New versions of EFI’s Fiery digital front-end (DFE) and workflow software Productivity Suites were announced at the company’s annual user conference in Las Vegas this week, bringing a number of performance and functionality enhancements.
The Fiery FS350 Pro is designed to drive cut-sheet and continuous feed digital presses from EFI’s OEM customers, plus the company’s own “ultra high speed” single-pass presses including the Nozomi corrugated press and Bolt textile press. As well as providing the computing horsepower to keep up with the high speed machines, it offers software capabilities that take advantage of “CMYK-plus” presses such as the Xerox Iridesse and offers estimating and optimisation features for the use of metallic and white inks or toners.
Support for split view before/after image editing allows operators to assess the effect of tonal or colour edits, and the software allows replacement of colours to take advantage of additional white, metallic, fluorescent or clear channels in the press without having to recreate or edit supplied artwork. EFI demonstrated the ability to integrate with Duplo’s DuSense coater plus slitting, cutting and creasing operations.
To drive its wide-format printers, such as the five-metre h5 hybrid model introduced in 2018, EFI introduced the Fiery ProServer Premium 7.1 DFE, which it says offers a doubling in output speed via GPU-based hardware acceleration, so that the printer should never have to wait for the RIP.
The various Productivity Suites have been upgraded to v7, bringing different new capabilities to each. The Enterprise Commercial Suite has gained tools to simplify the import of product specifications to speed estimating and quoting, including kitting and versioning, while the Publication Print Suite makes incorporating contract pricing easier and now supports EFI’s shipping component technology to better plan deliveries.
EFI has also updated MarketDirect (formerly the DirectSmile multi-channel software). It now incorporates the company’s established Digital StoreFront web-to-print software and can support multi-tier franchise models in which one web portal interfaces to multiple manufacturing sites. It is expected to appeal to large organisations that have grown through acquisition and want to centralise facilities for efficiency and consistency.
