Paris, October 18, 2008 - The recent series of Web Offset Champion Group (WOCG) seminars in Australia and New Zealand "Optimising Total Web Offset Production" were a resounding success according to attendees.

All seminars included best practice knowledge from WOCG members including:
- Market and technology trends in different world markets
- Best practices in benchmarking, the environment and operations
- Process colour control featuring the launch of the WOCG"s 7th best practice guide "Total AM process colour control & Alternative Screening Technologies"

The invitation only WOCG seminars held in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Auckland attracted 212 attendees " the "who"s who" of the web offset industry. Attendee feedback responses clearly demonstrated that the seminars were extremely successful. More than half of the attendees completed a structured feedback showing that 97% classed the event as "good to excellent", 98% would recommend WOCG Seminars as being valuable to other colleagues, and 96% would like to attend future WOCG Seminars.

"A lot of good work has gone into the WOCG seminars and I appreciate the opportunity to be part of it. The process colour control session was one of the real key subjects in moving forward.  The guides are excellent and a valuable tool for pushing competitive boundaries," according to Graham Trickey, General Manager Operations, Hannanprint NSW.

The practical seminar focused on the optimisation of total web offset production and follows similar events held in the UK, Sweden and Japan. The seminar addressed both commercial heatset and newspaper coldset printers looking to improve best practice performance and an update on some market trends. The seminar was focussed on generic best practice " not limited to a specific product, brand or geographical area. Expert speakers came from WOCG members in the US, UK, France, Switzerland and Germany to systematically address key issues and share their international experience.

"Good sessions, some great ideas and facts. "Improving 'Energy Efficiency' was excellent, and very relevant to today's focus for business," commented Jacob Muscat, Business & Finance Manager, Fairfax Media.

WOCG Seminar Topics
The three sessions address different subjects. The opening session addressed market and technology trends in different world markets. Session two looked at best practices in benchmarking, the environment and operations. The last session focussed on process colour control featuring the launch of the WOCG"s 7th best practice guide "Total AM process colour control & Alternative Screening Technologies".

All attendees received a copy of the WOCG "Tool Box", a 242-page compendium of the seven guides published by the group. Results from the PrintCity Alliance research on "Optimising Energy Efficiency" were also presented.

"The feedback I directly received was excellent. Most attendees believed that real value was delivered.  A number of customers commented that the models presented on productivity maintenance are invaluable, as a deeper level of understanding of today's activities will certainly benefit tomorrow's performance," stated Ian Johns, Offset Director, DIC Australia.

The event was co-ordinated by Meredith Darke, Web Commercial Manager for DIC Australia, who led the organisation with other local Australian and New Zealand WOCG members. "The series of seminars was a unique opportunity to collectively present to our customers with the most up-to-date material on best practice.  The presenters were first-class and delivered expert information on a variety of useful and relevant topics."

The Web Offset Champion Group"s is a non-profit organisation whose objective is to improve web offset productivity. The Group is focussed on generic best practice as a tool to improve over-all performance and uses a cross-industry approach because no single company can provide answers to all the variables of the press line and its consumables.

Its members are Aylesford Newsprint, Kodak, manroland, MEGTEC, Muller Martini, Nitto Denko, Quad Tech, SCA, Sun Chemical and Trelleborg.

Any general enquiries about WOCG Best Practice Guides and the new Tool Box should be made to Nigel Wells at [email protected]

Further information on the Web Offset Champion Group can be found at www.wocg.info