Finishing - Conventional

CAMAS, Wash.—Tidland Corporation has announced the retirement of an influential leader. Quino Lorente will leave the company in a position of global strength—a position that he helped to secure, says Tidland.

Providing trade-shop finishing services to the printing industry can be a difficult proposition, even in the best of times. The services and capabilities offered to customers have to be provided in a way that beats competition and offers advantages to customers that can often perform the work in-house.

KENNESAW, Ga.—On the eve of the 2009 IADD•FSEA Odyssey trade exhibition, held May 6-9 in Atlanta, Heidelberg USA hosted a Packaging Open House for Odyssey attendees at its Print Media Demonstration Center (PMDC), one of the largest packaging demonstration facilities in North America.

ROSELAND, N.J.—Bobst Group North America has announced the installation of a COMMERCIAL106 E Autoplaten® diecutter and VISIONFOLD 110-A2 CS folder-gluer at its West-Coast Training and Demonstration Center. The Center, which opened in August 2005, was formed in partnership with Advanced Die Supplies and is located in Advanced Die’s Santa Fe Springs, California facility.

PARIS—UK label converting equipment manufacturer AB Graphic International Ltd., announced the opening of its French office near Paris. As well as supplying its own range of products, the new company will also provide full sales, service and spare parts support in France for Nilpeter presses and Newfoil hot foil stamping equipment.

FAIRFIELD, Ohio—As the calendar year drew to a close, Schober USA was busy unpacking boxes and serving customers from its new, larger facilities in nearby Fairfield, Ohio. The new 10,000-square-foot facility significantly expands the plant size, allowing the company to provide additional services and capabilities to its growing customer base of North American converters, printers and manufacturing companies.

KENNESAW, Ga.—A contingent of U.S. customers were among the more than 100 visitors from 25 countries who attended Heidelberg’s Packaging Days, held March 19-20 at the company’s Wiesloch-Walldorf production site in Germany. Customers spent the day reviewing the full range of Heidelberg packaging solutions from prepress to postpress, representing an area the company views as a key strategic growth investment today and for the future.

ST. LOUIS, Mo.—Mark Andy Canada Inc.'s Mississauga, Ontario, manufacturing facility continues to work full-time to fill outstanding Rotoflex equipment orders, with the first shipments of the year completed in mid-January.

Company: Heidelberg, www.us.heidelberg.com Product: Diana X 115 What is it?: Heidelberg’s new Diana X 115 folder/gluer features an open-frame design and modularity that allows customization for folding carton converters. Features: • From the prefolder to the folding station, all upper and lower roller bars, including the center carrier, are integrated into the AutoSet system for fully automatic make-ready • With the turning module, speciality cartons can now be folded and glued in one pass • The modularity of Diana X 115 allows for a tailor-made configuration for processing a virtually unlimited range of folding cartons • Precise and reliable processing of complex blanks •

What do you do when you have established tried-and-true converting methods and along comes a new innovation? You react and adapt. Some suppliers of folding and gluing equipment have already done so with their product offerings. In light of new European standards requiring Braille application on every pharmaceutical carton, companies like Bobst Group North America and American International Machinery (A.I.M.) have incorporated this technology in their product offerings. “A.I.M. is expecting this European trend to move here to the U.S. very soon, and has uncovered a low-cost, high-speed process that will apply Braille to the product as it is being produced on the folder-gluer,”