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!

This is a super fun workflow walkthrough by Gershon Alon and Diego Diaz. Enjoy!

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!

At Printing United Expo in Orlando, Wayne from INKISH sits down with German Sacristan, Principal Analyst at Keypoint Intelligence, to discuss global print market trends and the insights Keypoint provides to the industry. German explains that Keypoint Intelligence is a global research and consulting firm primarily focused on the printing industry, headquartered in New Jersey and with offices in the UK and Japan. “We do market research, consulting, and printer testing,” he says. “Our clients range from OEMs and print service providers to paper merchants and finishing companies.” He adds that while many know Keypoint for its market reports, fewer realize the company also performs device testing—mostly on low- and mid-production printers—through its dedicated Cambridge testing facility in the UK. When discussing market conditions, German notes that the U.S. and Western Europe are experiencing print volume consolidation, as more print buyers move online. “That work is shifting away from small copy centers toward high-volume digital production,” he says. “Smaller PSPs are outsourcing more to reduce risk and avoid large capital investments.” By contrast, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East/Africa markets remain more fragmented. “There, smaller PSPs are still thriving,” German explains. “They continue to invest in compact production printers, and online print adoption is slower. The offset crossover point to digital also differs because of lower ink costs in those regions.” Turning to the U.S., German observes that tariffs and rising costs—including materials, shipping, warehousing, and postal rates—are reshaping the landscape. “The price of print is increasing,” he says. “But instead of competing only on cost, printers need to emphasize value. Position print strategically within marketing and communication campaigns, and customers will pay more when they see the return on investment.” He agrees that convergence—printers branching into labels, packaging, or textiles—is real but not new. “Printers have always sought variety,” he says. “If they can expand their portfolio and cross-sell to existing customers, they will.” German concludes on a balanced note: “Print remains sustainable. Offset volumes are declining, but digital print continues to grow. The key is to identify where print fits best in the communication mix and keep demonstrating its value.” Wayne wraps up the conversation by recommending Keypoint Intelligence’s reports. “They’re detailed, data-driven, and honest,” he says. German smiles and replies, “That’s what we do—tell it like it is, and show where the opportunities still exist.”

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.

VP Global Sales Georg Riva from Müller Martini talks with Editor Morten B. Reitoft about how Müller Martini, over the years, has been able to constantly re-focus on the technologies in focus - i.e., moving from Newspapers to Digital print with everything in between. We also got a chance to talk about a super interesting solution at #HID25 where Müller Martini showed a solution where print from two vendors (HP and Heidelberg) are fed into one binding solution - amazing, and of course, we got to talk about Müller Martini's binding of the MAGS Daily published by INKISH :-)

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.

At the Graphics Canada show, INKISH talked to the Head of Global Product Marketing and Product Life Cycle, Andrew Gunn from Xerox, about something called Genesis. The great thing about Genesis is that it has become part of the XEROX DNA as it's about how Xerox customers and their customers can become more profitable using the Beyond CMYK+ technology and in the interview part in the same film with Global Product Marketing Manager Billy Stojanovski, talk about another theme with Xerox, 'Better Together.' 'Better Together' is very much about utilizing different types of technology, so you, for example, use one type of technology for covers and another for content - to optimize your profit. INKISH believes most PSPs already understand this, but by emphasizing this once again, Xerox is taking the lead in educating customers - that gives an A in our minds :-)

Smart Factories need powerful MIS systems to automate & communicate, where is it going? - By Geert Van Damme, CERM.

Interview in Dutch - subtitles in English. De bekende Apple-verdeler uit het straatbeeld in België en kind aan huis bij vele drukkerijen. Maar wie is de man achter de naam Lab9 en hoe ziet hij onze grafische branche verder evolueren? In deze VIGC-talks ontmoeten en spreken we met haar Ceo Geert Coolman. -- EN -- The well-known Apple distributor in Belgium and a regular at many printing companies. But who is the man behind the name Lab9 and how does he see our graphic industry evolving further? In these VIGC talks we meet and speak with its CEO Geert Coolman.

Gee Ranasinha is one of the best communicators in the industry, and you may know him from the short and precise videos he delivers on LinkedIn every Tuesday and Friday. They are essentially free learning about human behavior, how you manage your marketing, and advice about what to do and what not to do. We reached out to Ranasinha and asked him to speak at the NON-EVENT 2024 and this became one of the most recognized and spoken about presentations at the event, and now we are ready to share it with you. Enjoy. Remember to follow Gee Ranasinha on LinkedIn.

Gavin Rittmeyer talks about Martin Automatic's partnership with ETI Converting, Lemu Group, and Lundberg Tech, which saw them exhibit a complete printing and converting line at Labelexpo Americas 2024.