The Spencer Associates Group is celebrating its 30th anniversary of industry service to the digital color imaging and print community. Providing product research and analysis, its spencerlab printer test laboratory has earned a premier reputation for its expertise in evaluating digital color imaging and printing. Recently, spencermetrics CONNECT has been recognized with multiple awards for print production optimization.

In the 1990’s Spencer & Associates Publishing, Ltd. built a tradition of excellence and provided the community with an Industry Standard Test Suite for evaluating color print quality, throughput speed, and toner/ink yield. Its test and evaluation division, the spencerlab digital color laboratory, was created in 1997. Over the years spencerlab has served most of the industry, including firms such as Canon/Océ, EFI, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, Ricoh, Xeikon, and Xerox as well as large firms for which printing is mission-critical. Consulting activities support financial and legal firms, and even supported the 1993 Indigo launch. Today, spencerlab is internationally recognized as a leader in independent third-party research, providing technical competence, comparative analysis, and product marketing support to both manufacturers and end-users.

The early 2000’s saw spencerlab develop and provide industry-specific focus group management techniques. Additionally, David Spencer, CEO/President, and Catherine Fiasconaro, VP, Operations and Director, were actively involved in the creation of the ISO/IEC Monochrome and Color Yield Standards, with Mr. Spencer co-chairing the Color Yield development team.

In the 2010’s, spencerlab developed proprietary methods to measure and analyze press productivity. Spencermetrics, the newest member of the Spencer Associates Group, was formed to bring Productivity, Availability, Quality, and Operational Excellence to the forefront for both press owners and manufacturers. Spearheading the movement to bring Continuous Improvement and OEE to the digital printing world, spencermetrics CONNECT has won numerous awards in just a short time, including multiple “MUST SEE ‘EMS” and “RED HOT Technology” awards at Graph Expo/Print shows, was named one of the “10 Fastest Growing Manufacturing Solutions Providers“ by Technology Headlines magazine, etc. With production analytics ever evolving, spencermetrics has recently introduced AUTOMATER™ which brings legacy equipment into the CONNECT system, thus providing a complete shop floor productivity system.

”The entire Spencer team is thankful to our clients and readers for making this milestone possible,” says Catherine Fiasconaro, vice president. “We have been with our customers from the early days of digital printing and look forward to many future developments.”