Workflow
IFRA Expo 2008 Marks a Crossroads in Workflow Automation for the Newspaper Industry
Thursday 25. September 2008 - Enfocus announces Crossroads will exhibit at IFRA EXPO 2008, October 27-30, 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At the Crossroads booth (10635), a number of key Crossroads partners will be jointly presenting their solutions to the core IFRA newspaper market audience. Customers will see how these solutions cooperate with one another and how easily they can be integrated into a smooth automated workflow.
Integrating with the company’s Switch workflow suite, Crossroads forms an essential part of the Enfocus online community that brings together a number of software vendors with their users. It offers a seamless interface for products in publishing workflows which benefit from streamlined co-ordination. As a result, this reduces manual intervention, effecting time-savings and error reduction, both increasingly important within print and production environments for the newspaper sector.
The Enfocus family of Switch products allows simple configuration and automation of the workflow to incorporate and link third-party applications. Crossroads allows Enfocus users to analyze the efficiency of their workflow, vital to high-turnover environments with complex pagination and other specific requirements. Enfocus has developed configurators for Switch with popular applications from suppliers such as Adobe, Alwan, Callas, EFI, Elpical, Markzware, PerfectProof, Quite, Ultimate and more.
“We have seen many exciting and innovative automation projects using Enfocus Switch as the core,” says David van Driessche, Director of Enfocus Marketing. “With this in mind, we formed Crossroads to establish a community where vendors can collaborate in developing multi-vendor automation workflows that solve specific customer business problems. In addition, users can learn from examples of automated workflows that others have developed.”
In cooperation with the partners involved in Crossroads, the community addresses a number of purposes, including the solution of individual customer automation issues, the importance of workflow automation and seamless integration — and how to get started. “We encourage visitors to the show to visit Enfocus at booth 10635 and our Crossroads partners to learn more about how easily common business processes can be automated for savings of time and money,” explains Mr. van Driessche. “IFRA Expo gives us a golden opportunity to demonstrate how Enfocus and Crossroads partners can enhance the workflow options for the newspaper and publishing sectors.”
At IFRA Expo, newspaper customers visiting the Crossroads booth will have the opportunity to:
Learn to automate tasks throughout their workflow easily and quickly.
The Enfocus Switch solutions allow step-by-step automation implementation, without any production interference, effecting in time-savings.
see PDF preflight and correction solutions from callas software and Enfocus which enables them to follow national or international standards for all files in their workflow in just a heartbeat.
optimize images intelligently, whether coming in as separate images or as PDF file. Elpical Claro analyzes and optimizes each image to produce optimal results for the selected output medium.
perform color conversion and ink optimization on all PDF files before sending them for proofing or printing with the advanced Alwan ColorHub technology.
optimize their efficiency and protect the environment.
David van Driessche adds: “Following the success of Crossroads, we have decided to formalize our Crossroads program by introducing a Crossroads partner program, which further enhances Enfocus long-term commitment to the Crossroads initiative. Crossroads partners can choose between a Bronze, a Silver or a Gold program. We are happy to announce that Alwan, callas software, PerfectProof and Elpical have all signed up for the Gold program. Eager to bring our involvement to the next level and continue to build a community, we will also be creating a new website and online community, as well as a forum and a blog to enable live interaction between vendors, integrators and users.
Live demonstrations of Crossroads workflow automation possibilities
An average of 60 end users has attended each of a number of full-day automation sessions run by Crossroads throughout 2008. The seminars, taking place across Europe, include a keynote on automation from a theoretical perspective, explaining why it is important and what kind of cost savings can be realized, followed by sharing of practical information attendees can put to use immediately. The sessions include demonstrations by Enfocus and participating partners, as well as a thorough explanation of return-on-investment. Information about previous and current seminars is available.
Crossroads Demonstrations at IFRA Expo 08
The following partners will present Crossroads automation demonstrations during their IFRA Expo exhibition.
Alwan Color Expertise brings ISO 12647 compliancy and Ink Savings to PDF automated workflows
Alwan CMYK Optimizer award winning technology is now available as a Switch configurator. CMYK Optimizer allows designers, publishers and prepress companies to quickly produce PDF documents that are compliant with ISO 12647 color and print specifications for problem-free printing. CMYK Optimizer allows printers to control and improve the printability of files by optimizing the separation for ISO 12647 standard printing or for actual process/press/paper capabilities. CMYK Optimizer is powered by Alwan Dynamic DeviceLinks technology which has been rated best technology for color accuracy, print stability and ink savings by various benchmarks and has received 2008 PIA/GATF InterTech Award for innovative excellence.
callas software brings major productivity enhancements to PDF-based print production workflows
callas pdfToolbox 4 goes beyond regular preflighting and fixing to provide functionality that gets the job done, with common tasks easy to execute and, even, one-touch file preparation for specific production styles. Based on pdfToolbox 4 and its new functionality, callas software introduces pdfToolbox Server 4 which offers advanced automation for a variety of PDF-based workflows. The Switch configurator ensures seamless integration into a larger Switch-based automated production workflow.
Elpical brings the next generation of image enhancement to automated workflows
Elpical’s intelligent automatic image enhancement technology offers significant improvement to productivity and quality. Elpical Claro Single was built specifically to integrate into automation products like Enfocus Switch, its image analysis adding dynamic quality improvement capabilities to a workflow that, otherwise, could only be performed manually by an operator. Publishers, commercial digital printers, ad-agencies, industrial photo-studios, photo-labs or anyone else dealing with a large amount of pictures per day will quickly see the powerful benefits of Claro’s automated image processing. Elpical Claro Premedia adds the ability to route specific images to an operator for manual inspection based on quality or other criteria, still allowing a personal touch to those images that need special attention.