Automation On the Road to Seamless
Automation in prepress can significantly improve time to market through workflow process integration.
THE AIM OF workflow automation is to be able to respond to customer requirements quickly. This is accomplished by minimizing or eliminating, as completely as possible, the manual steps that can lead to the costly waste of time, materials, and labor. While developments in workflow automation for packaging tend to mimic those in the commercial printing world, software and equipment vendors continue to develop and refine a variety of integrated tools designed to accommodate the special needs of packaging operations.
According to Jan De Roeck, marketing director for packaging software, Esko-Graphics, when print quality is more or less a given, differentiation becomes an issue as printers work to improve their operating margins. "One way to do this," says De Roeck, "is to integrate the supply chain—link your MIS with your customer's supply chain. This has been a very clear shift in the offset world."
The pressure to automate packaging workflows has tended to lag similar developments in the offset world, says De Roeck, "most likely because there is not yet quite enough pressure from the standpoint of the cost structures involved." In the packaging world, he notes, "especially flexography, putting ink on the substrate is still a differentiator—but there are signs that this is poised to change."
Whither PDF?
To determine what makes prepress automation for packaging different from prepress automation for other kinds of production is to acknowledge the industry's adoption of PDF (Portable Document Format) as the standard for digital file exchange and processing. Specifically, this refers to the creation and verification of the graphically complex packaging files prior to production.
Adobe PDF is a file format that may contain many different types of objects and constructs, not all of them equally suitable for print production. The activities of the Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG), an international assembly of more than 30 industry companies and associations, are intended to establish and process specifications for best practices in graphic arts workflows. Given that more PDF exchange is happening in packaging prepress, the primary activity of the Packaging Subcommittee of the GWG is to build a set of guidelines for the creation, exchange, and quality control of PDF files between document creators and document receivers in the packaging market. Accordingly, the GWG "baseline format" contains guidelines for creation, exchange, and quality control of PDF files among brand owners, design agencies, and prepress houses. It covers flexo, offset, gravure, etc. based on the benefits of digital file transfer, easy storage and maintenance, and secure communication up and down the supply chain—among other advantages.
In some respects, the jury is still out on whether, or at least how soon PDF will become the preferred data carrier for graphics in both commercial and packaging workflows. In fact, says Lenny Mizusaka, flexo division sales manager for RIPit Computer Corp. (developers of OpenRIP, an intelligent workflow for label printers), "most flexo printers still would rather deal in live application files. However, as we knew some time back that PDF was seeing increasing adoption in this marketplace, as well, RIPit has been prepared with PDF-friendly solutions in a complete and user-friendly package. We always keep our technology options open."
According to Steven Carter, co-chairman of the Packaging Subcommittee of the GWG and director of technology with the St. Louis Division of Alcoa's Southern Graphic Systems, "consumer product companies (CPCs) are pushing vendors toward PDF because of the promise of lower costs and shorter time to market via digital file exchange." At the same time, he says, "The current PDF structure doesn't adequately address features of packaging files like transparency and die layers, non-CMYK color sets, spot colors, varnishes," and other common features of packaging files that represent costly opportunities for error. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that market demands ultimately will validate the Subcommittee's work to establish workflows and a framework to define PDF as the ultimate exchangeable file format for packaging.
The driver's seat
Prepress automation in packaging "is about building confidence, having customers feel comfortable enough with the tools that they will demand their implementation," says Steven Miller, packaging workflow manager for Creo (now a subsidiary of Kodak). Creo's Prinergy Powerpack workflow management system relies on "rules-based automation" to enable packaging printers, converters, and trade shops to systematically eliminate steps associated with downtime and manual error.
"There are more similarities between commercial printing and packaging workflows than there are differences," continues Miller, noting that commercial lithographers increasingly are branching into packaging work. In fact, most suppliers of workflow management systems are building products that can fit into both the litho and flexo markets. Printers with a core prepress system, such as those available from Creo, Artwork Systems, Esko-Graphics, or Enovation can purchase additional bundles to handle such packaging requirements as step and repeat, trapping, high-resolution screening, and much more.
Seamless isn't simple
"Seamless workflows are getting more and more complex," observes Creo's Miller.
Creo's Prinergy Powerpack is an automated PDF workflow and production management system designed for packaging and converting. Version 3.0 introduced to the market both PDF Compare and PDF Merge, a pair of tools designed to reduce the time and cost associated with managing correction cycles in packaging workflows. These tools permit prepress operators to compare two files, extract all of the production work that was done on the original file and merge them into a revised production file, ensuring that both design and production master files are always up-to-date. Also available is an entry-level Powerpack for smaller commercial printers that are expanding into packaging.
If it's not one thing, it's another
"Packaging is just one element of a consumer packaging company's concerns," cautions De Roeck. From the CPC's viewpoint, therefore, whatever can be done to scrub time, labor, and cost from the workflow is all to the good. He confirms that Esko-Graphics, an active member of the GWG, is "ferocious" about standardizing the process.
According to De Roeck, prepress has a very specific job to do—namely, to strip a file into its printable elements, including inks. "Rendering a file printable is the job of prepress," he says. Within its Scope automated workflow, Esko-Graphics offers a wide variety of packaging-specific tools to enable prepress operators to accomplish this in the most accurate, expeditious, and cost-effective way.
Esko recently introduced DeskPack as an integrated part of its Scope workflow environment for commercial print and packaging service providers. DeskPack turns Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop into design and prepress production tools, and can be used to create labels, flexible packages, folding cartons, or corrugated boxes. The latest release of DeskPack (Version 2.0) features several new Adobe Illustrator plug-ins including OutRight, which creates PDF files that comply with preflight profiles of the GWG.
Finally, it makes sense to point out that prepress is not the sole realm for automation. The entire manufacturing process, including press and postpress, needs to be automated in order for prepress automation to deliver its promised benefits in full.
by Jean-Marie Hershey
author and editor specializing in the graphic communications industry
