Part three of four
By DPS Staff
As Print 17 returned to Chicago, IL from September 10 to 14, 2017, the excitement of live equipment demonstrations caught the attention of show goers. However, in a quieter section of the show floor and within equipment vendor booths, software and workflow providers shared solutions for better marketing, more efficient print, and improved color management.
Many industry professionals understand that software tools are increasingly important as jobs become smaller, but more complex and frequent.
Here we present highlights from software and workflow vendors at Print 17.
Software/Workflow Tools
Alyeant offered attendees a chance to learn more about its web to print solution (W2P), Pressero; online designer, eDocBuilder; MIS/ERP, PrintJobManager; and automated prepress workflow, tFLOW.
Amazing Print Tech showcased its complete suite of W2P software applications, Amazing Print web2print software empowers printers with template-based postcard, signage, and business card printing software tools to effectively market, drive, and close sales, rewarding its partners and customers with superior W2P technology and on demand printing software support services.
Avanti demonstrated its Slingshot solution, the next-generation print MIS created for today’s production environments. The solution is designed to reduce bottlenecks and touchpoints through automation, drive incremental print volume without increasing costs, get paid faster through streamlined billing, and run with fewer resources.
BCC Software highlighted its suite of address quality, mailing preparation, and data quality services. The company seeks to improve client productivity and reduce costs by delivering comprehensive features, integration friendly products, and unlimited access to USPS Mailpiece Design certified support professionals.
Canon Solutions America, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc., announced its partnership with OneVision Software AG, an international provider of innovative and cost-efficient software solutions for the printing, publishing, and media industry. As part of the collaboration, the two print industry mainstays are poised to redefine customer care through an innovative and unique approach to combining both hardware and software offerings.
The company also announced the rollout of the new imagePRESS 2017 print target for the COLORlynx Color Management Suite. This new print target leverages the recently received G7 Certified System designation from the International Digital Enterprise Alliance (Idealliance) for COLORlynx, to allow imagePRESS customers to benefit from G7 compliance with an automated, simple to use solution that is included with every eligible imagePRESS digital press sold by Canon Solutions America.
Canon U.S.A., Inc. demonstrated its commitment to helping customers better meet business goals with the availability of the PRISMAsync Color Print Server Version 5.2 for imagePRESS color digital production presses.
CHILI publish showcased exciting new features of CHILI publisher. All updates are developed to secure a threefold improvement in terms of rendering, integration, and user experience.
Crawford Technologies announced the availability of TurboFlow, a solution that allows for changes to be made to individual document pages during post composition quickly. Ideal for environments with a need to process high volumes of documents under stringent deadlines, TurboFlow is designed to optimize post production processing with its ability to automate the addition of barcodes, cleansing of addresses, indexing, and the removal or addition of content like color logos.
Additionally, the company announced the general release of Review and Release, a solution designed to automate and simplify the processes of removing specific files from a print stream before printing.
Crawford also released PRO Lockdown, a technology solution designed to add an additional layer of security to print files.
DaVinci Designer demonstrated its digital visualization tool. A product of Opensoft Inc., DaVinci equips print resellers and trade printers with advanced design and proofing capabilities designed to shorten the sales cycle, support upsells, and eliminate the need for physical proofs. The software’s designer allows users of all levels to enhance print and packaging designs with foil, spot UV, and texture. An innovative built-in viewer generates an accurate 3D proof with a full 360-degree preview of variances in lighting, angles, and scale.
EFI displayed its Productivity Suite workflow technologies, including the EFI Metrix planning and impositioning software for ultra-high-speed inkjet presses, EFI iQuote estimating and planning software for folding carton and label production; and EFI Corrugated Packaging Suite integration with Esko ArtiosCAD software.
Additionally, EFI Fiery FS300 Pro technology made its worldwide debut as the next-generation platform for Fiery digital front ends used with sheetfed, high-speed continuous feed inkjet, B1 folding carton, and corrugated digital presses.
Enfocus showcased its Switch automation solution and PitStop PDF handling software for the graphics arts.
Fluence Automation, a new company set to deliver innovation in the sorting and labeling equipment software industry, exhibited jointly with Bowe Bell and Howell and introduced several new capabilities for traditional mail sorting customers including NetSort Softing Software.
Global PrintSites (GPS), a first time exhibitor, debuted its quick-launch e-commerce print site. Equipped with a powerful dashboard, print resellers can instantly brand an e-commerce site, choose from a robust portfolio of business communication print products and marketing collateral, and set custom pricing. GPS print sites are also scalable with adjustable sub-sites for key customers.
GMC Software announced it has become part of a newly integrated company, which operates under the name Quadient. Quadient integrates the omnichannel customer communications management, data quality, and postal capabilities of three Neopost sister companies—GMC Software, Human Inference, and Satori Software—into one portfolio of solutions to enable customer experience by improving the customer journey across print, digital, and social channels.
Operating autonomously since 2012 under Neopost’s Enterprise Digital Solutions (EDS) division, GMC Software, Human Inference, and Satori Software began the process of technical and cultural integration over the past two years. Quadient is the final step in a thorough and fully vetted process of internal integration, continuing to provide world-class support to existing customers and delivering innovation with every release.
InkRouter presented its No-Fees print procurement solution for W2P storefronts and trade printers. Developed by Farheap Solutions, the automated print procurement solution aims to cultivate a new model in job routing that advances the growth of trade printing. InkRouter XPRESS, developed for small print shops, offers a web-based order management dashboard that bypasses MIS integration.
Meadows Publishing Solutions announced a partnership with Enfocus as a certified Solution Partner. The first offering with Meadows under the partnership is the newly released DesignMerge Pro configurator for Enfocus Switch.
Messagepoint Inc. showcased its cloud-based content management platform. The solution serves the customer communications management needs of both print service providers and their enterprise customers by providing an intuitive, collaborative, and secure environment for enterprises to own and manage content and proofing prior to going live in production with customer-facing print and digital communications.
Pitney Bowes demonstrated its Synchronize Mail + Mobile, a new solution that allows mailers to leverage creative assets and data from direct mailings to deliver complimentary mobile advertising campaigns to extend the length and breadth of marketing campaigns.
Additionally, Clarity Solutions is a cloud-based solution that brings the transformational benefits of the industrial internet to production print and mail. It leverages real-time data collected from sensors on production mail machines to support real-time insight, predictive analytics, and prescriptive maintenance.
PrintQ highlighted its workflow solution, which is designed to go further than an MIS. The solution supports design, digital printing, label printing, mailing, offset, packaging, as well as signage and wide format services.
Racad Tech featured Web to Print Shop, its modular and multi-platform W2P solution.
Rochester Software Associates (RSA) showcased how to streamline digital production print workflow and offered a new technology demonstration of voice-enabled workflow. Of note, attendees were able to experience QDirect’s ability to accept jobs from remote hot folders and enhancements to job ticketing and printer and job status monitoring; ReadyPrint’s prepress suite’s added ability to simultaneously work on multiple documents and support barcoding and background forms; and WebCRD’s automated and simplified workflows to reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction. Attendees were also invited to a technology demonstration of Amazon’s Echo voice recognition integrated with RSA’s QDirect for flash briefings about job workload and printer status, as well as the ability to control job flow with verbal commands.
SmartSoft presented its PressWise workflow solution as well is its SmartAddresser 5 list management and postal software for printers.
Solimar highlighted its business partner, BLUairspace, powered by RealityBLU. The solution brings to life the virtual space above and beyond documents, packages, and physical items. Users can enhance transactional statements by bringing them to life with XR.
Ultimate TechnoGraphics showcased smart automation with its Impostrip imposition and automation software and Ultimate Bindery finishing automation solution.
XMPie, a Xerox company, showcased its new Omnichannel A/B capability of its Circle SaaS offering. The solution allows users to take the best practice methodology of A/B testing and apply it to integrated multichannel communications to maximize response rates and increase ROI. It uses split testing to compare multiple variants—up to five—of an email touchpoint for a sample audience and measures user responses for each variation to statistically predict which version of the email will likely work better towards a given conversion goal once the campaign goes live to a wider audience.
Additionally, XMpie announced its Personal Effect Print VIPP Edition, which enables users with VIPP formatted transaction files to break into personalized creative communications.
Tying it Together
Software vendors proudly demonstrated their solutions within their booths, as well as partner booths across the show floor. It is increasingly important in every aspect of a print environment’s workflow and print providers benefit as this is realized and integration capabilities are improved across the board.
In part four, we conclude our series with a quick look at consumables and more.
Click here to read part four of this exclusive online series, Consumables Shine.
Sep2017, DPS Magazine
