Tim Trinka has been with University Lithoprinters since 1981. He started as an estimator but worked in a number of capacities from estimating to customer service, job planning, preflighting jobs to the current position as the system administrator of their management system. Tim has a B.S. degree in Printing Management from Ferris State University.

University Lithoprinters is a commercial printing company employing 50 people in Ann Arbor Michigan. They have an electronic prepress department consisting of both Macintosh and PC platforms, with 2 scanners, a 43" ink jet printer for dylux proofs, a Creo Scitex Proofsetter Spectrum, and a Creo-Scitex Lotem plating device. In the press room they have two Komori 40" 6 color presses with aqueous coating towers. The bindery has two Polar cutters, two MBO folders, one Stahl folder and a Stahl stitcher/trimmer with 6 pockets and a cover feeder. The company operates around the clock five days a week and weekends when necessary.

Tim, tell us about your annual sales volume and future plans.

We do approximately $8 million in sales consisting of high quality color work, annual reports, collateral brochures, color books, and posters. University Lithoprinters is moving to follow the technology growth within the graphic arts industry with the installation of our first CTP device last year. Prior to that device we had been outputting plate ready films for six years. We look at our growth and direction by partnering with our customers and seeing their needs.

Was the CTP technology your most recent investment?

The most recent investment that we have made was in the prepress department with the computer to plate technology. This investment not only allows us to go direct to plates but has improved the productivity within the prepress department and improved the quality of the plates that they produce for our press department. We are continuously reviewing the operations both with equipment and personnel to improve our products. There is no planned investment at this time.

CAP Ventures says pages printed are going up, but quantities for each job are going down. What do you see?

We have seen trends by the buyers to purchase shorter runs of the products to reduce the cost of inventory for their companies, this trend will continue and a trend to have the printing companies become more full service. With full service we feel that we will need to be more involved with not only the print portion of the customers job but also creation, distribution, and archiving for the customer.

What are your thoughts on the e-print players like printCafe and Printwire?

I looked at Impresse, printCafe, Printwire, and a few of the auction sites on the internet. Each of the sites is unique in its approach to how they are trying to service either the printer or the customer. Many of the services have been created with only the customer in mind with the information they provide to the printer and the on line battle for the printing jobs. I did some preview work with one of our customers and (the old) Impresse, while it looks great on the screen the information that they are trying to have the print buyer convey, in many cases either is outside the print buyers area of expertise or the buyer has no interest in completing the information. PrintCafe has been very interesting to follow the evolution of their concept and site development, this is the one site that does seem to have more of the printer's interest in mind but with their pricing structure seems much too expensive for the type of business we have. With printCafe they say that they do not price based on transactions but if you look at their pricing and how it is derived it really is back to a transaction pricing model. Within the past two months have become involved with Printwire, which is an ecommerce site created and controlled by the Printing Industries of Michigan. This site is still undergoing changes and improvements but does allow the print buyer to communicate with their choice of printers. Here again it will only work properly with the cooperation of the buyer.

Tell us about your proofing process.

When we receive a job from a customer the first stage we go through is a preflight stage where we check the file to confirm that all of the items needed are present and also to confirm the types of files are correct. Then we offer to our clients the use of our Rainbow proof process which is a low cost dye sublimation proof that we can produce prior to production working on the job. After the Rainbow process, if desired, we will produce for our customers an electronic dylux proof for pagination confirmation and also to check type elements. The final proof that we produce after we confirm the dylux is correct is a digital matchprint proof, the matchprint and dylux are both shown to the customer to confirm the file we have produced is ok to proceed to plates with. If by chance there are corrections to the files we have produced the proof from we will determine the need to produce additional proofs for the customer.

With Print 01 around the corner, what is your feelings about trade shows and buying equipment right off the show floor?

The trade shows for the printing industry have been a great way to go and see different offerings of equipment or software for our industry. While this is a very good overview of the offerings this is not the place to make a decision on buying. The real decision must come later seeing the equipment or software in an actual production setting provides a much more valuable tool for making the decision, especially given an opportunity to interact with the operators.