The supply chain today faces unprecedented demands for brand consistency. Simplifying and streamlining the workflow, Esko’s new Suite 12 helps converters answer their customers’ needs.
The trends in consumer markets today are to bring more products and product variations to market faster and at the lowest possible cost. Also, brand owners require higher shelf impact designs, no compromise print quality, more package choices and increased compliancy with regulations.
As such the supply chain faces unprecedented calls for commitment to brand execution resulting in packaging and labels service providers and converters facing increased complexity. Simplifying and streamlining these challenges was the aim of Esko’s new Suite 12 software portfolio for the packaging, label, sign making and display industries.
‘Today’s highly dynamic market means every production second must count towards the bottom line,’ stated Paul Bates, UK and Eire business manager at Esko. ‘Our clients’ customers expect the most cost effective prices combined with an array of creative and other services. And they also demand assured integrity and consistency job after job. Suite 12 has been designed to meet all of these pressure points and help our customers identify and effectively implement the most streamlined approach to their operations.’
‘Packaging professionals searching for faster time to market, effective and reliable pre-press editors or workflow solutions with guaranteed colour consistency will be impressed by Esko´s Suite 12,’ he added. ‘This suite of tools offers many examples of our commitment to our customers and our dedication to continuous improvement. To name a few: enhanced 3D capabilities with Studio, a complete overview on the entire packaging project and more control over each step with WebCenter 12.’
Additional productivity and efficiencies are at the heart of Suite 12 with all the well known editor products ArtiosCAD, ArtPro, PackEdge, DeskPack and Studio that combine interactive editing power and integration with workflow automation and colour management. There is also rich 3D functionality delivering structural design and realistic graphics editing and visualization of a package ‘in context’ to speed up the production process. It is an efficient quality control tool as well as it reduces the risk of human errors. Last but by no means least there is mobile collaboration in a web enabled workflow. With the Internet as a backbone for collaboration and resource sharing, Suite 12 software manages and automates every step of the production workflow.
The solutions
Stand out solutions are:
WebCenter 12 – Packaging Management
Originally designed as an online collaboration and approval tool, WebCenter 12 has evolved into a true packaging management solution. It creates a competitive advantage by specifying packaging requirements, managing packaging assets and overseeing the entire design and production process. Fully integrated with Automation Engine and ArtiosCAD, WebCenter 12 acts as a web to production portal and involves the packaging buyer more deeply in the execution of package design and production. Design requests are created automatically and a range of tasks are executed on the workflow server without any operator intervention. WebCenter also acts as the backbone for ArtiosCAD Enterprise, which enables sharing of all packaging structural assets – including designs and board specifications – between multiple packaging production facilities.
Studio 12 – 3D Packaging Design
Studio 12 goes beyond the primary pack to include secondary, tertiary packaging and any other branded elements in the design process. The new Studio Toolkit combines all components of an integrated packaging or display design in one single application. Via ArtiosCAD, Studio links through to third party palletisation software and as such multiple components can be visualised together while creating the artwork for each component. This truly holistic approach provides an efficient implementation of product branding. Store Visualizer 12 takes this concept even further by placing the packaged product in a hyper realistic and dynamic retail environment.
‘The role of packaging has transformed in recent years,’ commented Mr Bates, ‘driven by longer supermarket opening hours, improved print technologies and capabilities and demand for brand owners to increase product recognition. The result is increased demand for robust on shelf ready packaging that is clearly identifiable as well as quick and easy to get on the shelves. With supermarkets open for longer, shelf stacking now has to take place while there are customers shopping which is why the importance of secondary packaging has grown. It also presents the product uniformly maintaining a strong brand message. With Store Visualizer companies can see right from conception how their products will be presented and this gives them the chance to look at versioning options all in the initial stages before costly production starts. They can also see how their design will sit alongside other products globally.’
Suite 12 Editors: Full featured pre-press for all platforms
Packaging professionals will find great new functionality in the new releases of Esko’s flagship editors: PackEdge, ArtPro and DeskPack. A good example is combi-press support, a built-in capability in Suite 12. Label printers often use hybrid workflows and combi-presses that combine two or more printing techniques (offset, digital, flexo, gravure or flexo printing) in a single machine. A Suite 12 automated workflow is now capable of handling separations tagged for a specific printing process, a unique capability which shortens pre-press time allocation for such printing process by at least 50%. Another interesting new feature is scripting support for DeskPack. Operations typically executed manually can now be scripted and executed by the Automation Engine 12. A new Step and Repeat tool, including the creation of production marks and control strips entirely inside Illustrator, complements DeskPack 12.
Automation Engine 12: high performance packaging pre-press automation
This last step in the merger of legacy workflow applications – BackStage, Nexus and Odystar – has the Odystar PDF native processing tasks and Enfocus’ PitStop server on board. Automation Engine 12, designed for reliability and high performance in packaging workflows, serves the needs of a wide range of professionals: from a small single sites to a multi-site converter. With embedded JDF connectivity, the solution provides great flexibility in configuring workflows that communicate with any JDF enabled imposition tool out on the market.
‘No one covers the width and depth of our packaging solutions and for thousands of users worldwide our solutions are business critical. The upgrade to Suite 12 will improve their competitive strengths,’ Mr Bates concluded.
