Now seemingly a regular annual event, Print Efficiently brought together a number of equipment suppliers within a model workflow environment. Digital Printer followed the trail.
The opening day of the Print Efficiently event, which took place at Apex Digital Graphics in Hemel Hempstead across the first two weeks in October, gave printers a model of the efficient production workflow, but also the suggestion that developing such a tightly run ship might only help them to survive, not thrive.
Apex was joined at Print Efficiently by core partners Kodak and Intelligent Finishing Systems (IFS) along with a raft of other suppliers: Vpress, Shuttleworth, Antalis, Roland DG, Meler, Perfect Document Creation, Lake Image Systems and Cyan X.
Together they staged a practical demonstration of something close to an ideal working environment, from web to print and MIS, through colourmanaged digital and litho printing, to a wide range of finishing devices. Visitors were able to pre-register and receive personalised products created at the event – a coverfolder, a wall chart, and a notebook.
Naturally it started with order intake, through Vpress Coreprint. Embedded job information was then passed to Shuttleworth and thence into a Prinergy workflow, taking advantage of XML links and a web services architecture that Vpress managing director Tim Cox described as ‘the ultimate open format’. He likened traditional JDF to a room with doors and windows, these being the access points for data exchange. Web services remove the need for the doors and windows because there are no walls and floors to prevent data exchange in the first place.
He said most of the restrictions for linking systems now are ‘political’, and added: ‘Very few printers are running a system like here, but all could, and fairly inexpensively.’ After CTP for the litho side of the production floor it was into the printing press environment.
Apex had set up a Ryobi 765E five colour B2 press for litho production, and was showing the Konica Minolta C7000 digital press for the first time in such an environment since the reseller became a Konica agent earlier this year.
Apex also became the distributor for CGS’s Oris colour management software recently andthis was being used at Print Efficiently to match the digital colour output to that from the Ryobi press.
Geoff Simpson from CGS explained that a thousand test copies were printed on the Ryobi, with 10 sheets taken at random and measured using the Fogra Media Wedge.
Then a first print was taken on the Konica and this also measured. The Oris software then calculatedwhat was required to get the digital profile to match the litho. The whole process took 90 minutes, after which the profile could be uploaded to the Fiery RIP driving the Konica engine.
‘The built-in profiles on the RIP are very limiting and don’t give any closed loop control. This allows you to have that, to check how the machine is performing and whether you need to re-calibrate. If you can get consistent calibration you should never need to re-profile,’ he said.
Mike Ryan, digital sales manager for Apex, added: ‘When you talk to most clients they don’t realise that they are chasing colour. The beauty of this is that whatever standard you want to work to, we will match to that.’
Kodak was also producing work on a Nexpress SE2500 system at the event, and revealed that Healeys in Suffolk has just ordered a new Nexpress with long sheet feeder and gold printing capability. The company has produced new booklets showing off the golds and pearlescents that the platform can produce on its fifth imaging unit. At Print Efficiently, Kodak also had black and white Prosper inkjet heads running on a spinning cylinder.
In the post-press area, IFS was putting the finishing touches to the printed jobs, using a wide range of kit, including Horizon’s StitchLiner, BQ-270 and 470 perfect binders, and folding, creasing and trimming machines, alongside a Foliant thermal laminator and a Petratto Metro multi-purpose converting line, which has an impressive array of configurations.
Visitors to Print Efficiently could dip into an educational programme too, and on the morning that Digital Printer was in attendance, consultant Neil Falconer of PrintFuture was holding court on the subject of the commercial printer of the future, and the need for print companies to think about and implement business transformation.
‘Those companies that are surviving are very much focused on the operations side of the business – speed, quality, efficiency, sustainability,’ he said. ‘Those that are thriving are focused on innovation, on what customers want and how they can exploit new technologies.
The ones that are really thriving have the operations side totally sorted out – automation, minimal waste and continual investment in things such as web to print and data management – and they have a whole new sales and marketing focus. They understand the markets they are going to target.’
