Eliminating the biggest bottlenecks in your workflow - A case for Onyx PrepEdge Pro 

As the global economic downturn has gathered momentum, belts are tightening. Print buyers and print providers are reassessing their spending needs. So how is your print shop likely to fare?

Reducing Loss, Increasing Revenue, Improving Efficiency
Addressing the revenue drain from wasted time and supplies is one way to reduce loss. Targeting new customers and tapping into new revenue sources like vehicle wraps, adhesive labels or lower-cost banners will grow your business.

Eliminating the biggest bottlenecks in your workflow, especially those that impact your lead-time, can dramatically drive down your costs.

Last year, product engineers from ONYX visited print shops around the world to see what tools we could add to our RIP software to help print shops address these three business objectives. We were surprised to discover that the general answer was “none”. The greatest bottleneck and opportunity in production shops today is not at the RIP, but in the job preparation stage prior to production.

For most shops today, job preparation takes too much time; causing inefficiencies in production and finishing that hurt the bottom line. Too many Prepress operators are struggling with multiple design programs to fix file problems and correct colors; others struggle with preparing complex tile layouts and difficult installations. Some prep departments spend 20-minutes or more hand-drawing cut-contour paths around image objects getting them ready for printing and cutting. Other shops lack finishing tools in job prep, requiring people to be on the floor marking grommet placement on banners with a tape measure.

Print jobs need to flow efficiently from job prep through production and on to finishing. Problems in job prep not only waste time, but if issues are not caught jobs reach production and are printed incorrectly, wasting ink and media.

Many shops also lack the software tools to efficiently produce new print products which could expand their customer base and revenue. Even though they may have the hardware equipment to produce vehicle wraps, for example, they mistakenly use Adobe Illustrator for job prep, which doesn’t have the tiling tools needed for fast job preparation or easy wrap installation.

Other shops avoid print-and-cut product offerings, because preparing cut jobs can be time consuming and problematic to the point they are not profitable.

In order to help shops reduce costly print errors, increase revenue and improve their workflow, ONYX created PrepEdge Pro.

It is RIP independent, runs on a Mac or a PC, and includes all of the tools a shop needs for efficient wide-format job preparation – from file prep, color correction, tiling and cutting, to finishing.

Don’t Get Left Behind
The print shops using the new ONYX PrepEdge Pro software have dramatically reduced their job preparation time and the number of problems that could lead to costly mistakes and missed deadlines. It’s given these shops a competitive edge and new business opportunities in a challenging economic climate. PrepEdge Pro is a software investment with a real return-on-investment.

“Nothing needs to be done through Adobe® Illustrator anymore. What used to be a weeks worth of job prep time with Illustrator, we can do in a day with PrepEdge Pro. More importantly for us, job prep isn’t a bottleneck so we can do today’s work today.”

NC Pestill Ltd.
Grand format printing projects at NC Pestill posed major problems only a veteran like Richard Nuhn could tackle.

With 20 years experience in print-for-pay production, Nuhn was called upon to improve the productivity and production infrastructure of NC Pestill’s Hamilton operation which handles all grand format printing for four locations.

When Nuhn first arrived he found an operation struggling to manage prepress tasks and several weeks behind deadline on almost all projects. Job preparation delays were causing printers to sit idle while his production teams worked until 10:00 pm to try to get projects produced if at all and to attain consistent colors. Hours were spent during the job preparation stage using design software applications to correct colors, add bleeds and manage folds.

Nuhn, now the shop manager, turned to ONYX PrepEdge™ Pro software to solve the productivity issues he faced. It optimizes wide format printing jobs by addressing all pre-flight issues prior to production. ONYX PrepEdge Pro software eliminates the need to have multiple applications and reduces personnel hours and stress.

With this new software integrated into the prepress stage of NC Pestill’s workflow, every file it received was quickly prepared for printing. Utilized mainly for banners and color issues at NC Pestill, ONYX PrepEdge Pro software transformed banner projects that consistently required more than 20 minutes, to quick tasks requiring less than five minutes. Other files that took 40 minutes to open in design software are now opened and prepared in less than four minutes.

Job preparation bottlenecks faced in the past were eliminated thanks to ONYX PrepEdge Pro software. According to Nuhn, NC Pestill’s Hamilton office now works on today’s projects today. No longer are projects held up in the prepress stage, nor do any require timely adjustments in design software. The production staff even describe ONYX PrepEdge Pro software as ‘ridiculously fast and easy’ due to the new experience it has sending projects into production.

“We get unbelievable time savings on banners,” states Nuhn. “Nothing comes close to ONYX PrepEdge Pro software in increasing our productivity. What used to take weeks to do in design software we can now do in a day. In fact, nothing needs to be done in design software any more, so the savings are astronomical.”

Plus, ONYX PrepEdge Pro software gives Nuhn and his team the color accuracy tools they need to handle their demanding production schedules. “I know color is going to be accurate with ONYX PrepEdge Pro software. We often share jobs across devices and in the past it was hard to get those machines to even come close on color. But with ONYX PrepEdge Pro software I can put prints side by side and they look the same every time.”

Preparing staff members to use ONYX PrepEdge Pro software was easy for NC Pestill also. Production tutorials provided with the software were given to their prepress operator and she was up and running using it on real jobs in two hours.

With the elimination of unnecessary man hours and extra design tools, Nuhn was able to gain the productivity required to ensure the success of NC Pestill’s Hamilton office. Its workflow, with ONYX PrepEdge Pro software integrated, can now accommodate all the grand format jobs without traditional deadline delays. Most importantly, costs are reduced due to streamlined processes and eliminated waste. With ONYX PrepEdge Pro software on NC Pestill’s side customers and staff are happy, jobs are complete and profitability is up.

(ONYX PrepEdge Pro software is available now in the U.S. and Canada from select ONYX Authorized Resellers. It is expected to be available in Asia beginning in March 2009, and in Europe and the Middle East beginning in April 2009. For availability in other territories, please contact ONYX Graphics.)

Onyx Graphics
www.onyxgfx.com