An Interview with Amos Michelson

Creo CEO Amos Michelson shares his vision of the printing industry and the direction he has established for Creo.

AS PACKAGE PRINTING gets ever more complex and demanding, it appears likely that the ultimate solution for these challenges comes down to ones and zeroes, or in another word—digitization. This solution represents the vision that Creo CEO Amos Michelson has for the printing industry as a whole—what he calls "complete digitization, from idea to delivery."

The beginnings of this digitization can be seen in some of the current trends sweeping through the commercial printing markets, says Michelson, trends such as variable data printing and short runs. These started a few years ago in the commercial arena, initially with marketing promotions. As is usually the case with technology trends in printing, packaging will lag the commercial sector by a few years. This would put it in the very early stages of adoption in package printing.

While variable data printing is one of the more visible aspects of the current state of digitization, there is an underlying trend that is a key element in the vision of complete digitization, says Michelson. "Designers are, and will need to be, much more connected into the converting process. Eventually, creatives will have the tools they need to create totally clean PDF files, and operators at the printers' facilities will need to focus on exceptions only."

Create, and ready to print. There's a lot of technology that underlies such a simple phrase, but Michelson says some of the more advanced commercial printers are already going down this path. He also points out another important aspect of this trend—more and more prepress work is moving, and will continue to move, into converters' operations. This will hold true for both commercial and package printing.

Driving the vision

The path towards digitization will require much work for both printers and prepress solutions providers. To position Creo to be at the forefront of these efforts, Michelson has organized the company around four strategic initiatives.

The thrust of the Value in Print Initiative is to allow printers to take advantage of the precision in Creo's thermal imaging technologies. This initiative has spawned core technologies such as SQUAREspot® that uses 10,000-dpi optical resolution to provide consistently sharp edge definition to the dot. "The power of this technology is its edge sharpness, which is six times better than the competition," says Michelson.

By combining SQUAREspot and Creo's advanced Staccato® FM screening, printers can use the new Spotless™ printing software to extend the color gamut and reduce the use of special inks and spot colors. It can be used with conventional 4-color process inks or with expanded 6- or 7-color ink sets.

A second initiative focuses on Networked Graphic Production™ (NGP™), an industry-wide effort to deliver cross-vendor integrations using the JDF standard. Creo developed NGP with other partners and recently turned the standard over to an industry group called NGP Partners, which currently has 43 member companies. In essence, Michelson says that NGP is a key element in how to digitize the printing process from idea to delivery. "It allows seamless communications between workflow, press, post-press, and business systems, including tying into the creative end. It will allow every part of a job to be specified and performed once, not three or four times."

The third initiative focuses on color certification, where Michelson says the challenge is to get color consistency from the designer through the press work. On-line color certification and approval is a key element of this initiative. This capability is well within reach, but it is one that should be approached carefully by implementing less demanding color applications to build confidence in the technology and concept, says Michelson. On the printing side, prepress plays a critical role because "if you nail it in prepress and your process is fully calibrated, the color on your press work will be dead on," he states.

Digital media represents the fourth initiative that Michelson has established for Creo. "With the introduction of digital plates, we have extended our digitization of print into the pressroom, giving printers one point of contact for hardware, consumables, and on-press service and support." And for offset, the Staccato FM screening technology can now provide digital plates with a 10-micron dot size that can produce photographic-quality images.

These initiatives are well supported at Creo, with an R&D staff of more than 1,000—"the largest in the prepress industry," says Michelson. "Our philosophy is to develop prepress technologies that allow any printing technology to be as good as it can possibly be."

The development efforts have resulted in significant process enhancements for offset, flexo, and now gravure printing. Just introduced at drupa, Creo has entered the gravure market with its Exactus™ thermal gravure system. This combines Creo's SQUAREspot thermal imaging heads and thermal polymers with Italy-based Acigraf's electrolytic copper removal process to provide a high-resolution, consistent, and cost-effective gravure prepress system.

In addition to 10-micron Staccato (offset) and Exactus (gravure), Creo's HyperFlex™ technology provides benefits for the flexo printer. "We took advantage of the inherently low-resolution UV exposure process of the flexo plate in the vacuum frame to provide a structure that supports a smaller dot size on flexo plates," says Michelson. The smaller dot size allows for improved reproductions, especially in the highlight areas.

To compete successfully in today's environment, Michelson sees digital tools as a main ingredient. "Printers have to go digital to get a more intimate relationship with their customers," he says. He boils down a printer's road map to success to three steps: go digital; focus on the right digital products to improve revenues and reduce cost; and choose the right supplier.

By Tom Polishuk

Editor-In-Chief