Alliance dazzles with d1g1tal: Rock-Tenn's Alliance display company jumps into a market for short-run, customizable jobs

Paperboard Packaging, March, 2005 by Stephanie Ricca

The display market is a dynamic one, with retailers placing constant pressure on converters for faster turnaround on seasonal products, outstanding graphics and regional customization. Just ask Jim Einstein--he's got experience in the display business. He founded Alliance in 1991 in Winston-Salem, N.C., as a point-of-purchase display company. His vision was "to become a large, successful P-O-P company, which we have done," he says.

Einstein credits a lot of the company's growth to its acquisition by Rock-Tenn Co. in 1995. Since then, Alliance, now Rock-Tenn's display company, has grown to include 14 locations that handle various facets of design and sales, fulfillment and manufacturing. Now Einstein is executive vice president and general manager of Alliance.

Its Winston-Salem outpost, the site of the original Alliance location, handles a sampling of everything the division has to offer: manufacturing, warehousing, assembly, design, and printing for permanent and temporary displays that range from in-store Krispy Kreme doughnut stands to eye-catching digitally printed P-O-P displays.

As a company committed to staying on the cutting edge of this ever-changing industry, Alliance's most recent foray is into digital printing.

While digital occupies only a small piece of the printing process pie, its popularity is growing among converters like Alliance that deal daily with the pressures of a Wal-Mart world. "We saw a demand for shorter runs and more regional flexibility," Einstein says.

Alliance counts Fortune 100 consumer products companies among its customers, and Einstein keeps a sharp eye on their display trends. "Traditional advertising in print and on TV is in decline," he says. "A lot of these ad dollars are being shifted to in-store advertising. In-store is getting a bigger piece of the advertising pie."

For that reason, Einstein says Alliance is ready to meet the particular requirements of in-store displays head on. The Winston-Salem location's new dotrix press, the.factory (pronounced "the dot factory"), has proven since its installation last May to be a viable solution for those short- to medium-run high graphics display jobs, many of which are customized by store or region.

Agfa acquired the Belgium-based dotrix in January 2004 as part of a growth strategy to gain a position in the digital printing market.

Going Digital: Not An Easy Decision

To meet the growing customer demand for these types of jobs, Alliance started the process of investigating digital presses about four years ago.

"We thought it would be a simple decision, but it ended up being very complex," says Tom Cooper, who handles research and development for digital and short-run printing at Alliance. "With digital printing, you're looking for truly fluid technology. You preflight a graphic file, apply whatever marks you need for finishing, then rip and print on the fly."

But to achieve perfect images and color without traditional plates and inks takes trial and error, as Alliance discovered.

"We looked at digital presses for three years and never found one large enough and fast enough for what we wanted," Einstein says.

"The technology has matured significantly from where it was four years ago," Cooper says. "At first, image fidelity was not in alignment with what our customers' expectations were. We came back to them with different technologies, trying to find a silver bullet. Through that feedback we found the technologies were not at the level we needed at that point."

Fast forward a few years and many technology improvements, and Alliance landed on dotrix's the.factory digital printer, a single-sided, web-fed color press that uses UV inks. Cooper and others at Alliance had seen the.factory in its earlier incarnations, and this time, "they totally blew us out of the water," he says.

"Our first concern was image quality," Cooper says. "Once we had that, we looked for color. Would we get enough of a color space to work within for close reproduction of the PMS colors our customers would be working with? The third item we looked for was speed and increased width." the.factory fit the bill on all counts.

First In The United States

As the first stateside the.factory installation, Einstein and Cooper knew they would have challenges as well as advantages. Alliance worked closely with dotrix to define the specifications they would need for their markets. In addition, the companies have an exclusive agreement that gives Alliance a lead on the market as the only U.S. company that can use the press for P-O-P display and signage.

"We were looking for a jumbo unwinder, so we could take close to roll stock size and put it right on the press," Cooper says. "The second thing we wanted was a sheeter that would sheet from a web to a sheet, because everything we convert is in sheet format."

Cooper says it was critical to sheet on the fly and not worry about sheeting accuracy.

The press manufacturers came up with an unwinder and a sheeter, as well as other custom elements. By the time all the press components were in house, Alliance had a custom the.factory press, with a two-lamp UV curing system, a jumbo unwinder and a cutter/sheeter.