Lakeside Book Company Elevates Domestic Book Manufacturing With Installation of Next-Generation Press Technology in Willard, Ohio

Back in February, Dan Marx had the pleasure of speaking with three commercial printing providers to see how they were experiencing, and what the were doing to mitigate the effect of, the ongoing paper shortage. That piece, “Printing Companies Share Their Experiences with Paper Shortages and What They're Doing in Response”, was featured in Printing Impressions. As the paper crisis is much more a moving target than a moment in time, he reached back out to one of the printers, Christina Esparza, VP of operations for InfoIMAGE, a transactional printer (locations in Coppell, Texas, and Brisbane, California), to see how that company’s experience and approach has changed over the last three months.

Quantum Group and Landa Digital Printing have announced that installation of the first Landa S11P Nanographic Printing Press in the US, at Quantum’s Chicago, plant, is now complete. The Landa S11P is Quantum’s second Landa press and one of two new B1 digital press models announced by Landa at a pre-drupa press briefing in March. The Landa S11 and S11P models offer 11,200 sph continuous print speed; Landa’s PrintAI for high fidelity, precision print quality; and additional modules that can be utilized for custom configurations. “We’ve purchased our second Landa press because the experience with the first has been so positive,” says Quantum Group CEO, Cheryl Kahanec. “The Landa press platform, overall, is opening a world of opportunity for us. From 41-inch sheet size and high speed to color range and substrate compatibility; Landa presses consistently – and sustainably – produce high end and variable content for so many different applications.” The additional capacity provided by the Landa S11P will help support growth that Quantum credits to the S10P’s positive impact on plant-wide production and new business. In addition, Kahanec believes that the company will now beat its timeline estimates for at least two new application initiatives.

Questions surrounding the future of book printing drew a capacity crowd of 155 publishing professionals to the BMI (Book Manufacturers Institute) Book Manufacturing Mastered conference, held September 14 at Penguin Random House’s New York City headquarters. And though the book manufacturing sector was booming during the pandemic, economic conditions have softened and costs for most materials are continuing to go up. Still, speakers at the conference said book printers are generally in a good place, albeit with a host of challenges ahead of them.In addition to rising costs, topics discussed at the daylong conference included the renewed postpandemic threat of work moving off-shore, sustainability concerns, the shift from offset to digital printing, and labor shortages. “We’re basically where we were back in 2014,” said Marco Boer, v-p of IT Strategies, in the opening presentation. “We haven’t lost all that printed book volume that people were worried about when e-books came in, and so we all say this is okay. People are continuing to read and print, and that’s great.”