|
1. Capital Spending Rebound? WhatTheyThink.com reports that capital equipment purchasing activity has increased in recent weeks (36% in November compared to 28% in October), with a jump in the percentage of companies purchasing offset equipment and digital, wide-format printers. Prepress and bindery equipment continue to be the most commonly purchased items. We jumped on that bandwagon and committed to a new die-cutting press. More to come on this in future editions. Also, the Consumer Confidence Index rebounded in November, rising to an index of 84.1 from 79.6 in October... Total magazine advertising revenue for the month of November also increased 12.6% compared to November of last year, according to Publishers Information Bureau (PIB). Ad pages, too, for November were up 6.9% from last year. Could this be the recovery we are all waiting for? 2. A Quick Thought on Available Talent. I don’t know about your situation, but we are sure seeing way more qualified folks in the job market these days. I recently hired two employees who, honestly, I wouldn’t have expected to have available to us a few years back. Maybe now is a good time to add the skills that you feel you don’t have with your current staff. I personally believe that successful business managers make the moves they need, even when doing so may go against "conventional wisdom." 3. Proudly Safe. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) considers printing to be among the safest industries in the manufacturing sector and Labor Department statistics reveal printing to be among the safest industries within non-durable goods manufacturing. Data on injury and illnesses consistently ranks printing and publishing third safest since 1994, behind only petroleum and coal products (#1) and chemical and allied products (#2), with injury and illness rates ranging from a high of 6.7 cases per 100 full-time workers in 1994 decreasing to 5.1 cases in 2000. Now if we can only get the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries to manage the costs of workers compensation claims management…. 4. Tip of the Week. Customers sometimes ask what’s the best way a printer can indicate to the bindery the correct sequence of signatures in a book block. We agree with Bindagraphics’ Marty Anson’s suggestion to add collating marks. See (www.bindagraphics.com). A collating mark is a short line, about ½" thick, printed on the back (spine) of each signature. You strip them in such a way that, when the signatures are folded and gathered into a book block, the marks always appear as a series of steps descending from the head. Use of collating marks gives the bindery a clear visual guide to the correct sequence of signatures. These are especially important when the signatures have no folio (page) numbers. Although adding collating marks to your signatures may add a little time in file preparation or stripping, they will greatly reduce the possibility of collating errors in the bindery. |
Newsletter
|
|
|
|
Services Letterpress
|
|