Prepress

EFI Raises the Standard for the Printing Experience With Next-Generation Fiery Command WorkStation

Wednesday 01. April 2009 - Job Management Solution Improves Productivity and Reduces Operator Errors By Up to 30 Percent; Fiery SeeQuence Suite Ensures Expert Make-Ready in Fewer Clicks

EFI(TM) (Nasdaq:EFII), the world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today announced the most powerful job management solution ever, Fiery Command WorkStation 5.0. Available free via download on www.efi.com/cws5 to any Fiery user on System 6 or later, Fiery Command WorkStation 5 (CWS5) unleashes the powerful features of Fiery servers by centralizing job management via an intuitive, flexible interface that produces jobs faster, dramatically reduces operator mistakes by up to 30 percent, decreases waste, and increases the overall profitability for the production printer. The new software is on display at ON DEMAND Conference & Exposition in EFI’s booth (#1943 through April 2 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center) as well as the partner booths of Canon USA, Konica Minolta and Xerox Corporation.
Fiery Command WorkStation is the recognized industry standard for production printing job management technology, serving as the window into the entire printing workflow. It is compatible with all Fiery-driven engines in the production print environment, offering the same printing experience for both Mac and PC users. CWS5’s intuitive interface simplifies complex jobs, regardless of the operators’ experience, providing exceptional results at every stage of a job at two to three times the throughput speed of most competitive printing systems to enable the print shop to deliver customer jobs more profitably.

“The latest generation of Fiery Command WorkStation delivers tangible benefits to our production print customers,” said John Henze, vice president of marketing, Fiery division, EFI. “A typical brochure or booklet can be completed in significantly less time with a fraction of the waste that can occur from the ‘print and review’ approach often used by print operators. During these challenging economic times, EFI offers this powerful solution at no cost to our customers. With more than 16 million Fiery users worldwide, CWS5 delivers more productivity from existing equipment, shortens operator learning curves, reduces operator errors, and decreases waste, raising the profitability of each job while enabling a greener print environment.”

With significant enhancements gained directly from customer input, CWS5 has been tailored to the unique needs of the production print market, from quick and commercial print providers to corporate reprographic departments, enabling them to produce quality documents reliably and expand services by easily handling higher profit, complex job requirements.

“We’ve counted on Fiery Command WorkStation as our job management solution for 10 years. The new look and more intuitive commands make the tool we’ve relied on most in our business even more productive than before,” said Amy Moran, owner of Alphagraphics Chicago. “Our current employees quickly adapted to the new layout, and we anticipate less training time for new hires.”

In addition to Fiery CWS5, EFI has introduced the Fiery SeeQuence Suite, an optional set of make-ready software tools, comprised of document composition and imposition functions that simplify and automate labor intensive document preparation tasks via an intuitive interface. Fiery SeeQuence Impose and Fiery SeeQuence Compose work independently or in a tightly integrated workflow through Fiery CWS, allowing operators to accurately set-up jobs and soft-proof.

Powerful Version 5 Enhancements

The new features of Fiery CWS5 are intuitive and flexible, continuing to make operators more productive. The state-of-the-art UI design is focused on the print operator experience and now boasts a streamlined workspace. “At-a-glance” information has also been added to the UI to display the status of the engine, jobs and consumables. Now users can access information about the resources available for a given job faster and more clearly, improving productivity by reducing unnecessary trips to the print engine to check status on paper and consumables.

Unique to Fiery, a new drag & drop functionality allows an operator to drag a file from their desktop directly to the print queue, greatly reducing the number of steps in the production workflow. Other productivity enhancing features include a customizable icon tool bar and dramatically improved job previews that enable the user to visualize the output at all of the document’s assembly stages before printing, reducing mistakes and waste, and saving valuable time. With the new Fiery SeeQuence Suite option, the job preview feature honors ticketing-level decisions like complex imposition and make-ready, with a fast display and with a consistent user interface.

Solomon Dauber, iGen operator at Daily Digital Imaging in Pleasant Hill, Calif., said: “The new CWS5 is attractive and more intuitive, with a fluid look and functionality. The new drag & drop feature and the ability to preview files more accurately are awesome, and I expect both to be huge time and cost savers. The SeeQuence Suite enhancements are also very impressive – the intuitive interface allows me to easily control files in Impose and Compose, enabling fast, error-free job set-up.”

Availability

The Fiery CWS5 software is expected to be available soon for download at no charge on www.efi.com/cws5. A live demo is available now, and interested users can register at the site to be notified as soon as the software is ready for download. For more information, please contact 1-800-875-7117 or visit these booths at ON DEMAND: EFI, booth 1943; Canon USA, booth 1701; Konica Minolta, booth 1425; and Xerox Corporation, booth 2000.