Enfocus (Gent, Belgium) and Tilia Labs (Ottawa, Ontario) have partnered to help commercial printers with uniquely taxing time and materials costs to minimize those expenses substantially and achieve faster turnarounds with the new Phoenix Plan Configurator for Enfocus Switch. “The primary drivers we often encounter with print service providers are the need for speed and lower material costs,” said Sagen de Jonge, CEO and Co-Founder of Tilia Labs Inc., developer of Phoenix. De Jonge explained that many print service providers find that keeping material costs down compromises turnaround times on jobs, and vice versa. “Reducing waste involves complex ganging calculations which can be very time consuming. Conversely, moving important jobs through quickly without time for adequate imposition planning, leads to increased waste. Phoenix tackles this problem head on using a cost-driven, automated approach – and we’re particularly excited about the opportunities for cost savings in the increasingly competitive large-format segment.”
Enfocus’ Director of Product Management Bjorn Willems said that large-format providers are already excited about Switch 13 automation benefits, and that many have been asking for help in scripting imposition algorithms to work with Switch. When Enfocus met executives from Tilia Labs and saw Phoenix, he said, Enfocus imposition and planning in a single solution was the priority. The result was the Phoenix Configurator for Switch. “The advent of Switch 13 and the Phoenix Configurator for Switch allowed us to create what we believe is an incredibly fast and precise imposition and planning technology,” Willems added.
“Switch has set the standard for truly open automation, making it possible for all kinds of solutions and applications to connect and exchange data in all types of custom configurations,” de Jonge pointed out. “This makes Switch an ideal fit for integrating Phoenix’s ganging tools into an automated environment.”
The Phoenix Plan Configurator works by collecting individual orders coming in to Enfocus Switch, along with their associated metadata information such as quantities, stock, grain, spacing, etc. The files are then sent to Phoenix, which goes to work searching millions of combinations across available presses and stocks, to find the most cost-effective ganged layouts. Once planning has finished, the most inexpensive cost results are returned to switch in several different output formats such as imposed PDF, JDF, XML-based reports or Phoenix jobs.
Founded in 2012, Tilia Labs is a developer of software solutions for the printing industry that solve longstanding bottlenecks in the production process. At the heart of this approach is “the fusion of highly advanced algorithms with modern, intuitive design to produce software with power and simplicity.” Its flagship software, Phoenix, designed to unite planning and imposition, features ganging tools capable of finding optimal multi-layout jobs for hundreds of orders in minutes, cutting-edge nesting algorithms, pre-press tools and full automation. Phoenix is distributed by partners and authorized re-sellers worldwide.
