Prepress: Find and Eliminate Inefficiency

We all want to do business more efficiently. Some print shops have maximized their productivity. For others, there is still much productivity to be had. It’s no wonder we are seeing prepress vendors focusing on business and production efficiency, both large and small. 

Reducing manual touchpoints 

Among the low-hanging fruit in the prepress department is automating jobs that are frequently reordered and have few change orders. PagePath’s most recent software release, for example, includes job categorization, which helps printers quickly categorize, sort, and locate the tools necessary to get their jobs done.

“By putting those jobs into a pre-built web template for instant building/proofing, you can save simple, reorderable products from eating up a lot of time,” said Adam Witek, sales and service manager for PagePath (MyOrderDesk). “Not to mention eliminating the email storm and delays that can be created by the proofing process.”

By off-loading job management and tracking tasks to automated software, notes Witek, printers can save “five to 10 hours per week per employee.”

Tony Tarpey, COO of SmartSoft USA, agreed. “Commercial printers need to overcome what we call ‘the Silo Effect.’ Each step in the production process, from creating and revising quotes to writing up orders and change orders, relaying proofs to your client, generating job tickets, scheduling, imposing and more, may be handled multiple times by different staff. Each touch takes time and costs money. You can lose money before you’ve even printed the job.”

PressWise, SmartSoft’s web-to-print solution, addresses this challenge with prepress automation features such as auto-impositioning and auto-batching, which help printers maximize the return on their investment.

In the label environment, Label Traxx MIS helps to reduce manual touchpoints by linking label prepress software such as Esko Automation Engine or Hybrid Cloudflow.
“We see an increase in interest in capturing key job information without the need for re-keying data between applications,” said Dorothy Runge Asboth, sales manager for Label Traxx. “For multi-version digital orders, this can often save hours of time between order entry and prepress with improved accuracy. Prepress can then focus on file preparation and management of proofing processes.”

Job estimation and production planning

Another area of low-hanging fruit is job onboarding. arifiQ’s engine, for example, calculates a unique quote/order for every job—no matter how complex—in seconds. The quote, which contains cost-optimized specifications and the best production path for single- and gang-run jobs, can be accessed by anyone, including design, the brand owner, print salesperson, and printer. arifiQ automatically creates sheet-sized, imposed PDFs and transfers them directly to any prepress or digital workflow system.

Managing calculations on any number of jobs, including those in the millions, arifiQ also figures in multiple production processes across multiple devices and locations. It does not use manual or semi-automatic systems that trade off hours and days or have limited ability to see billions of options. “arifiQ does not use templates or matrix pricing,” explained spokesperson Helene Smith. “Every job is handled individually.”

Estimator Cloud is also helping printers save time and money through the estimating process. Its cloud-based system allows printers to provide accurate estimates while customers are still on the phone. “The simplicity and ease of use of the program is unparalleled,” said Mark Myers, CEO of Estimator Cloud. “It uses the best Print AI [Artificial Intelligence] to practically eliminate errors.”

According to Myers, it is “well known” that those who provide the earliest estimates will usually receive 5-15% more business, particularly who offer customer price matching. Estimator Cloud provides estimates for a full range of processes, including offset, digital, wide-format, web, envelope, screen (including T-shirts), flexo, newspaper, forms, bindery, and labels. 

In addition to its extensive prepress automation tools (more-advanced, faster RIP technology), EFI has introduced its own estimation software, EFI Fiery Smart Estimator, which enables customers to estimate cost based on coverage of specialty toners such as white, metallic, and clear. In addition, customers can view a raster image of a job to see on screen that specialty colors will print correctly.

Color management 

While we may not think of color management as a time saver, when you consider the time associated with getting it right (or understanding whether you can match the color in the first place), you can begin to appreciate the value brought by improvements in the process.

This is why Mimaki has created a defined process that helps customers understand when they can and cannot hit a particular color before they ever put ink on paper.
Its Profile Master 3 (MPM3) and RasterLink6 RIP software were designed to work together to create and implement custom ICC color profiles that more accurately describe the output condition of Mimaki devices, taking into account print mode, pass count, ink set, and substrate. These custom ICC profiles can be used for soft proofing in Adobe Photoshop or within other color tools such as Chromix ColorThink to simulate output and predict color outcomes far upstream in the prepress process.

Eliminating upstream errors

For Tharstern’s part, one area of focus is on upstream issues such as artwork approvals, prepress prep time, and ensuring that artwork matches the job specs. Its products address these challenges using features such as milestones, proofing events, Switch integration (remote approval), JDF integration, and more.

“Printers’ willingness to move to JDF integration is key,” noted Ross Edwards, business development manager for Tharstern. “It takes away the rekeying of jobs and enables us to capture feedback.” (Finishing automation through JDF is also a focus of Ultimate TechnoGraphics, which is touting its Ultimate Bindery V5 for eliminating makeready on bindery equipment. This is particularly interesting for variable changeover with short run jobs.)

Even something as frustrating as artwork not matching job specification can be addressed with Tharstern Switch, which compares artwork against the job specs and either amends the job details in the MIS or fixes the artwork before it gets sent to prepress. Not only does this remove one of the most problematic barriers to flow, but it helps printers eliminate the losses due to the often unchargeable time that occur when printers spend time correcting artwork.

Imposition prep

Imposition prep can be a huge profitability drain, too. Consider the challenges inherent in dealing with mixes of jobs with very different imposition set-ups, including variable quantity ordered, variable size, variable paper type and thickness, and different finishing equipment based on the binding request. These challenges are heightened in the inkjet environment in which the high speeds mean that imposition must be predetermined for all jobs.

“In this environment, jobs can only be imposed dynamically,” noted Joanne David, CSO of Ultimate Technographics. “Our Impostrip Scalable V 10 is the fastest solution for inkjet printing for commercial printers as it scales to meet the speeds and the width of B2 and B1 presses.”

Impostrip Scalable offers a barcode and banner sheet module for integrity and tracking jobs; job manager with automatic stacking options and timer to trigger gang run; and AutoNesting module to automate nesting of multiple jobs together based on shape and quantities. A JDF/XML simple connector receives jobs for the fully automated process.

EFI is addressing inkjet’s unique high-speed issues by introducing the Fiery XB bladed print server for continuous-feed and ultra-high-speed inkjet platforms. “The Fiery XB server enables 10x the throughput compared to what was available previously,” noted John Henze, vice president, Fiery marketing, EFI. “Plus, that server also now supports IPDS workflows and is certified IS/3 compliant.”

For toner systems, users can double the processing speed on more types of jobs using the Fiery HyperRIP enhancements on the Fiery NX Premium print server.

Wide-format bottlenecks

Wide format has its own list of delays and bottlenecks that vendors are working to eliminate. In particular, notes David Conrad of Mutoh, combining printing and cutting in the same device can really slow things up. “A production shop needs to be able to flow smoothly from design, input, throughput, output and finishing,” he said. “If your wide format printer is being used as a cutter as well, it will cause delays in this flow.”

The answer? Separate and printing and cutting processes. Mutoh America has been offering a free ValueCut cutter with the purchase of select ValueJet printers for several years.

Accurate and cost effective proofing also remains a pain point for wide format. Customers wanting to keep costs down tend to eliminate proofing, creating headaches later. For this reason, Epson has seen a resurgence of commercial printers updating their wide-format proofing systems.

Epson's SureColor P5000, SC-P7000, and SC-P9000 printers, for example, leverage violet ink to deliver an expanded color gamut. These printers delivering output matching 99% of the Pantone Formula Guide Solid Coated. Its SpectroProofer UVS, developed jointly with X-Rite, offers an in-line spectrophotometer, and supports all current illumination standards for UV and UV-Cut measurement. It is UV selectable between M0, M1, and M2.

Onyx Graphics is focused on helping printers just entering the wide-format market make the most of their investments. “The goal is to minimize the labor component of each job while providing consistent color output across various printing technologies from numerous printer manufacturers,” said Bryan Manwaring, product director of Onyx Graphics.

ONYX Thrive is a network-licensed (scalable) RIP and print workflow product that offers high quality, predictable output, while overcoming the challenge of unexpected results that can delay production and add cost.

In addition, ONYX’s SiteSolutions portfolio gives business owners accurate information about their print jobs, costs, and productivity across their entire site, from prepress through final production. The latest product in the family is ONYX Hub, a business intelligence tool with a browser-based dashboard that provides data across the entire site, enabling better business decisions.

There is, of course, much more. This is all great news for printers looking to strip out inefficiency and maximize productivity. Pick an area of inefficiency and there are multiple products and vendors to help you find it, fix it, and get more money in your pocket.