Ultimate TechnoGraphics was in Stockholm, Sweden last November to attend Grafkom Workflow Summit. This one-day educational event gathered many industry leaders under the theme of Workflow Automation and we took this opportunity to add Finishing Automation to the discussion.

In today’s print business, everyone wishes they could produce more in less time with the same resources. Print production workflow automation has been the focus for years to stay competitive in a reality defined by more orders, more personalisation, lower order value, shorter turnaround times and less margin to play with to get the job in and out the door. Workflow automation is not a new concept in the industry, but statistics show that most of the printers don’t automate more than 75% of their workflow. Automating prepress is good, but why stopping there? What about finishing?

As the saying goes: No job is done until it’s finished. For many production managers, finishing is viewed as a production bottleneck. No matter the printing method, offset or digital, transferring product from one equipment to another isn’t always the easiest procedure. And with the rise of web-to-print systems, it’s no longer a few large jobs on pallets but many different small ones that requires to be entered manually into the binder, saddle-stitcher, cutter, slitter-creaser, 3-knife cutter, and all type of finishing equipment required to transform a stack of paper into a finished product. And if there is an error of entry on a guillotine for example, then the whole stack of paper is waste, the job needs to be reworked and the revenues are greatly affected.

Automating the finishing process prevents that kind of situation production managers are facing every day. Ultimate Bindery®, Ultimate TechnoGraphics’ finishing automation software, validates jobs before even printing, which prevents costly errors and reduces waste, and set up every finishing equipment automatically to reduce manual make ready and data entry. In 2018, linking your prepress to your postpress is achievable and that’s what Ultimate TechnoGraphics demonstrated at Grafkom in Stockholm. Transeo Media is the only UK provider of Ultimate TechnoGraphics software, if you have any question please call us on 0845 6437490 or email info@transeomedia.com.