Reprographics 101

New England Engineering firm, Wright-Pierce, issues survey to General Contractors, Sub-Contractors, and Material Suppliers (Plans and Specs on CD-ROM?)

This large, progressive, regional engineering firm (Wright-Pierce) is in the process of conducting a survey of GC’s, Subs and Material Suppliers. I’ll get back to that in just a minute.

Wright-Pierce office locations:

· Middletown, CT

· Providence, RI

· Andover, MA

· Sandwich, MA

· Topsham, ME

· Portland, ME

· Portsmouth, NH

· Henniker, NH

If you go to Wright-Pierce’s web-site and click on the “projects to bid” tab, that will bring up a list of engineering projects W-P is currently requesting bids for.

Here’s one of the “project” pages that came up, after I visited the “projects to bid” page and selected an individual project.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B81al4kFAU9JODE1YTRmYjAtMzExZi00NDliLWJiMmQtODBmYmRlOGM3MTky&hl=en_US

So, if a contractor or sub or material supplier wants to bid, the prospective bidder can place an order for “plans and specs” (PRINTED plans and specs.) W-P lists the cost to purchase a set of plans and specs (for each project out to bid) and also lists the shipping cost. I don’t have any idea who does the printing; could be that the printing is done “in-house” by W-P (either on equipment owned by W-P or on equipment provided by a vendor under an “FM” arrangement) or done by a reprographer, off-site, who’s handling W-P’s off-site reprographics work on an “outsource” basis. The point I’m making, here, is that, up until now, W-P has been “hard-copy” printing bid sets.

That “standard procedure” may change, somewhat, after W-P evaluates the results of the survey it is conducting. Here’s the survey, take a look:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B81al4kFAU9JNzI0ZThhY2UtMDViOS00MWNiLWIzOWYtMTg2M2MwOGUxMzE3&hl=en_US

In the future, it is likely that some of the GC’s and Subs will want to receive plans and specs on CD-ROM instead of in hard-copy format. Or, maybe they’ll want both!

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Press release from the issuing company

Venlo, The Netherlands, – Océ, an international leader in digital document management, has sharpened its focus on Business Services with the appointment of a new Executive Vice President Business Services, Mark Euwe. The appointment is effective 1 September 2011.



Euwe, 48, has held various positions within Accenture. In 1990 he joined Andersen Consulting (later to become Accenture) as a management consultant. He gained considerable experience with various companies in the High Tech sector, both in The Netherlands and abroad. In the course of two decades, Euwe was promoted to the position of Executive Partner, responsible for the Electronics and High Tech portfolio.



Following a degree course in Industrial Engineering & Management Science at the Technical University of Eindhoven (1990), Euwe did a PhD in Supply Chain Management (1999).



At Océ, Mark Euwe will strengthen the global management team for the Strategic Business Unit Business Services. The appointment fits within the corporate ambitions and objective to bolster the growth of this sector.

____________

Joel’s comment:

If Mark has joined OCE’s OBS (OCE Business Services) unit, then it “looks like” OCE has added a very strong player to the OBS team.

As I’ve pointed out before on this blog, OCE’s OBS segment – in Europe – pursues all types of companies for FM and MPS relationships. But, in the U.S., OCE’s OBS unit has, at least historically, not pursued FM’s and MPS relationships in the A/E/C industry, leaving that business to U.S. reprographers.

Good luck to Mark on his new gig with OCE.

Hey, one of my favorite reprographics industry talents has moved out of the reprographics industry!

Let’s all of us who know “Tanner Bechtel” wish him the best of luck and every success with his new job and in the new industry he’s moved over to.

Very bright and energetic young man, and he contributed his time and energy to the IRgA.

Good luck, Tanner!

Current Position (New!)

Account Management

XPLANE | Dachis Group

Privately Held; Management Consulting industry

August 2011 – Present (1 month) Saint Louis, MO

Founded in 2008 by Jeffrey Dachis, Dachis Group was created to unlock the value of social technologies for large corporate enterprises through Social Business Design.

Former Positions (Reprographics-Industry-related positions)

Global Solutions Executive

American Reprographics Company

Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry

September 2009 – August 2011 (2 years)

ARC (ARC) is the world’s largest global provider of content-enabled technology solutions and cloud computing solutions for the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. ARC is a public corporation, ARC on the NYSE.

Managing Director

ReproMAX Technologies

Privately Held; Printing industry

July 2008 – September 2009 (1 year 3 months)

ReproMAX is the largest worldwide network of independent reprographic print and digital document management companies. Over 300 locations in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Belgium and the Netherlands

Director of Technology & Marketing

ReproMAX

Construction industry

August 2004 – August 2007 (3 years 1 month)

Toll Brothers is certainly one of the U.S.’ major home builders (and I have long been a huge fan of Toll Brothers; they design and build incredibly beautiful homes.) Here’s a story, out this morning, about Toll Brothers’ results:

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Toll Brothers Inc.’s (TOL) fiscal third-quarter earnings jumped 54% with a boost from a bigger tax benefit, yet the luxury home builder saw a double-digit drop in revenue as home deliveries fell.

The housing market is facing continued challenges: Unemployment remains high, bargain-priced foreclosures pose stiff competition and burned lenders have tightened mortgage requirements. Annual new-home sales are on track to hit another record low.

While there’s concern recent financial volatility could deliver the hard-hit sector another blow, Toll said it is too early to gauge the effects. “While late summer is generally not the best time to sell homes, in the short run, the stock market gyrations, the budget impasse, and the U.S. Government bond rating downgrade are certainly not helping consumer confidence,” Chief Executive Douglas C. Yearley Jr. said in the pre-market release.

For the quarter ended July 31, Toll Brothers reported a profit of $42.1 million, or 25 cents a share, up from $27.3 million, or 16 cents a share, a year earlier. The current-year period included pretax write-downs of $20.2 million, while the year-ago period included pretax write-downs and charges totaling $13.2 million.

Revenue declined 13% to $394.3 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 3 cents a share on $404 million in revenue.

Gross margin slipped to 13.8% from 14.2% a year earlier.

Toll, one of the nation’s largest home builders, delivered 693 homes, a 14% decrease from a year earlier. The average price of net signed contracts was $570,000, roughly the same as the prior-year period.

The cancellation rate, defined as cancellations divided by signed contracts, was 7.4% versus 6.2% a year earlier.

Contracts climbed 2% from the prior year, missing some analyst estimates.

Demir Gjokaj, a senior analyst with ITG Investment Research, viewed Toll’s results as worrisome for the sector.

“I’m not liking what I’m seeing,” he said. “If Toll’s getting weak, and they’ve always been located in the strongest regions and have the strongest buyer segments, it definitely casts a shadow on the rest of the group coming into the third quarter.”

Toll Bros.’ shares were up 4.2% at $15.36 in recent trading.

-By Mia Lamar and Dawn Wotapka, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-3207; mia.lamar@dowjones.com

Interesting article on http://thewebandprint.com, that I’d like to bring to your attention ……

Can I Charge My Customers for Web to Print?

On August 15, 2011 by Jennifer Matt

Remember a decade ago when we were talking about how to capture all the revenue from customers changes? I think that’s what printers are thinking – we’re investing our time and labor into something (a private web to print storefront) therefore it should be charagble. We’re thinking about it from our perspective instead of the customers – value has migrated from manufacturing to the ease of order entry – you have to invest where the customer value focus is!

After speaking at several venues over the last few months, the one question that gets asked every time I’m talking to printers about web to print is:

If you are considering / evaluating the purchase of ARC shares (now that they are nice and low), remember that, when you purchase shares of ARC, you are, in essence, gaining ownership of all of these formerly independent companies, all for the current price of ARC.

The other day, I purchased a new mouse, and I decided to give it some “cut and paste” exercise. You’ll see, below, that I’ve put the company names in alphabetical order (at least, A-Z). For the most part, the company names in the first part of the list appeared in ARC’s last-filed 10-K Annual Report to the SEC. (The list does not include any acquisitions completed by ARC since December 31, 2010.) I’ve added some, from memory, that did not appear in the 10-K.

If I missed a few, excuse me. If anyone wants to add any missing companies to the list, e-mail me.

Formerly independent companies, now all operating as “ARC”:

Atlas Blueprint

Advance Reprographics

A&E Supply Company

A-C Reproduction Company A-Plus Digital Reprographics

AEC Systems

American Draftsource Blair Graphics

Blue Print Service Company

BPS Reprographics (same as above)

BRAT Blueprinting

Brownie’s Digital Imaging

Blueprints Plus

The Blue Print Company Best Digital Central Valley Reprographics

City Digital Imaging

Consolidated Reprographics

Crest Graphics

Dunn Blue Print Dieterich — Post

Digital Reprographics

Dayton Blue Print Company

DBS Engineering Repro Systems

Detroit Reprographics

Elite Reprographics

Engineering Repro Systems eBlueprint Ford Graphics (Micro Device, predecessor of ARC) Gwyer Reprographics

Georgia Blue

Hudson Reprographics (Blueprint) Imaging Technologies Services

IT Plus Technologies

Independent Printing Company

InPrint

KV Blueprint

Kestrel Blueprint Company

Kansas Blue print

Letter Perfect Design

LDO Leet-Melbrook MBC Precision Imaging Mercury

Mossner

Mathias Reprographics

Metro Digital Imaging

Mix Imaging

McKee Enterprises Mirror Plus Technologies, Inc. NGI Digital (National Graphic Imaging)

OCB

Orlando Reprographics Olympic Reprographic, LLC Peninsula Digital Imaging

Pikes Peak Reprographics

Queen City Reprographics

Reprographics Technologies (RTI, formerly Rowley-Scher Reprographics) Reliable Graphics RK Digital Resource Imaging Supply

Reprographics Northwest

Rapid Blueprint Supply Co.

Reprographics Arlington

Reprographics Dallas

Reprographics Fort Worth

Reprographics Roanoke

Rhode Island Blueprint

Ridgway’s

Ridgway’s Digital Imaging of Destin

RCMS Group

Superior Reprographics

StratoGrafix Tacoma Reprographics

Tampa Reprographics

Torrence Document Service

T-Square Express

University Imaging

Veenestra Western Blue Print Company

Other ARC operating companies:

American Reprographics Co.

Riot Creative Imaging

Licensing Services International, LLC

ARC BIM Services Group

ARC Document Solutions

Planwell, LLC The PEiR Group The above lists intentionally exclude ARC’s non-U.S. acquisitions or operations

Some of the older reprographics companies acquired by companies acquired by ARC, prior to ARC beginning its acquisition program (i.e., names from the old days):

AB Camp Reproduction Company

Blodgett Reproductions

Engineering Graphics

A&E Blueprinters

Max Scher Blueprints

The Sepia Shop

Heller Reproductions

K&E Cooper-Trent

Allied Reproduction Service

Hot Off The Press

White’s Blueprint Service

I think I forgot to report about this, OCE’s results for Q2 2011, which were released in late July 2011….

From the headline section of the report:

Océ Q2 2011 impacted by challenging conditions Highlights second quarter (ended 30 June 2011):

• Net loss: € – 14 million (2010: € – 11 million)

• Normalized operating income: € – 7 million (2010: € 20 million)

• Organically, total revenues – 4% to € 626 million (2010: € 676

million); non-recurring revenues – 12%; recurring revenues –1%

Comments by Rokus van Iperen, Chairman of the Executive Board, included:

“Revenues continued to decrease in the challenging second quarter due to several circumstances. The construction markets in the USA and Europe showed an even further decline compared to last year. This had an impact on the development of the total results of Wide Format Printing Systems.”

Later on, in the body of the report, where OCE talks about the performance of its individual business segments:

Wide Format Printing Systems (WFPS)

The construction markets in the USA and Europe showed an even further decline compared to last year. This had an impact on the development of the total results of WFPS. Printer sales in WFPS developed positively driven by targeted action plans, strengthening the competitive position of the Océ sales companies.

Display Graphics Systems maintained its revenue growth. In the quarter the Océ Arizona 360 GT and XT flatbed printing system was launched at the annual Fespa trade fair, held this year in Hamburg in May. Customer deliveries started in the second quarter and will accelerate in the second half of the year.

Revenues in WFPS amounted to € 186 million. Organically, revenues increased by 2%. Non-recurring revenues amounted to € 73 million. Organically, revenues rose by 8%. Recurring revenues amounted to € 113 million. Organically, revenues declined by –1%.

Normalized operating income amounted to € 5 million (2010: € 13 million).

Océ Business Services (OBS)

In the quarter, OBS continued to grow revenues in higher value-added services like records management, litigation support and business process outsourcing. These increasingly substitute commodity services and therefore generate higher margins.

OBS was recently, for the fifth consecutive year, named in the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals’ Global Outsourcing 100 list. Customers are increasingly consulting this list to partner with service providers who have achieved solid outsourcing results.

In Europe, OBS won a significant contract with the UK subsidiary of the international insurance company AEGON. In Spain, OBS signed a new contract with leading household appliance provider Bosch Siemens. Throughout Europe, OBS registered a growing customer demand for its value-added services.

Revenues at OBS amounted to € 113 million. Organically, revenues increased by 1%. Normalized operating income amounted to € 5 million (2010: € 6 million).

You can access the complete report by visiting OCE’s web-site. I’m not going to bother to post the report in my Google Docs library, unless I get a request to do so.