GREEN BAY, Wis.—WS Packaging Group, Inc. and ASK, a France-headquartered company, have formed ASK-intTag LLC, a joint venture that will manufacture and market contactless cards and tickets for U.S. and Canadian markets.
The new company will be the first RFID manufacturer in the U.S. to print
silver-based inlays on paper, the composition of which is highly resistant
to forgery. ASK-intTag will produce a range of products for markets
involving food, healthcare, gaming, event ticketing, secure identification,
financial bankcards and mass transit, among others. Initial production will
focus on secure identification, financial bankcards and mass transit.
ASK is a leading global manufacturer of contactless microprocessor smart
cards, contactless cards and paper tickets, and RFID smart paper labels with more than 120 million products in circulation worldwide. Contactless cards and tickets developed by ASK are already being used in transportation networks in several large U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia.
"Combining ASK's position as a world leader in contactless technology with
our capabilities as one of the largest printing and label converting
operations in North America enables our two companies to bring our
respective experiences and expertise together to become a major factor in
contactless technology and its application in North America," said Terry
Fulwiler, chief executive officer for WS Packaging.
“ASK has been dedicated to contactless technology since its creation in 1997 and we are very excited to be joining with such a prominent expert in RFID," Fulwiler said. "Combining our long experience and expertise in printing and packaging with ASK's patented RFID technology is a perfect marriage that is designed to meet the increasing demand for contactless products in U.S. and Canadian markets."
Headquartered in Sophia-Antipolis, France, ASK also operates sales offices
in Singapore and Culver City, Calif. ASK-intTag will be operated as a
separate company. Potential U.S. manufacturing locations are under review, but expect to be finalized by January 2009.
"As a leading manufacturer of labels, WS Packaging Group was the perfect
partner to boost our activity of RFID tags," said Bruno Moreau, ASK chief
executive officer. "ASK has already strong references in the U.S. with
clients involved in mass transit, banking and identity markets. But a joint
venture with a U.S. industrial leader will enhance our market presence and
contactless technology in the Northern American continent. Furthermore, our clients who requested a domestic manufacturing site will be pleased to
benefit from ASK technology and WS Packaging's strong market presence."
The viability of ASK's technology is confirmed by the 54 patents it holds, and is further strengthened by a unique and environmentally friendly technology for printing a silver antenna on paper substrate and die chip attach process. More than 120 million users on all five continents have been served so far in transportation, banking, RFID and identity sectors.
"Bringing the manufacturing to the US, ultimately improves our value
proposition in specific vertical markets," said Wayne Richter, WS Packaging
chief manufacturing officer. "It gives us access to RFID technology
currently being used, and further allows us to leverage ASK's rich heritage
of research and development for custom RFID applications in the future. This arrangement will greatly enhance our position in the RFID market by raising our level of credibility and product scope."
SAN JOSE, Calif.—Attendance at the annual IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA 2008 event in San Jose, Calif., Dec 3-4 reached almost 700 people from 22 countries.
Most attendees were from North America, followed by Korea and then Japan. There were 55 exhibitors, making this event the largest in the world on the topic and it was substantially bigger than previous years, up 30 percent compared to 2007.
The theme of the event was "the new era of printed electronics products", with exhibitors and speakers highlighting the existing and emerging products, such as printed RFID tags, e-readers, skin patches and much more. This grabbed the attention of a diverse range of major consumer brands, advertising companies, toy/leisure companies and consumer electronics companies that were present.
Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx, gave an industry update. He noted the three main ways that printed electronics is being commercialized—products that compete primarily on cost, such as those printing RFID tags; products that use the unique attributes of printed electronics to create new propositions and allow for premium pricing, such as flexibility, transparency, thinness (examples being e-readers and skin patches); and those using printed electronics in conventional electronics manufacture, such as Sharp inkjet printing LCD color filters based on technology from Epson.
Dr. Peter Harrop, chairman of IDTechEx, said "The growth of the event has been remarkable. We have concentrated on making the Printed Electronics series of events the focal point for the industry by addressing applications, technologies and user requirements."
Rick Mental, GSI Technologies, said of the event, "Always a 'must attend' event. Useful presentations, great exhibition area and excellent networking environment." Gili Drori, Tadbik Co, said, "I enjoyed every minute. Great organization, great speakers."
At the event IDTechEx launched the bi-annual journal Printed Electronics World Review, sponsored by IDTechEx and industry leaders, aimed at educating people about the technology and assessing the latest trends. The journal is being sent free of charge to global databases.
In 2009, IDTechEx will continue to put together events on printed electronics in three continents. In particular, its efforts focus on linking the printed electronics industry to end users and product design. The dates of the events next year are as follows:
• Printed Electronics Europe, Dresden, Germany. April 7-8, 2009
• Printed Electronics Asia, Tokyo, Japan. Sept 30 - Oct 1, 2009
• Printed Electronics USA, San Jose, CA, USA. Dec 2-3, 2009
For more information, visit www.IDTechEx.com
WILLISTON, Vt.—KBA North America has developed a new Webcam demonstration, training, and application testing program for its current and future customers.
This new program allows printers to sit in their offices and view a KBA press demonstration in the KBA Customer Care Center in Vermont or experience their own applications being printed on a KBA press. The printer can ask questions in real time and see up close, via portable Webcams, the special features of the press as it is printing a job.
“Since we started this program four months ago, we’ve had a tremendous positive response to it,” says Chris Travis, director of technology at KBA. “Printers are enthusiastic about not having to take time away from their facility and being able to schedule a particular time to see the press in action. We’re able to set up a private, secure demonstration for as many hours as they need, at as many different sites as needed. For example, we can show a demonstration of the Rapida 106 to the president of the company in his office, to the pressroom supervisor in another location, and to the company’s sales force in a variety of locations. Especially in today’s economic climate, our program offers an economical and realistic approach for printers and their busy schedules.”
The Webcam demonstration, training, and application testing program is easy to set up for any printer. All the company needs to do is request from KBA a user name and password. The program can be viewed from any PC or Mac anywhere in the world. A Webcam demonstration can provide a general display of the Customer Care Center and a production run of its three KBA presses: a Rapida 142 56-inch, a Rapida 106 41-inch, and a Genius 52 UV 20-inch press. If the printer has already installed a KBA press, the webcam demonstration can act as a training program for its press crew. Or the webcam demonstration can show a printer how a particular job, substrate, ink, or other application can be tested on press. Once the demonstration is complete, the printer will receive samples of the printed job the next day.
“The new programs are very popular with our customers,” says Bill Silber, KBA sales manager. “Nearly all those who’ve used it had full schedules making it difficult for them to travel, especially with the time consideration for airplane flights, ground transportation, and a day out of the office. This is a unique, positive solution for both KBA and its customers.”
KBA is also using its new program to offer webinars for customers to quickly disseminate new information on their systems. “We can teach a printer’s entire sales force and give them a live demonstration on a specific part of the press or update them on new features,” says Travis. “Within 30 to 45 minutes, we can teach a printer new capabilities or show them how to use a particular function.”
Considering the success that KBA has found in the early months of the program, the company plans to add other vendors—such as ink, plate, and paper manufacturers—to the webcam demonstration series. Eventually, the program could include the KBA factory in Germany and other customers all over the world.
Forget about stamping, embossing, high-gloss packaging, design work, artwork or anything else physical about a package at this time of year. You've got your list, you know what you're looking for. What the package looks like doesn't matter as long as it easily identifies that it matches the item on your list. BUT, that being said, there is plenty of impulse buying going on right now no doubt, and packaging of course plays a huge role in it. While I haven't done much impulse buying this season (like they sing in Sweeney Todd, "Times is hard"), I still notice packaging. If I didn't notice it after being at a magazine called packagePRINTING for two and a half years, there would be something seriously wrong with me!
So I'm at Best Buy the other day searching for a piece of software from my wife's list and marveling at how many people are NOT at the store. Jen is looking for Adobe Photoshop Essentials. Once I got help finding it, I noticed how small the packaging was for it and all the other software in the store. I remember back a few years ago when software companies stopped printing manuals to go with their software, opting instead to direct people to PDF files on their Web sites. You might say they were starting to think greener even then. What didn't change though was the packaging for the software. Although the companies ditched the manuals, the packaging was still built to accommodate them. Not so today. I don't know if it was because retailers changed the style of their shelves, or maybe because software companies wanted to increase the number of items that could be fit in the real estate provided to them, or if they were trying to be greener, but it was refreshing to see that they have reduced the overall footprint of their packages.
Then I saw the release from Dell that states the company is working to eliminate approximately 20 million pounds of packaging material during the next four years. It's looking like companies are starting to get it, and it's great to see. But from your business standpoint, it's something to keep an eye on.
Reduced amounts of packaging materials means more shorter runs. I mean, if you can now fit four folding cartons onto one sheet instead of three, your runs are going to shorten by one sheet for every three sheets. So once again, NOW is the time to start talking about what you're doing on the sustainability front. The size of the packaging isn't the only thing that's going to change—the inks used, the paper stock used and whether or not its recycled will change. That's not to say that sustainability will have a negative effect on your business, but make sure your customers and potential customers know what your capabilities are regarding sustainability and snatch them up.
Oh, and happy holidays. I'm sure that after unwrapping different toy packages on Christmas morning with my boys I'll be ready to call on all consumer products companies to outlaw the use of wire twist ties on all toys in a future blog entry.
PITTSBURGH, Pa.—Robert M. Williamson, an internationally known educator, consultant, and author of books including “Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)” and “Lean Equipment Management”, has been named keynote speaker for the 2009 Printing Industries of America Continuous Improvement Conference taking place April 5-8 in Lexington, Ky.
Williamson will share keen insights based upon what he has learned from his 16-year study of NASCAR race teams and pit crews. His 38 years of experience in over 400 plants and numerous converting and printing facilities provide a real-world application of his "ten key points of race team competitiveness," which will enable Continuous Improvement Conference attendees to raise their own performance to higher levels.
Williamson will also discuss how capital-intensive businesses struggle with keeping their entire organization focused on the same goals while retaining their ability to change again and again in their race to success.
Commenting on his keynote presentation, Williamson says, "While studying NASCAR race teams and pit crews behind the scenes for nearly 16 years, I discovered their secrets of competitiveness. The way they approach equipment reliability and peak performance has direct applications to equipment in the printing industry. Our challenge is to learn these proven principles and apply them in a focused manner for fast and sustainable business advantages including reduced lead time, high quality, low cost, and reduced errors and waste."
In addition to this keynote session, the 2009 Continuous Improvement Conference will feature Tuesday with Toyota—a tour of Toyota's plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. There attendees will see the most mature implementation of the Toyota Production System (TPS) outside of Japan (from which the Lean philosophy was derived).
The tour of the 7.5-million-square-foot facility will offer a look at Toyota's application of Kaizen; including Kanban—just-in-time parts delivery; and Andon—the notification system of a quality or process problem. Attendees will also learn from Toyota managers who will talk at length about their culture and training of employees.
The 2009 Continuous Improvement Conference will feature in-depth case studies of successful quality initiatives, many of which are Lean-focused, by a range of printing companies. Companies presenting case studies this year include: Beyer Printing, Japs-Olson, Monroe Litho, Outlook Group, Sheridan Books, Suttle-Straus, Transcontinental Printing, and Valpak.
PITTSBURGH, Pa.—The Label Printing Industries of America (LPIA) has announced the dates for its third annual LPIA Technical Institute. The program will take place Feb. 22–24, 2009, at the Printing Industries of America in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Developed by the members for the members, this program offers real-time tactical insight and direction featuring technical experts who will share their knowledge and impart practical, real-world applications, best practices, and solid solutions.
Delve in-depth into issues such as sustainable packaging perspectives from packaging managers; what’s new in the world of substrates; foam labeling and packaging—applying new ideas to an old concept; the latest developments and applications within the industry, as well as an update on the progress of PLA and other bio-polymer based initiatives on labeling and packaging and strategies; inks and coatings; impact of the label on recycling PET containers; digital printing; managing color in the pressroom; freight logistics; Lean/continuous improvement; and the environmental impacts of packaging and labels.
For more details on the LPIA Technical Institute, contact Laurie Reynolds at 412-259-1802 or via e-mail at lreynolds@printing.org
LINCOLN, R.I.—Windmoeller & Hoelscher Corporation has sold a 10-color PRIMAFLEX® CM flexographic printing press to Vins Plastics Limited of Bradford, Ontario, Canada. The press will be installed in early 2009.
Jamie Vins, president of Vins Plastics, said, “We felt W&H had the best combination of press technology, highlighted by their EASY-SET automatic impression setting capabilities and EASY-REG register setting, simple operation, and competitive pricing. We began the process of evaluating press suppliers over a year ago and visited several installations both in the U.S. and Canada. The W&H equipment clearly had a better design and was of superior quality.”
Vins added, “Another deciding factor was W&H’s commitment to service and support. The W&H customers that I called confirmed I could count on W&H to help us keep the press running at maximum productivity. Vins Plastics has always provided high-quality printing products and in the past has concentrated on lithographic printing. We decided to purchase a W&H press because we can now achieve the superior print capabilities that our customers require using the best flexographic equipment.”
Vins Plastics Ltd., founded as a family owned company in 1976, has been in continuous operation for 32 years. Today they are one of Canada’s leading suppliers of sophisticated flexible packaging, e.g. shrink sleeves and various laminated and printed products for numerous markets including food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and industrial.
W&H’s 10-color PRIMAFLEX® CM is available in web widths of 41" and 52" and has a maximum repeat length of 31.5". Production speeds are up to 1,300 fpm, and a wide range of options, such as Turboclean®, can be supplied.