The Graphic Communication department at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo held its annual Gravure Day on January 23rd during International Print Week. Professionals from throughout the gravure industry came to speak to students on several different aspects of gravure.

The day started with Bill Staab who is the Operational Support Manager for RR Donnelley's Reno, Nevada plant. He has been with the company for an impressive 32 years and is responsible for all non-manufacturing and non-administrative departments. This position includes responsibilities such as ink, paper, shipping, engineering, technical sales and pollution control systems.

Mr. Staab began his presentation with a company overview and went on to discuss future trends such as sustainability and social responsibility. RR Donnelley is the largest printing company in North America employing over 60,000 people worldwide. The gravure facility in Reno, Nevada includes seven 108-inch gravure presses as well as finishing process capabilities. The company is currently executing a three-year plan with goals of profit growth, increased productivity, and a strong focus on mergers and acquisitions. Social responsibility has always been a tradition for RR Donnelley. They are proud of their deep commitment to diversity, community, environment, health and safety. The company's safety policy aims to protect the health and safety of employees, customers and the public as well as always striving for an injury-free workplace. Mr. Staab also spoke about why and how RR Donnelley is working toward more sustainable practices. He stressed that managing the environment positively impacts all aspects of the business. Saving energy and reducing the carbon footprint leads to significant cost saving. Finally, Mr. Staab wrapped up his presentation with a few trends in the gravure industry as a whole, including customer differentiation, increased versioning, reducing cycle times and continuous innovation.

Our next presenter was Vic Hamister who has 29 years of experience in the gravure industry. He began his career with Cal Ink in Los Angeles, then went on to become an ink chemist and is the current Technical Service Manager of Flint Group.

Mr. Hamister's presentation focused on gravure ink manufacturing. He explained that Flint Group is a global printing ink manufacturer. Flint Group's gravure inks are solvent-based, however technology now allows 98% efficiency of solvent recovery. This fact eases the environmental concerns of many. Gravure ink is very low viscosity to allow it to easily flow in and out of cells. It dries either by absorption, evaporation or cross-linking. Mr. Hamister then went on to describe the more technical side of ink manufacturing. The first step in the process is resin or varnish selection. Depending on which is used affects blocking resistance, gloss, pigment, adhesion and other characteristics. Pigments or color are then taken into consideration. These vary between publication printing and packaging printing. Cyan, magenta, yellow and black are the base colors for publications, while package printing requires a broader range of base colors because of the bright colors commonly used. Lastly, waxes, surfactants and solvents are added to complete the ink. Mr. Hamister's technical knowledge was both impressive and informative.

After a one-hour break for lunch, the Graphic Communication students were ready to get back to learning from the speakers. Up next was Glenn Lucas, the Operational Manager for Quad Graphics' Offset and Gravure Imaging division. Mr. Lucas is responsible for the day-to-day offset and gravure manufacturing, but his focus is on workflows and continual improvement. He is also responsible for customer satisfaction along with employee career development and training. Mr. Lucas has been with Quad Graphics for 25 years, which gave the GrC students an extra edge to sit up in their chairs and listen. Quad Graphics is a $2 billion dollar company and is the largest privately held printer. Quad employs 12,000 people and has locations throughout the world.

Mr. Lucas spoke to us about upcoming trends in the gravure industry. One common trend, which some students had heard about, is the increase in short-run jobs. Also, there is more mixing of processes between offset and gravure. Another current trend is going completely digital. All Quad Graphics gravure cylinders are directly engraved using digital data. Digital engravers have an increased amount of control and consistency compared to film-based engravers. Glenn informed us that Quad Graphics uses K6 digital engravers that are capable of engraving cylinders in 22 different sizes. Since the engravers are fully automated, the productivity of these machines is greatly enhanced. In fact, these gravure cylinders are only a mere six hours behind offset presses! Turnaround times have been dramatically reduced and have thus improved the quality of print. Mr. Lucas clarified a student's question and said that gravure has many different uses; however it is ideal for medium to long run insert catalog and publication work. So what does Mr. Lucas think the future holds in store for gravure? He believes that the next big thing will be converting to laser engravers.

After Mr. Lucas finished his presentation, Tom Stokes, the Vice President of the Western Region of Flint Group, took the stage. Mr. Stokes began his career in the printing ink business in 1989. He has been in the gravure ink manufacturing industry for 19 years. Mr. Stokes gave an informative presentation on what he titled, "Starting your printing career." This caught the attention of many students because they realized he was talking directly to them about their futures. Job possibilities at Flint Group range from graphic technicians and laboratory positions to technical services and sales positions. One of the rapidly growing job opportunities is what Flint Group calls "Pre-press auditors." Mr. Stokes spoke to the Graphic Communication students about the five main segments: publication gravure, publication heastset, news ink, packaging and sheetfed commercial.

Each of the segments in the printing industry has both positive and negative aspects. Some of the positive points to the gravure publication segment are that they tend to have a strong customer base and close working relationships with their suppliers. Publication heatset, however, carries expensive energy costs within its segment. One of the problems with news ink is that the circulation of newspapers is declining since the industry is bundling because of consolidation between newspapers. Advertisers and classified ads are choosing to move online rather than stay with the original newspapers. However, there is good news for the packaging industry, Mr. Stokes says. He told the students that this would be a good segment of the printing business to get into. The packaging industry continues to grow both in America and offshore with the help of new technologies and applications. Sheetfed commercial printing has positives and negatives as well. Sheetfed tends to have a large customer base and produces high quality products, however on the downside, it usually has expensive direct mailing costs associated with commercial printing.

Tom Stokes ended his presentation with some words of wisdom for us. He told us to focus on the entire printing process rather than just one part. Tom reminded us to network with Cal Poly staff and industry representatives to help us be successful in our future careers. Finally, he advised us to become active in industry associations such as the GAA.

Overall, each of the four speakers brought something unique to share with the Graphic Communication students. One of the most memorable lines that came from every speaker at some point was the phrase "that's a bad day in the ink business." This little phrase became the running joke throughout the day and was said when either a speaker or audience mentioned a situation that would create a disaster for that business. We believe that the students walked away from these presentations well-informed about the gravure industry. Gravure Day wrapped up with a closing presentation by NYU about their graduate program opportunities for graduating students whom have an interest to continue their studies in the Graphic Communication field.