Presstek's A B Dick Integration Ahead Of Schedule

Presstek has reported that the integration of its newest business, A B Dick is progressing ahead of schedule.

Presstek has reported that the integration of its newest business, A B Dick is progressing ahead of schedule.

President and chief executive officer, Edward J.

Marino, said: "The union of Presstek and A B Dick fuses a high-value products and technology company with a market leader in a very important segment.

It not only extends the distribution capability and channel support for Presstek but also delivers a broad array of digital systems and services into A B Dick's market." Marino continued: "Our efforts in early 2005 have been focused on the restructuring of our operations in order to fully exploit each of our business's areas of expertise.

Accordingly, we have restructured A B Dick to operate as the sales, marketing and customer service arm of the company.

We have combined its well-respected sales and service organisation with our existing channels of distribution to create synergies not previously available to either of our companies.

Presstek is now structured to operate as a source of product, making the most of its competencies as a high tech research, development and manufacturing company.

With so much progress under way, we felt this would be a good time to provide an update on the achievements made in the implementation of our plan of integration." Presstek said that its three-phase plan of integration is designed to provide operational excellence, transformation and growth for the company.

What the company described as its operational excellence phase of the integration addresses the realignment, restructuring and rescaling necessary to achieve profitability and strengthen the operating foundation across the A B Dick business.

It also includes the integration of certain functions between Presstek and A B Dick, whilst the transformation phase covers a wide range of business improvements including significantly strengthened digital systems, expanded digital competency in the workforce, infrastructure improvements and continued gains in the company's overall efficiency resulting in reduced operating costs.

The growth phase is expected to drive organic growth within both operations, said Presstek.

Marino continued: "We are pleased to report that our progress in the operational excellence phase of our plan has been better than expected.

We have filled a number of key management positions.

At the same time we have strengthened our overall efficiency and effectiveness in both A B Dick and Presstek by examining and redesigning a number of key processes.

This progress in the first phase has also allowed us to begin to work on the transformation phase of the integration plan ahead of our original schedule.

Consequently, we recently introduced several Presstek computer-to-plate and direct imaging products to our expanded A B Dick sales and service force, which were originally planned for introduction late in the second quarter." Presstek said that it recognised the need to expand and strengthen its executive leadership team with the completion of its recent acquisitions.

As a result, the company has made a number of key appointments, resulting in very strong and capable executive management teams at both Presstek and A B Dick.

Key operating executive level appointments at Presstek Corporate have included (as previously reported on Printingtalk) the promotion of Moosa E Moosa to the position of executive vice president and chief financial officer, and the promotion of Michael McCarthy to the position of senior vice president of operations.

Peter Bouchard has been appointed to the expanded position of vice president and general manager of direct imaging and OEM businesses, whilst Diane Bourque has been made vice president for integration.

Tim Turner has become vice president of research and engineering and Eugene Langlais has been elevated to the position of chief technology officer.

In the company's European operations, Quen Baum has been promoted to the newly created position of managing director for Presstek Europe and Ray Hillhouse has assumed Baum's previous position and been promoted to the position of managing director of A B Dick UK.

Presstek's A B Dick, North America business has also strengthened its management team, with some key operational executive-level appointments, including that of Susan McLaughlin as president of A B Dick NA and senior vice president of Presstek.

At the same time, Joe Musgrave has become vice president of service operations and Emile Tabassi is now vice president of sales, whilst David Vanderwiel is now vice president of customer support and operations.

Presstek said that it has also successfully integrated all manufacturing, research and engineering operations to Presstek Corporate, including the former A B Dick and Precision Lithograining resources, under the leadership of Michael McCarthy.

The company expects to achieve additional operational improvements and cost savings as a result.

Included in the integration is the relocation of all Rochester, New York (USA) engineering and manufacturing operations to Presstek's Hudson, New Hampshire facility.

Under the direction of Quen Baum, Presstek has integrated its European and A B Dick UK operations in to its Brentford, (UK) location, with the move intended to streamline European operations to result in operational improvements and cost savings.

Several important improvements have been made to integrate and streamline Presstek and A B Dick NA sales and service and dealer resources under the leadership of A B Dick NA's Emile Tabassi, added Presstek.

The unified sales unit now has full responsibility for all direct and indirect sales operations.

Presstek and A B Dick NA's service operations have been integrated under the leadership of Joe Musgrave.

As part of the service integration, A B Dick NA will assume all service responsibility for the maintenance and support for the Dimension CTP system line, which had been previously provided by a third-party service vendor.

The company believes that the unified sales and service force is better prepared to present and deliver the company's range of print systems to customers and be more responsive to customer needs.

It also creates the opportunity for Presstek to introduce its full line of digital print systems through to a greatly expanded direct sales and service network.

Presstek added that it has recently began offering its Dimension and Anthem Computer-To-Plate (CTP) systems for sale through its A B Dick NA direct sales and service force.

That move is said to complement the company's existing network of dealers, and is expected to result in the continued growth of the company's CTP product lines.

In addition, Presstek has also announced that A B Dick NA is working with Kodak's Graphic Communications Group on the sale of Kodak-branded direct imaging (DI) presses.

That move is claimed to greatly expand sales reach for DI presses in the Americas and represents the first introduction of DI press technology in to A B Dick NA.

Presstek has also confirmed its plans to introduce its new CTP line - the Vector TX52 and Freedom printing plate - during the middle of the year.

The chemistry-free CTP will be marketed and supported through the company's new unified sales and service network.

Presstek said that a number of operational improvements have been made in customer support and logistics under the direction of David Vanderwiel.

Among the improvements, all customer support operations are being moved to A B Dick NA.

The move includes the integration of Presstek's Hudson, customer support organisation to A B Dick.

The company anticipates that its customer support organisation will operate as a single contact point for all customers.

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