISH Conversation, we get a great insight into how the company sees itself and its future role.

Sustainability is one of the most critical topics in the global printing industry these years. Global warming is a severe challenge to everybody, and while companies, individuals, and governments work on solutions to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere, more things influence global temperatures. Henrik Svensmark is an Astro Physicist at DTU Space and has for years researched how solar flares influence cloud formation, which also has a huge impact on global warming. In this unusual presentation (for being in the graphic arts industry), Henrik Svensmark guides our audience through the research and the ideas they are pursuing. Great presentation and the INKISH team is happy that we can bring this interesting research to our audience. Thank you Henrik Svensmark.

In this 24th episode of Print Sample TV, your host Pat McGrew for the very first time has a few complains. Not about the quality of the Plockmatic binders and the samples, but more because both the creative and the "more boring" sample lacks Call-to-Action or more precise information about how to get a hold on the nice people from Plockmatic. However, when you look at the Pizza Recipe booklet the company has produced, your appetite grows - not sure if it's for Pizza or a new binder, but as usual; Watch, Like, and Share!

In this Get Work Done session, Scott Peterson and Thomas Olofsson from Tecnau give you insight into the world of digital binding - focusing on their Cut Stack products. Cut Stacking can be used for products like postcards, posters, and other flat products, but it can also be used for producing book blocks. Tecnau also presents the inline integration with Canon, so all in all a great overview of Tecnau solutions, and of course, spiced with great conversations and loads of humor :-)

Koenig & Bauer is mostly known for their offset presses and the almost only offset supplier capable of delivering VLF-sized offset presses, particularly for the packaging industry. With the focus on the packaging segment, it's only natural that Koenig & Bauer, over the past years, have developed binding technology and acquired companies to support their mission, and in this Get Work Done session, Mario Gerber gives the audience a super insight into the strategy and the products! Enjoy!

Jordi Giralt is a relatively new CBO with German KAMA. KAMA is more than 125 years old, and as Jordi Giralt explains in the Get Work Done session, the inventor of creasing/scoring - and being one of the first offering folding/gluers, it makes sense. In this session, Jordi Giralt and Editor Morten B. Reitoft talk about the unique products and, therefore, also the value proposition KAMA offers.

Hunkeler has worked with digital print post-press for 41 years and has so many installations that it has almost become the de facto standard in digital post-press. Marco Kunz explains the Starbook Plow Folder in this presentation, and Hans Gut shares about the company's roll-based finishing solutions. Super great chat around the presentation with good insights! Get Work Done is for sure a good headline for what Hunkeler delivers!

Meccanotecnica is probably one of the leading companies in thread-sewn books. In the Get Work Done session, Giulia Sinatra gives our audience a super insight into why thread-sewn books are great and how their technology supports the business!

MBO did what we liked the most - involve customers showing MBO Cobo-stacks cobots at work at customer Kohlhammer. It's super interesting to see, and as it's not a DEMO but real live production, you see the changeover, how little operator invention is needed to serve four folding lines. Afterward, Dietmar Schrimm gives an overview of the technology, and we talk about why some of the digital solutions are very popular in the US and not so much in Europe - we believe it's mainly because people don't know about the opportunities and mainly know MBO for its folders. But an interest Get Work Done session - we are sure you will like!

Books of one is super interesting, and the company Schmedt focuses entirely on books. With their technology, customers can easily make case-bound/hardcover books - interesting for photo book producers and commercial printing companies interested in getting into hardcover book production. This is a LIVE demo from Schmedt, and Constantin Schmedt gives you great insight. Super interesting - the entire process is presented here! Enjoy!

In this Get Work Done session, Bryan Takano, Yasuo Taketsugu, and Naresh Bedi give us a view into the engine room at Horizon, showing their new MiniCABS binding solution, AGVs, and robot arms. It is great to see, and if seeing is believing - you certainly get it here!

This is one of the things we like the MOST about the industry - passion! Gershon Alon is the Head of HP PrintOS, and when we asked Gershon Alon a question, it became the longest answer on INKISH ever - and into an episode of its own. Gershon Alon talks about how PrintOS, being vendor agnostic, enables PSPs and developers to integrate any API/SDK allows software into the heart of PrintOS, which is excellent. This is an opportunity for PSPs and other software suppliers to utilize services through the HP eco-system. Still, it also allows you to offer your customers services that would require more user interfaces and, eventually, more complex work. But listen to this exciting answer - and make up your mind yourself!

In the second interview with Gershon Alon, we go a little deeper into what Production Beat is. One of the most important changes is that Production Beat is vendor-agnostic. You can add any machine to Production Beat and measure everything - machines with HP technology and even legacy hardware, as HP offers readers and sensors. Super cool!  

In the first of two interviews with Gershon Alon, we ask him what differentiates the normal interpretation of workflow/automation, and how HP sees it. This interview is supposed to lead up to our second interview, where we talk about Production Beat, but also to understand the four pillars Bob Raus explains in the interview we did with him - also from the HP PreDrupa event in Indianapolis. Dig in!

In this 'Over the Skype' session, German Sacristan from Keypoint Intelligence share his insights about the printing market. Many good subjects. More interesting is the conversation about how printing companies should become relevant - but listen for yourself. As with all our ‘Over the Skype’ interviews, quality is limited to bandwidth, web-cams, and ability to literally LIVE mix the conversations. However, it works, and with Over the Skype, we will bring you more than 20 exciting people, and angles on the industry as it is right now. Enjoy!

Gerald Glaas talks to us about innovation in the development, design, and manufacturing of rotary tools, modules, and specialty machines widely used in film, foil, packaging, nonwovens, and paper converting industries.

Before coming to Tilia Labs, I began my career at Esko. Focused on the CAD and CAM side of the Esko business. At the time, one of the biggest challenges that was always prevalent in when we would call on these customers is like: layout creation. Back in 2018, a small startup company started coming up on the radar: Tilia Labs. We started hearing about them from our companies. And something that was really unique about what they were doing is that they were incorporating this cost aspect to lay out an imposition. But once digging into a little bit further, I realized that it's not just throw items onto a sheet or nine up on a carton on a press sheet and go. There's a lot more ways that we can optimize that. And really actually save a converter a lot of money. That was really new and interesting and exciting for me. Back in 2018 I kept following the company. Eventually met Sagen, the CEO. Thought he was a really interesting and exciting kind of younger energy in this industry. From there, it just kind of took off. I joined Tilia Labs in 2019. I joined with my colleague Tyler Thompson. We came over to really establish their sales organization. Their direct sales here in North America. I saw some recent stats that say on average, the prepress person is spending about 15 minutes on imposition per job. I think most people think of it as a necessary evil. Obviously, there's a lot more to it. She walked into my office and I had a glass of ice water sitting on my desk. And she had seen this glass of ice water there like a couple of days in a row. How many times do you refill this water glass? And I looked at her and I was like: I don't know, once a day, maybe. Whenever I'm thirsty. And two days later, I get this very, very large box from Amazon. And she brings it into my office and says, go ahead and open this up, it's for you. Inside is like the world's largest water bottle that I have ever seen in my life.

At the Seiko Open Week 2022, George Boedler from Inkatronic develops unique inkjet printers for very different customers. Since Inkatronic delivers solutions to many different types of customers, they need to have a test device enabling testing of inks, printheads, substrates, etc., before building the actual machine, so Inkatronic developed their own. The test machine raised interest from other machine manufacturers and is today sold as a test device from Inkatronic. In the interview you will learn a lot from George Boedler, who with an engineering background knows what there is to know :-)

Genscom is a young and ambitious communications agency that focuses on personalized publications. With their online B2C and B2B platforms (www.happiedays.com, granniedays.be and krantjesmaken.be...), they offer private individuals and companies both the technology and the support needed for the creation, personalization, print, and the distribution of their publications, both online and offline. Genscom specializes in personalization and offers a free mobile app called “Lettr” (www.lettr.eu). It allows you to create, visualize, print, and distribute a newspaper on the go, together with friends, family, or colleagues. Genscom offers low print runs, from a single copy, and worldwide shipment services.