Posted on Tue, Oct. 03, 2006

WORDS AND IMAGES | Technology drives big changes
Printing won’t be typecast

Locally, the printing industry is shrinking, but not sales or employees.

By SU BACON
Special to The Star

Printed words and images are ubiquitous.

They’re on billboards, business cards, bumper stickers, menus, magazines, T-shirts, soup cans, yard signs and just about every visible, permeable surface.

Yet the commercial printing companies that create those words and images are dwindling in number. The Kansas City area had 332 commercial printers in 2004 and 296 in 2005 — down by about 10.8 percent.

But don’t be too quick to sound the death knell, said Jim Oldebeken, regional director for the Printing and Imaging Association of MidAmerica, a four-state regional office of a national trade association.

“Although the common assumption is that this trade is dying or already killed off by the Internet, its sales and employee counts have, in fact, increased in metro Kansas City over the last year,” he said.

The association said Kansas City area printing firms employed 184 more people in 2005 than 2004 — an increase from 11,793 to 11,977. Sales rose from $1.8 billion to $1.9 billion.

This centuries-old business is growing in new ways.

“The printing industry is not simply changing, it is becoming something fundamentally different,” said Andrew Paparozzi, chief economist for the National Association for Printing Leadership, a New Jersey-based nonprofit trade association that represents managers and company leaders in the graphic communications industry.

Technology fuels the evolution. Consider:

•Anyone can create full-color greeting cards on a personal computer, so professional printers must provide work that is not only high quality but also quick and affordable.

•Thanks to the Internet, a printer’s competitor is no longer just the shop down the street — it may be a printer anywhere in the world.

•Generic, one-size-fits-all promotional materials are losing favor. The complexity and capabilities of technology allow every piece to be individualized, custom-addressed and sorted by mail-carrier route.

•The speed of today’s printing process can save customers money if they print on an as-needed basis rather than maintaining an inventory that may later need to be discarded when the information is out of date.

Printing once was a labor-intensive process that required press operators and prepress preparers to be well-versed in their crafts.

“We used to be considered a manufacturing industry,” said Jim Sours, professor of graphic communications management at Pittsburg State University in Kansas. “Now we’re more of a service industry.”

To reflect this shift, in 2002 the university changed the name of its four-year degree in printing management to graphic communications management.

A 2004 survey by the National Association for Printing Leadership found commercial printers attribute 77 percent of their sales to ink-on-paper printing; 8 percent to digital or toner-on-paper printing; and 10 percent to ancillary services such as database management and Web page design.

Printing companies need skills never required before in the industry, Paparozzi said, such as marketing, financial analysis, long-range planning and human resources and organizational development.

“The companies that are succeeding are those that are complementing — not abandoning — their core printing services,” he said.

In Kansas City, companies are expanding services and redefining their businesses. (The Kansas City Star, for instance, in August started offering commercial printing services through its new $200 million printing press.)

CHRIS CUMMINS | The Kansas City Star

Charles Perez of Z3Graphix measures the weight of various inks to ensure color accuracy in a print job for the company.

Here’s a look at the strategies of some of the area’s commercial printers:

Z3 Graphix Inc.

Lenexa

•35 employees

•Annual revenues: $5.5 million to $6 million

Kelly Schoen launched his business in 2001 by acquiring a number of printing companies. Yet when he chose a name for the company, he looked for a concept that conveyed more than printing and paper, he said.

He selected Z3 Graphix. “Z” represents the zenith or the ultimate in technology; “3” stands for design, print and mail — the three basic services that involve taking a printed piece from concept through printing to targeting the recipients, mailing out and measuring results.

The idea was to bundle all services together at one site to manage a client’s marketing process.

About half of Z3’s business comes from printing, Schoen said. About 25 percent comes from targeted marketing, direct marketing and mailing services; 15 percent from creative and graphic design, Web development and marketing consultation; and 10 percent from fulfillment, assembling kits and picking and packing.

Schoen said that for every new dollar of revenue generated by the nonprinting departments, an additional $3 to $4 of print revenue is generated.

Internet influence

Printers are using the Internet to generate more business and streamline the printing process.

“Most printers have their own Web sites on which they can capture jobs from their clients via digital files and proofs can be sent back and forth,” said Yves Rogivue, chief executive officer with MAN Roland Inc., in Illinois, manufacturer of offset presses.

“Web-to-print lets customers do everything from select formats, paper and other variables, upload files, pay for the job, review proofs and set up shipment online,” said Karen Keller, workshop and custom training manager with Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation.

Projects then can be printed and distributed faster and more efficiently.

On the downside, online also means more competition for printers.