Summit Print Corporation (Port Coquitlam, British Columbia), a printer specializing in digital label production and printed packaging solutions, has reduced its time-consuming prepress issues by more than 75% with the installation of an Esko Automation Engine. Automation Engine is Esko’s modular workflow server for automating and controlling prepress. It delivers a powerful solution for label and packaging workflows. By implementing this engine, Summit Print’s prepress functions will be fully automated, which increases job output and decreases the possibility of errors.
The company recently moved into a newly renovated 15,000 sq.-ft. facility offering a new resource centre where customers can view product displays that showcase the labels Summit Print has created. To support this new facility, the company also designed a new ‘face’ for itself with a refreshed logo, website and unique building signage. Its website and social media platforms are continually being updated to provide customers with access to information. Summit Print specializes in the craft beer, grocery, cosmetics, sports nutrition, nutraceutical and wine industries. “The majority of our clients are small and mid-sized companies,” said Ryan Lees, Production Manager. “Periodically, we do work for larger companies when the project is very targeted – for example, 5,000 containers for one store.”
The company prints up to 600 different SKUs daily in run lengths averaging between 200 and 1,500 impressions. Its team handles every detail of the label ordering and production process, helping customers with prototyping, design, and printing of the final product. Summit Print operates two digital presses: an HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press next to the company’s new HP Indigo WS6600 Digital Press. “There are many brands who prefer to have short-run jobs so that they don’t have to sit on a lot of inventory,” Lees added. “With the number of daily jobs on the rise – the result of short run lengths and new orders – I came to realize that we would either have to hire more people or invest in new technology. We don’t have a crew of 300. Our prepress team is essentially three people, including myself.” After doing the math, Lees invested in Esko’s Automation Engine rather than hiring four or five more people.
“The decision to invest in Automation Engine was an easy one,” said Lees, “especially once we knew that the Digital Front End (DFE) and RIP were from Esko. We still use the colour profile we built with the front end we originally had. The installation was easy, quick and efficient.” Automation Engine is helping the company dramatically save time, reduce errors and eliminate waste. The MIS interface within Automation Engine works seamlessly with Summit’s MIS solution from Label Traxx. The data is easily acquired from the Label Traxx system to further streamline and automate overall job processing. Jobs and the necessary data, entered into the Label Traxx MIS, are launched through Automation Engine with the workflow automatically pulling the correct files – even if a job has over 100 SKUs. MIS integration with Automation Engine also allows for automated step-and-repeat or imposition to generate gang runs effectively. Summit Print also plans to add a web-to-print workflow, confident that any additional demands on the prepress end will be met.
Summit Print installs Esko Automation Engine
