The Right Tools for the Job

What will I look like? How will I perform? If a package could ask questions, these might be among the first and most important it would pose. The answers are less elusive than they used to be, thanks to the development of automated workflows that understand the complex nature of packaging work.

However, for mixed commercial and packaging printers wanting to increase the amount of repeat packaging work they take on, or for pure commercial printers wanting to tap the potentially lucrative packaging market, it is important to grasp that their familiar thinking in pages and jobs no longer applies and also that the economic stakes have changed. Consequently, packaging-minded commercial printers will need to invest in workflow software that understands packaging requirements, produces a cost-effective structure, resolves problems quickly and easily, and facilitates production.

Packaging’s customized nature

It’s no exaggeration to state that every packaging project is unique. For one thing, “Packaging doesn’t follow a standard formatted page size,” says Tyler Harrell, innovations and solutions manager, EskoArtwork. “It isn’t something for which you typically can find an automated solution because there are so many new packages created every day. Packaging also requires a certain degree of prepress expertise because every job is an exception.”

Automated workflows that are designed to handle the special needs of packaging are distinguished by the ways in which they rise to specific challenges foreign to commercial workflows. Structural design and sheet layout, for example, introduce a number of new elements to the workflow equation—from making sure the graphic elements fit properly to the overall composition of a production run. The structural engineer is trying to make sure the package can be manufactured on a production line, while the graphic designer is looking to create the most visually compelling story possible.

The need to unite structural and graphic design presents some of the thorniest of preproduction problems. “Sometimes there is good correlation between structural and graphic design, but one can also be well out in front of the other, in which case multiple revisions have to be made to accommodate and combine them in the same package,” says Harrell.

EskoArtwork’s Studio software is an Illustrator plug-in that imports CAD drawings directly into Illustrator and displays them in 3D, where the user can rotate, flip, or fold the flat piece. This helps avoid having to go to a physical prototype, in favor of being able to review the file in a virtual form to determine compatibility. After the actual design is finalized, however, the issue becomes how to nest two, eight, 10, 12, or 14 of those structures as efficiently as possible for the production run to save run lengths and material. Another EskoArtwork tool, Smart Layout, automatically evaluates all the possible iterations of that job based on the sheet size and determines how many of each will fit on a given sheet.

With very specialized cartons and shapes, for example, one important question becomes how best to use the available material during the production run. Another requirement is making sure the copy is appropriately visible and in the correct location on a 3D object.

“Without the right structural file, and without the right kinds of tools up front,” Harrell explains, “you might wind up with two identical tabs, left and right, and no clear way to know which tab folds under which. From a designer’s point of view, the tabs appear interchangeable. But the structural guy built the box so that it folds in a particular order and a particular way, so that thing you thought would show on the bottom winds up inside the box instead.”

Functionality for packaging

In developing its Prinect ­Packaging Workflow (introduced recently at drupa 2008), Heidelberg has created a completely integrated workflow from structural design to finished product, with integration from MIS. Given the company’s traditional focus on commercial printing, it is instructive to learn how Heidelberg has sought to optimize the functionality of its comprehensive Prinect workflow to accommodate the needs of package printers.

Signa Station Packaging Pro enables users to not only import a wide range of data formats used in packaging, but also to calculate the most cost-effective manufacturing method based on sheet size. “It isn’t like commercial printing, where you always use 50 x 70 cm paper,” says Sabine Roob, senior product manager for Prinect, Special Applications in Packaging. Instead, “the sheet size depends on the machine. By comparing sheet formats, one can readily determine the most cost-effective method of production.” Once that is accomplished, he explains, “you can export the imposed file to a toolmaker. If you already have a complete sheet layout, it can be used for positioning only, or to correct the file at an early stage.”

Prinect Package Designer combines a library of resizable box designs with 3D proofing functionality to simplify the drafting process. Files can be checked with or without graphic images and text, as well as in transparent or semi-transparent mode, and then exported to create samples on any cutting table, or directly to the customer as a virtual proof.

According to Roob, although ­Heidelberg’s Prinect Packaging Workflow currently lacks the extensive design functionality that is connected directly to Illustrator in other workflows, “commercial printers and big packaging companies love the integration story.” pP