Griffiths said he was "delighted and excited" at the progress made by Vision in Print, and added: "The DTI has committed 2.3m to driving forward your agenda and that's a token of the high esteem and hopes we have."
The conference capacity of 120 was sold out, with representatives of some 50 companies attending the event.
"I am so enthusiastic about the prospects for this industry in spite of it being one of the most fiercely competitive there is. Print is an industry that I believe exemplifies the 21st century far more than previous centuries," Griffiths said, and he urged the audience to be aware of the need for more ICT (information and communication technology) trained staff: "Only with those will you be able to grow with the level of technology in print".
In his keynote speech Polestar chief executive Barry Hibbert said the firm's Kaizen project, which it started 18 months ago, was essential in order for Polestar to achieve its business goals: "It's fun but we don't do it because it's fun. It touches everything and has made a significant change to the way the business feels and operates. Our employees are fresher and enjoy work better it's made a big difference to the whole environment."
Hibbert said that without being able to demonstrate that it could become more efficient, Polestar would not have attracted the investment required for the 170m re-equipping phase that is currently underway. "We used to see ourselves as helpless victims. The reality is you've got to take charge and do it for yourself. It's taken two years of hard graft and there's no easy fix, but I wish we'd had ViP two years ago as it would have cut the time it's taken us to get where we are."
Vision in Print chief executive Richard Gray said he was pleased with how the event went: "You could sense a good atmosphere very quickly and I thought it went very well. It showed that although companies may be from different sectors and be different sizes there's a lot of shared opportunity. The interesting thing now is to find out how many people actually plan to take this back to their own businesses and do something."
