"When thinking about automation in all aspects of an operation, you need to decide where it actually makes sense in your own operation. It varies from plant to plant, and many cases, it just makes sense to have staff on certain jobs."
Matthias Ditzen-Blanke, CEO, Druckzentrum Nordsee, Germany
"It's nice to be in a room of believers as I always seem to be the last man standing touting print. Especially when I go south to visit with my colleagues in the U.S., where they are not good ambassadors for print. Everything is digital. That is not good for the industry, especially with advertisers."
Phillip Crawley, CEO, Globe and Mail, Canada
“We are in the news business, not necessarily in the newsPAPER business.”
Marcelo Benez, Advertising Director, Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil
"We had heard a lot about short-run printing having little success, both technically and commercially. But we were determined to prove that newspapers could be printed digitally on newsprint, in full colour and economically."
Malcolm Miller, CEO, Miller Newsprint, Malta
“We do not want a very broad offer, but looking more for the niches. Before we were a newspaper printer. Today we are a commercial printer, producing newspapers as well. Customer orientation of all employees is vital to successs.”
Matthias Tietz, Technical Director of Rheinisch-Bergische Druckerei, Germany
"I think it is important to be realistic about quality expectations (with semi-commercial). Adding a dryer to a newspaper press does not make it a commercial press. While it may be somewhat easier to retrofit devices like stitchers and gluers, the same cannot be said for hot-air dryers, for example.”
Kasturi Balaji, Managing Director, Kasturi & Sons, India
"Like in fFormula 1 racing, we have teams that work in shifts in our mailroom to reach and maintain the peak average speeds we need to produce our products and stay ahead in the race."
Frank Wagner, Production Manager, Axel Springer, Germany
"I think we need to diversify our business as much as possible, especially for the long term. I know that a lot of people are saying that print is irrelevant today, but the fact is that we are still all making money on print, and I am a firm believer that we can continue to do so as long as we continue to innovate and offer high-quality products."
Philip Brännlund, Managing Director, Eskilstuna-Kurirens Tryckeri, Sweden
"For augmented reality to work for newspapers, the multimedia content behind it must hold the users for more than that one-time 'wow' experience, also sometimes associated with first-time users of the iPad."
Herbert Bay, co-Founder and CEO, Kooaba, Switzerland
"My personal view is that newspapers didn't get the Internet when it arrived or today we would be Google, Yahoo or Monster."
Christopher Baker, Vice President Manufacturing, New York Daily News
“The last IFRA Expo revealed 2010 as ‘The year of tablet publishing’. The world of publishing is changing and this means that also print cannot stand still. ... I asked myself: ‘What would Gutenberg invent if he would be alive today – to help profit the future of the publishing industry?”
Manfred Werfel, Deputy CEO, Executive Director Competence Centre Newspaper Production, WAN-IFRA
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