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.

Giovanni Vitale, international sales director for SD Italy, points out the versatility of the manufacturer’s Augusta F150R PRO. Distributed in the U.S. by Graphco, the hybrid CNC cutting and plotting system is ideally suited for wide-format rigid and architectural signage applications up to six inches in thickness. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanni-vitali-066bb758/

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gil-oron-50721973/

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!

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!

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.

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 :-)