Prepress
Century-old Finlays Future Looks Bright with X-Rite
Thursday 19. March 2009 - Originally founded in Hartford CT at the end of the 19th century, Finlay is now in its 133rd year in business. Today, the award-winning company employs over 100 people and is one of the most successful and innovative printing and marketing solution firms in North America.
Finlays customers tend to be highly branded companies in a variety of markets including: education, corporate, retail point-of-sale, financial services and design. The companys reference list features some of the most respected companies, brands and organizations in the nation including Callaway Golf., Stanley Tools, Yankee Candle Co., Yale University, Nine West, New Balance, Guinness, and The Smithsonian Museums to name a few.
Over the years, Finlay has become a prime example of a firm that strives to continuously enhance the value offerings it delivers to clients, thereby ensuring its own growth and continued profitability. According to the firms CEO Kevin Kalagher, “Much of Finlays success can be attributed to the companys ability to offer complete turnkey project management, from concept through delivery, supported by our consistent investment in state of the art technology”.
Over the last few decades, Finlay has significantly expanded its core printing capabilities, and has become an early adopter of peripheral services, such as scanning, typesetting and die cutting, that have been woven into a smooth and uninterrupted workflow. Recently, other services have also been added, such as fulfillment, digital printing, photography and design services, enabling Finlay to expand its capabilities even more.
“While our customers come from varied industries, they all have certain expectations in common: they all expect real-time responsiveness, and dedicated, knowledgeable service, but they absolutely demand extreme attention to detail, and the highest standards of quality”, explains Kalagher.
And for Finlay, like for so many others in the printing industry, quality is often synonymous with color accuracy. “The ability to accurately specify, formulate and reproduce color can make or break relationships with customers. Early on, we realized that color management had to be at the core our business process. If we were going to purchase the best technology out there, we had to ensure that our workflow was maximized by achieving flawless color on time, every time.”
So in 1999, to help better manage and maximize the companys technology investment, Finlay appointed Rich Lawrence as the companys Quality Assurance Manager.
“When I joined, my job description was simple, at least on paper: to make everything consistent in order to ensure quality. I had to make sure that what we saw on our color monitors and what came off the different presses matched the proofs. However, a simple look at the waste piles mounting up next to the presses gave me a good indication that this was no simple task. So, one of the first things I did was to call X-Rite and get some quotes on color measurement equipment.”
Over the years, Finlay has acquired an armory of color management solutions from X-Rite, from spectrodensitometers (500 series), and calibrators (i1 Solutions), to plate readers (ICPlate2) and ICC profile creation software (MonacoPROFILER) to create a true end-to-end color managed workflow.
“Consistent color management bestows predictability and control,” says Lawrence. “Equipped with the right color measurement tools, we are now able to better predict what our equipment will produce, and were much better at avoiding unpleasant surprises,” comments Lawrence.
Color management has today become one of Finlays key specialties. “Were renowned throughout the industry for our great color capability. We fully understand our clients needs and goals concerning color, and what they are looking for in a specific image. We pride ourselves on being able to faithfully reproduce any image they want.”
Finlay has perfected its color mastery with a 100 percent closed loop color-managed concept. Lawrence explains. “Using X-Rites products, weve developed color profiles for both our coated and uncoated printing capabilities. We have profiles for each piece of equipment and grade, and style of paper that we use. So, when we print a job, even those involving duotones or tritones, we are able to prepare each new image with a specific profile to help assure that we are exactly on target.”
Having a fixed target and then matching the actual proof of the job on press is a tremendous advantage according to Lawrence: “It speeds up both set-up and approvals, making the entire job move smoothly. It even lowers waste to add to our efficiency.”
For businesses, like Finlay, that specialize in high-end materials, fine art or photographic reproduction, quality and color fidelity are the mainstays of their value proposition. “Throughout our history, Finlay has been an early adopter of the best available technology, and our choice of color control and color management technology is no exception,” comments Lawrence.
“X-Rites solutions allow us to faithfully and repeatedly communicate accurate color information throughout our workflow and realize significant quality improvementsreduced cycle time, increased efficiency of color data communication, minimize waste and get control of color faster with greater accuracy. The result: higher levels of productivity, overall consistent quality and increased customer satisfactiona definite advantage that has brought us success in todays competitive marketplace,” concludes Kalagher.