The Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner
Forever ago when desktop publishing was wreaking havoc across the prepress landscape, the graphics business underwent a massive shift. It was a time when the economics of prepress justified long print runs and a careless attitude to waste. It was a time when the printing and publishing industries were justifiably accused of trashing the environment. The printing industry is still vilified for being wasteful, but that is no longer a fair accusation.
Once digital data could be delivered direct to an imagesetter, things environmental started to change for the better. The most significant change was the cost of technology and the explosion in standalone tools that companies could implement themselves. They didn’t need expensive consultants to tell them whether one page layout package was better than the other. They could buy both and test them out for themselves.
Workflow control and efficiency improvements, ideally automated, were the logical next step. When PDF came along and soon became the clear favourite for the sharing of files within graphic workflows, workflow systems shifted up a gear. Agfa’s Apogee, now in version 14, was the first workflow management system based on PDF and today is used in applications as diverse as wide format digital printing and commercial print. As you’d expect, it integrates well with Agfa Asante for managing wide format digital printing workflows.
Agfa’s competitors were quick to follow suit and workflow management based on PDF became a major driver in prepress software. It brought sustained improvement in production efficiency and waste management. Today there are workflow management tools at pretty much all price points. They differ in scale and cost but they all share the goal of making prepress production more efficient, faster and less wasteful. When it comes to offset, still the world’s most popular technology for print, Kodak Prinergy is the leader across press technologies. This system is a good example of how workflow systems can improve a business’s sustainability credentials.
Systems such as Prinergy, Apogee and Heidelberg’s Prinect manage everything from incoming data checking through to imposition and proofing, with online support and engagement for customers, right through to platemaking. And as they did years ago these systems are still delivering sustainability benefits, primarily through increasingly sophisticated automation. The recently released Kodak Prinergy 11.5 for instance uses Rules-Based Automation (RBA) which essentially uses the classic if-then model used in computing code. For example, if an incoming PDF fails preflight checks, then reject it. Our industry has been using this model for many years to initiate and manage workflow processes. Add Artificial Intelligence to the mix and you get an altogether more efficient and powerful system. That means more process control and so enhanced sustainability, and that is the goal of systems like Prinergy 11.5.
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This article was produced by the Verdigris Project, an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. This weekly commentary helps printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Fespa, Fujifilm, HP, Kodak, Miraclon, Ricoh, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
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