Meetings 2011

NOPAs meetings are available only for members and all meetings are without any costs.

Annual meeting 18-20 April in Malmö, Sweden

Autumn meeting in November

All information, program and invitation for these meetings  will be sent out to the members one month before the actual meeting.

Presentations from previous meetings are available at the "Only for members" page. If you haven't received the password, please contact Anders Bovin.

Summary of presentations for NOPA in Sundsvall 10 november 2011

The history of NAHP/NOPA

Sven Meinander, chairman of NOPA

The history of NOPA dates back to the 1970:s in Sweden, expanded to the Nordic countries around 1990 and to the Baltic countries in 2004. NOPA now also invites coldset web offset and sheetfed offset printers as members, in a transition to look at the market rather than the printing method.

TPC projects

Linus Lehnberg, Holmen Paper, chairman of TPC

On-going projects are presented separately. On request from a NOPA member acceptance test for heatset web offset presses is discussed. A stray poll in the auditory showed limited interest.

Results from ongoing projects

Mats Olsson, Vascaia AB

Roller Nip Measurements compare values with instrument to ink-stripe values, and try to find out how often rollers should be checked for setting. The results show a correspondence between instrument and ink-stripe values, except for very thin ink-stripes. In production one of the measured rollers was adjusted three times during 10 million printed copies.

Electricity consumption has been measured in two 16-page presses, one shaftless and one conventional. Standby consumption (over weekend) is quite high, 10-20 kW, and this is probably an area where something could be done.

An ISO standard on carbon footprint emission from printed products can be expected in a year's time. We may see carbon calculators "according to ISO 16759".

From Gutenberg to Google - media development at Mid Sweden University

From Gutenberg to Google - media development at Mid Sweden University

The decline of newspaper circulation started with commercial TV and accelerated with the appearance of smartphones.
Three questions have been studied:

• Development of various media over time (1975-2010): this has been very stable, except Internet which is growing heavily.
• Generations: regular readers in the younger generations are clearly lower.
• Complement or competition: the consumption of daily papers in the generation 15-29 years is only declining slowly, albeit printed newspapers decline (on-line editions grow).

"Paper four" is a research project for improving functionality in print:

• Impact: user studies, markets, design
• Interfaces: printed memories and sensors, media design
• Materials: nano compatible paper substrates.

Examples of new functionality:

• Sensitivity touch, paper with printed electronics.
• A book that contains sound. "Everybody" can print this, the problem is the substrate which has to be high quality.
• Sensing incontinence - a sheet printed with moisture sensitive pattern.
• Sensing heat - printed battery inside a tube, when the water in the battery evaporates it triggers a radio transmitter. Can be used in the forest to detect fire.
• Sensing devices, NFC (= near field communication). Connect your smartphone with the newspaper, connect print media and digital media. This is believed to break through when NFC telephones are coming (next spring) - QR codes do the same but are not sufficiently user friendly.

Challenges for the European Paper Industry

Anders Luthbom, SCA, presented by Marcus Edbom, SCA

There is a decrease in paper volume in Western Europe and the USA, but an increase in the rest of the world. By 2020 the Western European volume is back to 1989 level. Print share of advertisements is declining. Publishers are struggling with their business models, the revenue of digital publishing can be anything between 30 % and a few percent.

There will be only marginal growth of printing and writing paper globally, if any. The problem with over-production is not the new machines, but the old capacity. In Northern America old paper machines have been closed, this is not the case in Europe.

Paper industry's traditional actions to restore margins are cost cutting, closures, consolidation and mergers. But maybe the paper industry will have to go from volume to value. Product prices at all levels will have to reflect a level that makes it attractive for all parties in the chain to stay in business. Players and end products that are not able to carry the full cost eventually will have to exit the value chain.

The future of European printing industry

John Kettle, VTT

This VTT-study, which is based on interviews, highlights three options for facing challenges:

1. Efficient production. Optimising current production is not sufficient, wider range of printing materials and printing methods (simultaneously) must be offered.
2. Interactive products (new functionality). "Make Harry Potter products reality".
3. New products. Non-media products, pharmaceutical test strips, solar cells etc.

What is needed:

• Move from products via product-service-systems to solutions.
• Increase management competence requirements.
• Implement change processes that moves the firm from being less innovative to becoming more innovative.
• The problem: companies that have both the need and resources aren't there.

The report can be downloaded on www.vtt.fi/foresttech (only 12 pages).

It is up to you to make printing industry survive

Sture Udd, UPC

Sture Udd challenged us all in saying "By not changing ourselves we are responsible for destroying the market!" His point is who are the drivers for development and where is the real market? The real market for printing industry is not the publisher, not the brand owner but the end consumer, and the interests of the end consumer do not always coincide with the interests of the publisher and the brand owner.

As an example, 5 000 billion euro were invested in 1990-2010 in order to make paper slightly whiter, did the end consumers ask for that?

With less print volumes the distribution companies raise the prices, which further reduces the volumes. As a contrast, Google invested huge money in free search engines, and on top of that they created business. The distribution companies should distribute for free and make business by having access to the letterboxes.

Advice: 1) we need advanced technology, 2) re-organize your company, 3) be innovative. All three have to be in place. And remember that we are producing information, not products.

Controlling paper waste

Jonas Rehn, MWM Consulting

There are five good reasons to track production:

• Know the current situation
• Set up goals
• Improve efficiency and reduce costs using real-time data
• Maintenance, why do have more waste in some areas
• Strategic planning.

Merely presenting waste figures has a positive effect. One of the most important potential savings is to cut down over production by knowing exactly how many copies are delivered from the bindery in relation to copies printed.

MittMedia Print and the Cortina press

Jan Andersson, MittMedia Print

The company had to exchange the old press in Sundsvall. Due to decreasing circulations for the newspapers in the group, the investment had to rely on external sales as well. The coldset market in Sweden is limited and has low margins due to overcapacity, therefore the conclusion was to find new market niches by investing in a press that can handle heatset as well as coldset.

The competitive edge within the defined format range lies in high pagination, high output, small circulations and short lead times. Issues to work with for the moment are dust problems, blistering on coated paper, productivity and waste.

Ortviken's bright future

Kristina Enander, SCA Ortviken

Ortviken is the no. 6 biggest publication paper mill in the world, with four production lines: two for newsprint grades and two for LWC. There have been strong productivity increases during the last ten years by volume increases and reduced manning, and this almost without investments.

Ortviken only uses virgin fibres, has a strong mill and high flexibility, and is considering how to use these strengths to position themselves for the future.

Ruling the commercial heatset market

Klaus Streit, manroland

Some main trends:

• The number of hybrid presses is growing
• Press speed, web width and pages/hour is increasing
• Automation is growing, e.g. plate change, inline control systems, auto job change.

16-page presses still have a 55 % market share worldwide, in Europe however only 30 %; the remaining 70 % are high volume machines. More than 1 000 presses were sold during the last seven years, probably the same amount disappeared but there is no statistics on that.

Manroland is developing the concept "autoprint", a self-controlling press where the printer becomes a process controller. Tests at the first customer showed for 24 jobs with autoprint an average makeready time of 5:42 minutes and an average waste of 998 cylinder revolutions.