Automating the Human Equation

The concept of workflow is probably easier to understand than it is to define. Workflow incorporates the many step-by-step decisions and deliverables that are required from the original concept stage through production—in the case of printing, the printed product.

Workflow automation is somewhat easier to define. It incorporates a variety of tools—within each workflow segment—that are available to help users maximize efficiencies, drive down costs, and reduce the impact of human error, leading to faster time to market.

Most commercial prepress workflows account for basic production steps that include trapping, screening, and imposition, along with color management, proofing, and platemaking. Packaging workflows differ from commercial workflows in that they reflect the variety and complexity of the end product: corrugated boxes, folding cartons, bags, labels, shrink sleeve foils, POP displays, and metal cans—and the print disciplines used to produce them. They also reflect the vast array of inks, substrates, shapes, and finishes intended to increase shelf appeal. This is why automation is key.

Control geeks

Pre-production systems for packaging refine the highly automated prepress workflows of commercial printing and adapt them for package production by emphasizing speed and supply chain collaboration. They also add tools to meet a variety of packaging-specific technical challenges, such as the handling of spot colors, step-and-repeat or trapping specifications, and other labor-intensive, front-end, and RIP-based tasks.

For consumer product companies (CPCs) that increasingly are among the users of these systems, a key challenge is to maintain consistent brand color and quality across substrates and markets anywhere in the world, regardless of the printing process. Requirements like these demand that all of the graphical, structural, and technical specifications of the final package be nailed down and approved by all stakeholders before the package begins actual production. The development of digital platemaking, PDF-based digital workflows, soft proofing, and other Internet-based collaborative tools play an essential role in helping CPCs—as well as printers, trade shops, and converters—get and maintain control of these complex processes.

The following is a selection of prepress workflow solutions for packaging, including some enhancements recently introduced at Graph Expo 2007.

Agfa

Graph Expo 2007 saw the launch of Agfa’s :Apogee X 4.0 workflow, featuring the Adobe PDF print engine and enhanced automation of pages and plates. The company also introduced :Delano 3.0, featuring easier uploading of content and automatic conversion of spot colors to CMYK. Packaging-specific features of the new version include :Apogee X PackEssential, which serves as the interface between design software and various output engines or integrates existing packaging workflows with Agfa platesetters, imagesetters, proofing solutions, and screening software. Using Step-and-Repeat Connect, :Apogee PackEssential performs rendering, step-and-repeat, and nesting instructions it receives from EskoArtwork’s Plato layout software. PackControl for the offset folding carton and label converting industries is a packaging pre-production solution for large printers/converters for integrated proofing, automation, and high-end workflow management tasks. Finally, the company’s :Alterno PDF-based color conversion for packaging substitutes many colors that are often used in package printing with fewer customer definable colors and CMYK.

The open architecture of :Apogee X also provides connectivity with input from packaging specific front-end systems such as EskoArtwork’s DeskPack, Plato, PackEdge, ArtPro, Powerstepper, and Adobe Illustrator, as well as output to a range of output solutions.

EskoArtwork

The newly combined EskoArtwork rolled out its Software Suite 7 in July and introduced it to the U.S. market in Chicago. Featuring integrated packaging pre-production tools for structural design, graphic design, one-up editing, sheet layout, workflow management and collaboration, color management, and output control, EskoArtwork’s Software Suite 7 is said to bring value to each step in the production process. Its modular BackStage workflow automation server executes mundane background tasks, maximizing productivity, repeatability, and consistency using the latest standard technologies, including Adobe PDF, XML, XMP, JDF, and JMF. Flexible Backstage reportedly can be used not only as a prepress production server, but as a plug-in server for one Adobe Illustrator user, or a blackbox graphical engine.

Web-based collaboration, approval, and project management for packaging workflows are coordinated through the EskoArtwork’s Web Center, which saves time and money by enabling users to review and approve documents from anywhere in the world. Projects can contain any kind of files, from CAD files, graphic files, and spreadsheets to proposals, purchase orders, or customer specifications. WebCenter then maintains versions of each document, eliminating wasted effort and enabling users to get more accomplished with the same number of people.

EskoArtwork’s Deskpack graphic editor turns Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop into full-featured production workstations for package design and prepress. Included in the latest iteration of Software Suite 7 is the 3-dX plug-in, which generates a virtual 3-D view of a package within Adobe Illustrator.

Developed by Artwork Systems, the Nexus high-end workflow solution for label and packaging environments is said to increase productivity by automating labor-intensive, front-end, and RIP-based tasks. Three core modules: NexusIMPORT, NexusPROCESSOR, and NexusRIP enable users to configure the system to their own requirements for functionality, throughput, and security. Nexus supports Enfocus Packaging Certified Technology and uses JDF as the preferred job ticket format for interconnectivity applications, integrated with Artwork Systems’ ArtPro editor for the pre-production of labels and packaging. Designed to run on the Macintosh platform, the ArtPro software includes many dedicated functions and tools to prepare the graphics for offset, flexo, gravure, or silk screen environments.

The combined EskoArtwork will continue to support these and all of the solutions developed independently by both Esko-Graphics and Artwork Systems prior to the merger.

Heidelberg

Heidelberg has said that at drupa 2008 it will unveil a full packaging workflow, built on the company’s JDF-based Prinect workflow management system. Open to predominant design modalities and all standard formats, Prinect’s packaging-friendly functionality includes Printready automated prepress with MetaDimension RIP; Signa Station for management of step-and-repeat, nesting, CAD, press and finishing marks, ink fields, and 3D simulation; PDF Toolbox for management of spot colors, trapping, screen growth, and special screening; and Prinect Color Solutions, which furnishes tools for calibration, profile creation, and monitoring. The Prinect Image Control color measuring system integrates all HKS and Pantone color charts.

Kodak

Kodak’s Prinergy Workflow System for Packaging incorporates a rules-based automation feature that allows users to automate every action and event in the workflow. This new form of automation enables printers to eliminate manual steps in the print process that were previously difficult to automate in conventional systems, according to Kodak. Rules can initiate any function that the system can perform, and can be custom scripted via the integrated VB.NET engine to enable interactions with other company databases and systems. It also includes two Adobe Acrobat plug-ins that automate the management of correction cycles.

PDF Compare software is a quality control tool that provides the ability to analyze two PDF files and identify the differences between them. PDF Merge software is a prepress production tool that allows the operator to extract all of the prior work that was done on the plate-ready file (traps, screening assignment, geometry, overprint settings, etc.) and merge all of those elements into a revised production file.

At Graph Expo 2007, Kodak launched a new computer-to-plate (CTP) print solution for package printing. According to Kodak, the Flexcel NX Digital Flexographic System provides near-offset print quality on a wide variety of substrates, including paper, flexible film, foil, and label stock. The system reportedly can reproduce highlight dots considerably smaller than those possible with other digital flexo technologies, enabling printers to reproduce on press, subtle gradations in highlights and use all levels of grey.

Finally, Kodak’s Prinergy System with Transparency Support enables printers to process files that contain transparent objects without flattening them. All of Prinergy’s PDF processing engines—normalizer, color manager, trapper, optimizer, and renderer—have been rewritten to handle transparency natively. It now refines transparencies in the PDF and color manages and traps them.

Xanté

Xanté’s automated, customizable OpenRIP Flexo 6.0 solution for label and small packaging users does exactly what automated workflows are supposed to do. The Adobe PostScript 3 RIP is designed to help increase prepress production and accuracy, automatically performing the repetitive work of preparing files for output by applying step-and-repeat, distortion, bearer bars, and traps to suit a wide variety of production needs. The OpenRIP interface eliminates unnecessary steps while keeping the system completely customizable.

Not a one-size fits all proposition

Faced with a difficult set of symptoms, a doctor may ask a patient what helps to relieve his pain. The answer will vary from patient to patient, but likely will be of immense value to the physician in diagnosing the problem. Something similar, we think, can be said for automated workflows. What’s needed depends on what works to relieve the pain.

Intelligent automation saves labor, cuts costs, and reduces errors when it is applied selectively to areas of the workflow that are prone to bottlenecks, or where the lines of communication tend to break down. The integratability, modularity, and expandability of most systems on the market speaks to the need for openness based on a common language. It also speaks to the fact that workflow technology is characterized by kaleidoscopic change and a habit of innovation that requires vendors and users to respond quickly to shifts in customer taste and demand. This is particularly true in consumer packaging, where innovation, higher quality, and compressed cycle times are market imperatives. Workflow systems with Internet-connected functionality further enhance the collaborative process at the heart of package design, development, and production. pP