Eric Bell quotes:

The three principal trends affecting how we do business in the newspaper production industry might best come under the headings: automation, diversification, distributed print.

In terms of production, newspaper publishers are continuing to focus principally on automation as the key to reducing production costs and general overheads.

The cowboys have a way of trussing up a steer or a pugnacious bronco which fixes the brute so that it can neither move nor think. This is the hog-tie, and it is what Euclid did to geometry.

Distributed print is arguably our biggest challenge as a machinery supplier, as more publishers find efficiencies in transferring print production to remote printers and supersites. But our signature Goss flexibility and adaptability allow us to meet that challenge head-on with relevant technologies, services and expertise that continue to provide customers with an edge.

In many instances, automation in itself facilitates more diversification opportunities, in freeing up production capacity and enabling shorter run, more targeted copies, and it can also be essential in the interface with additional and new processes such as web drying, inkjetting etc.

In terms of new press orders the differences currently are not so great as you might imagine. On the whole, Asian customers in the last couple of years have been looking for speed and capacity increases with less emphasis on automation, but this too is now changing as rising prices also affect Asia and the benefits of waste reduction become clear.

In North America, the medium-to-large publishers are generally confining investment to enhancements, upgrades and opportunities for incremental capacity and efficiency improvements, while among the smaller newspapers, there continues to be interest in systems that can provide a significant boost in production capabilities.

Product diversification comes into the mix as customers continue to strive for new revenue streams and a better USP.

North American newspapers are entering into commercial printing in a way that is somewhat different from taking in traditional commercial jobs: they are subcontracting to print other newspapers that have chosen not to upgrade their print capabilities. This is creating a profit-centre environment at many newspapers, both those that contract out and those that contract in requiring added capacity and more colour at the newspaper taking the contract.

Green production is certainly an important topic for newspapers. Environmental considerations are part of every enquiry today and come into most aspects of equipment specification. On balance, however, cost-effectiveness is a more urgent requirement for most print organisations.