Esko Offers Tools for Short-run Productivity at Print World

Warming things up with a beach theme and surfboards cut by a Kongsberg table, Esko will offer wide format and packaging solutions for printers at booth 500 during Print World, November 22-24 at Exhibition Place in downtown Toronto. Print World is North America’s largest tradeshow and conference dedicated to shorter-run and small-format printers. Esko will be displaying the Kongsberg V for Sign and Display Production, offering durability, precision and ease of use at an attractive price, particularly for smaller companies.

Accompanying the table within a complete ‘design to print to cut’ workflow will be the Esko i-cut Suite, a collection of pre-production solutions that streamlines the workflow for digital printing and finishing throughout the entire production process, and the complete Esko Suite 14 workflow software portfolio, for wide format and packaging.

“The sign & display community in Canada is thriving. Many print providers are growing in leaps and bounds, installing digital printers along with digital cutting tables to finish the work. We’re grateful that many of these are Kongsberg tables,” comments Marc Raad, Esko Account Manager, Canada. “For those companies—particularly the smaller ones—that want to explore what digital cutting systems can do for them, we will have a Kongsberg V finishing table on our booth this year.”

At Print World, Esko will be showing the Kongsberg V for Signage and Display Production for companies that are experimenting with in-house finishing capabilities. It delivers durability, precision and ease of use at an attractive price. Kongsberg V cutters offer a broad selection of tools, providing quality results on a wide range of cutting, creasing, and plotting activities. Kongsberg V for Signage and Display Production, which comes with a MultiCUT tool head for milling productivity, along with a camera system.

i-cut Suite software lets sign & display companies streamline their workflows. It preflights and edits incoming PDF files, and helps build and edit sheet layouts, ensuring that jobs make the optimum use of substrates through intelligent true shape nesting and tiling. Kongsberg table technology ensures that die-less cutting contours match printed images perfectly, registering the actual dimensions and positioning cuts on the printed result. With i-cut Automate, all of these functions are automated in a single workflow, with less operator intervention. In a more commoditized market, sign & display shops are also realizing that unique 3D display projects offer higher margins.

Suite 14 is an update of the world’s most complete collection of preproduction software tools for packaging and signage and display production. It supports and manages the packaging and print processes for brand owners, retailers, designers, packaging manufacturers and print service providers. While the wide range of design, prepress and workflow applications will be on display, Esko will focus on solutions for wide format printing.

ArtiosCAD is the ideal product for all corrugated, folding carton, and POP/display designers. More and more companies are also investing in ArtiosCAD for structural display design. ArtiosCAD’s extensive library of resizable display designs helps designers so they don’t have to design new displays form scratch.

Even in today’s digital world, the majority of packaging teams work with traditional methods of communication, such as phone, email and ftp. This way of working leaves little room for innovation and typically adds time to the process through lack of visibility into critical paths. It’s also very hard to track the project’s status within the many outsourced suppliers in the process. WebCenter connects all stakeholders in the process and brings clarity to this process with a centralized project management and communication system.

Automation Engine is a modular workflow server with dynamic workflows that are easy to set up and operate. It ensures increased efficiency and throughput and saves time and money. It is, by all standards, an exceptional answer to the daily challenges of print professionals who need to increase quality, reduce errors and drive cost out of the process.

“Over the past few years, Esko has invested in a strong staff supporting the print community in Canada. We have helped many Canadian large format and packaging companies become more productive—and offer a more diverse set of products,” says Raad. “We look forward to showing Print World guests how Esko can help them increase productivity, or broaden the services they provide.”