On-DFE/RIP automation*
Do you have print presets for your most common job types? Even one, perhaps for a booklet you regularly produce or for a sheet of business cards, could repay the time you spend creating it many times over.
We know that there are print rooms out there spending a long time preparing paginated booklets with mixed page sizes or colour settings. With the right tools and knowledge, you could send your files to your digital front end (DFE/RIP/Fiery) where you can use a preset to set the job up correctly, saving you time as well as hours of frustrating file transformations. You still need to open the job and submit it to a preset, but your DFE alone can make this process more efficient.
To take automation to the next level expand your presets by automating job delivery with hot folders. Utilising these and virtual printers, for example, could cut down the amount of time spent opening and proofing files in person and waiting for dialogue boxes to appear dramatically. Hot folders can be more dynamic than simple presets because they can accept more than one file type. Investing further, you could move to streamline your entire workflow, from web submission to finishing, with FreeFlow Core now able to send jobs automatically to the most relevant machine in your print room (of any brand, not just Xerox).
Fiery provide a great deal of excellent online customer training, and we have in-house analysts that can help you set up and maintain presets. Just one preset can save you a significant amount of time. Three? Fantastic. Ten? That could be a game-changer for your business.
*Raster Image Processor – Xerox customers often refer simply to their Fiery
Pre-press automation
A dedicated pre-press solution is the cornerstone of a profitable business. Pre-press automation software checks for errors and offers automatic fixes for common file problems. For example, flagging low-resolution images, identifying missing fonts (which it could dynamically add), and pinpointing potential colour issues (incorrect naming conventions in a submitted file).
We use and recommend Xerox FreeFlow Core and Fiery JobFlow. Both are excellent scaleable solutions for digital print providers. We wrote extensively on FreeFlow Core in November. Still, it’s worth re-emphasising that a good workflow can save you time and energy. With a modular architecture, both of these solutions can be configured to your particular requirements and grow with your print volumes.
We suggest that you revisit pre-press automation as an option. It could even offer excellent customer service opportunities for checking anomalies with a client before a job comes off the press with an error.
On-press automation
It’s easy to forget that when you invest in a print engine, you are already taking on a whole raft of automation technology. Each new press comes equipped with ever-better features than its predecessor.
Xerox is committed to research and development, and the company is always driving forward innovation for higher quality, better cost-quality ratio, and more sustainable print.
The trusted Xerox Versant 180 (V180) and 3100 might not be the newest devices on the block, but they nevertheless come with a suite of automation features for optimising image quality and throughput. With our Simple Image Quality Adjustment (SIQA) tools, operators can quickly optimise back-to-back registration and colour density across a sheet directly on their presses. This ensures excellent quality results from the start to the end of the run. These devices can also be configured with inline spectrophotometers for automated colour profiling and colour calibration. With this configuration the press can read a test page and automatically create a corrected colour profile.
Moving up the production print ladder as far as an inkjet beast like the new Xerox Baltoro, cutting-edge technology makes automation even faster and more proactive. ‘Integrated Full Width Array’ technology scans a diagnostic page for missing jet defects and automatically adjusts surrounding jets if a missing one when discovered – real-time missing jet compensation for consistent output. Not only is this technology smart, but it saves you a great deal of time identifying, diagnosing and fixing a problem manually.
The final word
Without dwelling further on finishing automation (touched on above, within pre-press automation) and marketing automation, we would point you in the direction of December’s blog post – putting what XMPie can do into context if you’re unaware of what marketing automation is bringing to commercial printers.
As always, we are here for you if you’d like to discuss taking your first (or next) steps into automation. Automation doesn’t have to an amorphous scary concept. We’re here to help you navigate its waters, and keep your business on a productive voyage.
