Darren Horrox (left) with Agfa Graphics’ Barbara Cooper and Dave Cross
Agfa’s Apogee Cloud online workflow is being used to manage multiple print sites owned by Isle of Man commercial printer Bridson & Horrox, driving both computer-to-plate production and digital presses.
After completing the acquisition of Lancashire firms Wallace and Haslam, Darren Horrox, whose family founded Bridson & Horrox in 1933, began a programme of investment and rationalisation. One of the aims was to implement a prepress workflow that could drive both the Isle of Man facility and a purpose-built new Bolton site irrespective of the location of production staff and without having to install an in-house workflow server.
Mr Horrox found that Agfa’s Apogee Cloud offering met his requirements. The remotely hosted workflow suite, which is run from Belgium, makes it possible to control each phase of the production process from a single user interface, making each job press-ready from online file submission to pre-flighting and imposition, including colour management for hard-copy or online proofing. Approved jobs are sent to either an Agfa Avalon platesetter or to the company’s HP Indigo (Isle of Man), Xerox or Heidelberg (mainland) digital presses.
‘Cloud technology helps reduce capital investment as there is no requirement to invest in servers or maintain them. When an in-house server goes down it can cause no end of time-consuming problems. Agfa is a large company with huge resources and it has many customers relying on its cloud service so I feel more comfortable using Agfa rather than having my own in-house servers. Added to this, if the broadband line goes down I can access Apogee Cloud using another broadband link,’ explained Mr Horrox.
Mr Horrox is now considering Agfa PrintSphere which would enable secure data sharing with colleagues, customers and contractors via Apogee Cloud. He also plans to integrate the Agfa solution with the company’s MIS to achieve a completely Cloud-based solution for the group.
