Mark Hunt

CHICAGO—The long awaited rebound in sales, profit and investment in the graphic communications industry appears to be underway based on the performance of industry vendors at this year's GRAPH EXPO and CONVERTING EXPO. The show, the largest of its kind in the Americas, took place in Chicago from September 28 through October 1. More than 38,000 industry professionals took part in the event, and 580 companies exhibited their latest products and services in 375,000 square feet of display space. "This show has been spectacular," reported Mark Hunt, vice president of marketing at Standard Finishing Systems. "We've been wandering in the desert for several years,

BY MARK SMITH Adhesive binding has long been a benchmark of quality for finishing, but equipment costs and setup times traditionally had kept the process in the realm of long-run and/or higher end projects. The prevailing trend now in "perfect" binding systems is increasing their flexibility to handle shorter runs. This is true for all levels of equipment, but particularly for the relatively new product category of units designed to work in conjunction with digital printing systems. A related trend is the industry's move to computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) that is trickling down to postpress operations in general. Unlike prepress and printing, though, digital

BY ERIK CAGLE Whatever fat existed in the adhesive binding portion of the postpress workflow has long since been trimmed away. The days of the long run are long gone. On-demand environments are everywhere, and inventories are kept as low as possible. Makeready times must make a NASCAR pit crew green with envy, and the machines must be easy to use, as quality help, like substance in this year's presidential election, is nowhere to be found. Through it all, customers are still asking for lower prices—frantically waving table-top machine money while standing in front of the floor- model machines. They can't be blamed;