PrintWeek’s pick of the pre-media, MIS, workflow & W2P products at Drupa 2012 part two

Web-to-Print (W2P)

Optimus
Hall 4, Stand D4
Optimus will be highlighting its Fespa-launched Cloud W2P system, which enables one-click ordering of standard products and variable data products with full access to the product’s template, regardless of complexity. The variable data engine automatically converts orders into jobs in the workflow. It also features an online quote generator, which integrates with the MIS so customers can choose options, view prices and place orders.

RedTie
Hall 7a, Stand D23
RedTie will be highlighting its recently launched App Apace at the show, which the company claims gives it the technical freedom to do “almost anything and be the first 100% W2P solution”. Along with its latest App Plug-ins, it will be showcasing its new features created to improve both the printer’s and end-user’s experience and ease of use. This includes a completely rewritten back-end set of tools to make creating successful webstores and products “easier than ever before”.

Workflow

Enfocus
Hall 8b, Stand A23
Enfocus vice president Fabian Prudhomme says that the company’s stand, which it is sharing with parent company Esko, will be themed around the slogan ‘More Power to You’. The latter is designed to celebrate the release of Smart Automation and Smart Preflight solutions, which the company says return more power to the users than “any product in the company’s history”. The company says users will benefit from significantly more accurate and flexible PDF preflight and correction when Enfocus releases PitStop Pro 11 and PitStop Server 11 at the show, while it says the automated use of metadata (e.g. JDF and XML) for job processing, via PitStop Server, introduces a new level of automation.

Esko
Hall 8b, Stand A23
Esko will launch Suite 12 of its workflow software at Drupa, with the company calling it a “major update” of the solution aimed at packaging, labels, sign and display industries. The software, which features WebCenter 12, Automation Engine 12, Color Engine 12, Studio 12 and the flagship editors ArtiosCAD, PackEdge, ArtPro and DeskPack, now offers enhanced 3D capabilities, more control over each step in the process, and a “major breakthrough” in getting consistent and accurate colour reproduction. “Packaging professionals looking for faster time to market, effective and reliable workflow solutions and guaranteed colour consistency will be impressed by Suite 12. They will see many examples of our commitment to our customers and our dedication to continuous improvement of our solutions,” says Bernard Zwaenepoel, senior vice-president of the software business at Esko.

FFEI
Hall 5, Stand C18
FFEI will demonstrate its new end-to-end digital labels solution, which includes a Caslon digital inkjet press incorporating a new digital spot-colour unit printing white ink, and FFEI’s latest RealPro Workflow software. The newly enhanced RealPro Workflow System, a fully automated production solution for commercial, digital and label printers, will have additional specialised labelling and packaging features enabling “seamless integration” with the Caslon digital inkjet press, providing users with the ability to centralise control of their files and output them via the most cost-efficient route, whether on a digital or conventional output device, or a third-party system. Visitors will also see live demonstrations of RealVue 3D Packager, a 3D visualisation software solution for fast carton packaging or label prototyping.

GMG
Hall 4, Stand B25/Hall 7, Stand B11
The company will showcase the Fespa-launched ProductionSuite, which it claims to be the “most comprehensive production solution on the market” for the sector. The modular system includes SmartProfiler, which can identically align several printers of similar type and enables precision processing of spot colours; RIP, which runs independently from the Editor; and PrintStation, which can combine individual jobs to ensure optimum material use and cutting sequences. All of these elements are fully connected to each other for a seamless automated workflow.

Kodak
Hall 5, Stand F9-1
Kodak will present its latest suite of workflow production tools, including Kodak Prinergy 6 software, Kodak Insite Prepress Portal software and an app for iPad devices, plus new versions of Kodak Colorflow software and Kodak Preps Imposition software. These tools help increase profitability by automating manual production processes in customers’ digital and hybrid printing environments, says Kodak. The newest version of Prinergy Workflow provides unified job management driven by production intent, resulting in reduced costs in the manufacturing process. “Efficiency improvements are required long before the actual print production process,” says Jon Bracken, Kodak’s general manager of unified workflow solutions. “Prinergy Workflow 6 takes optimisation further to address the entire production planning process, driving equipment and manufacturing capabilities based on customer intent.” In the new solution, Prinergy captures product and processing information, reducing the time customer service representatives, production planners, and prepress operators collectively need to spend on preparing optimised production plans. Jobs are now planned with a customisable interface, automated and easily monitored across multiple devices. Also new at Drupa will be the Kodak Intelligent Prepress Manager 2.0, which enables printers to harness more productivity and achieve peak quality and efficiency from their prepress systems, says Kodak.

Heidelberg
Hall 1
Drupa will herald a wave of additions to the Heidelberg Prinect system, all targeted at demonstrating the company’s aim of highlighting what it calls the “coming of age” of workflow integration. Additions include Prinect Business Manager, a new MIS following on from Heidelberg’s acquisition of Belgian company CERM.
Prinect W2P Manager, a development that comes in the wake of a collaborative deal with US developer Pageflex; increased functionality for Prinect Digital Print Manager; and developments of the Prinect packaging workflow. Prinect Business Manager and Prinect W2P will be shown operating in an integrated way although it might be 2013 before the final seamless version comes to market. Gang automation will also be shown at Drupa. The Prinect packaging workflow at Drupa will include modules to cover CAD and one-up design, one-up editing, sheet layout and processing, printing and die-cutting and folder-gluing applications. The company says that in the very near future, there will be a single workflow for digital and offset printing, with it possible to automate the processes of creating and costing a job and allocating work to the most suitable production technology or hybrid production, even providing imposition layouts for inline finishing on the Ricoh digital lines.

Pitney Bowes
Hall 4, Stand C4
The Pitney Bowes stand will feature dedicated software booths demonstrating the tools that the company says will enable customers to build towards an end-to-end, fully automated ‘White Paper Factory’ approach. Highlights include a demonstration of Pitney Bowes’ Hybrid Mail solution P/I OfficeMail. The demo will show how the solution enable customers to capture distributed mail and route it through a cloud-based architecture for print and mail production for cost efficiencies, robust compliance and more. Pitney Bowes will also be announcing several new versions of core products that enable and enhance the White Paper Factory concept including the ability to add demographic enriched transpromo content to transactional documents while tracking the multitude of client jobs within one full-colour print flow through the White Paper Factory.



Must See

Kodak Achieve

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One of the few new CTP innovations for commercial printers to be announced thus far, Kodak’s Achieve All-In-One CTP system is primarily aimed at printers who are still using film-based pre-press – hence the fact that it is being billed as a product for emerging markets. The Achieve system comes as a bundle, including platesetter, plates, workflow, processing equipment, chemistry and servicing, at a lower total cost of ownership.