The fast-paced printing industry is influenced and progressed by technological developments in surrounding domains.
Reuben Malz, CEO of GlobalVision met with Libby White at this year’s Labelexpo Europe to explain how the company stays ahead of the curve in this evolutionary arena, and discusses the significance of implementing higher quality control within print.
GlobalVision solutions are used around the world as an entire quality control platform to produce error-free packaging.
LW: What do you see as the most important trends and factors driving the printing industry, and how does GlobalVision take the lead with these developments?
RM: Printing is impacted directly by technology. Just like any company, printers need to constantly adapt, transform and pivot in their strategies. With the growing number of jobs to deal with at printers, the industry turns to technology to help increase efficiency of their operations to meet the strict demands of their clients.
The key technology trends driving the print industry today are Cloud and Automation.
Have a look at what’s emerging around us, everyone is connected with their smart phones and devices, you do banking online, print orders can be accepted online, e-commerce and shopping online are growing trends. Why not perform quality control in the cloud?
Over the last three years, our biggest driver has been migrating our quality control platform over to the cloud. We were early adopters, and due to this were initially met with some resistance in the industry, for example there was a ‘fear’ around security issues. With security certification programs for today for cloud from ISO and SSAE, the industry has accepted the cloud, there’s no longer an issue and companies are reaping the benefits with our GlobalVision web platform, allowing them to perform their quality control checks, from barcode checks, to graphics to print, anywhere with an internet connection.
What’s different between a cloud a solution and a desktop solution is that you also have access now to share inspection reports instantly via the web with the Brand Owners. So you can now collaborate and keep them informed on the quality of their print, or even ask them to approve remotely before going to print.
At the same time, we get asked by our customers on how they can perform quality control faster. There’s a demand for them to deliver more jobs and quicker, but at the same time you can’t compromise on quality. The solution for this is through automation. Test automation is so popular these days in the software world to help release products faster, we use automated testing in our processes, so why not carry these over to the print industry?
By partnering with Esko, we created the first fully automated quality control platform by taking parts from Esko’s Automation Engine pre-press workflow automation software and GlobalVision’s Quality Control Platform.
With our technologies embedded directly in Esko, we’ve created a smart system that’s able to perform routine QC checks in the background and move automatically from one pre-press step to the other, only interrupting the process if an error is found. Now that’s a first in the industry - and we’re excited about how much time savings we can achieve for our customers with this solution.
Why is quality control so crucial to apply along the whole process?
There is an overused term in the industry: “quality by design”, (QbD) meaning you build quality in along the process. When you look at quality standards like ISO9001, these are meant to help build processes and build quality into your process at every step in your operations, so that you end up manufacturing a quality product. The same can apply for print – look at areas where you can perform checks in advance, at every step, so that you’re confident you’re printing error-free.
Often times, a printer only does the inspection at the end of their process, meaning the error is already on the print, and costs to re-print to rework in prepress, to re-creates plates, can accumulate. Inspection doesn’t have to just occur during the production stage - why wait?
You can start focusing on quality when developing say your text, it will follow you all the way down the process. This can start with something as simple as checking spelling on the copy documents before you start creating the artwork, or comparing the text elements from the copy to artwork. The next step could be to compare the customer’s PDF vs. the Proof and make sure the content is transferred correctly. Then you can check the PDF vs. the stepped, file, the plates, and finally, the print. You can even check barcodes digitally now in pre-press files to make sure you’ve applied the right Bar Width Reduction and other technical parameters for the barcode. If quality is controlled at different steps within your print and pre-press workflow, you can guarantee and achieve a higher quality at the end product throughout the whole chain.
Can you tell me about the latest solutions from GlobalVision?
Our big focus at Labelexpo is the launch of latest desktop Quality Control Platform, now at version 4.1.
It can be used at different steps in the process from typesetting, proof approval, pre-press, imposition and layout setup, plate setup and press setup. The platform handles spellchecking, barcode, braille, colour, text copy, content and inspects all these elements at once and generates reports for traceability.
Our latest release is heavily focused on speed and usability. We’ve reduced the number of mouse clicks required for an operator to use the software by introducing a step-by-step mode to guide them through an inspection process – the result is that an inspection report can be generated in five mouse clicks, so that our customers can process jobs much faster.
Talking about speed and how every second counts for printers, we took a step back to identify areas where we can improve performance of the application by taking advantage of modern computer hardware found in Mac and PCs, like 64-bit technologies and parallel computing. The result is that we’ve seen overall performance of the system increase anywhere from 2X to 5X, so that customers can process more jobs.
The same technology is available in Esko and AVT, where we partner to embed our technology in their solutions for pre-press and inspection. Every Esko Automation Engine customer, can now build workflows with GlobalVision inspection tickets with the first fully automated quality control solution.
In addition to the software for inspection, we develop hardware as well - offering different scanning devices for print inspection for different applications and requirements of the customer. For example, we offer Non-contact scanners for wet-ink applications, but we also offer roll scanners for customers who don’t want to take up such a large footprint for their inspection system. Customers now have the choice to choose between Roll scanners, Flatbed scanners and Non-contact, all available in different sizes up to 2A0.
How do you maintain a leading position in this fast-paced arena?
Quality control is driven by the technology trends and customers. We work closely in collaboration with our customers to constantly evolve and innovate, to make things easier for them, or to look for inspiration to add more apps for inspection. Every customer problem, is a new solution for GlobalVision and we like engaging with our customers to get their insights to stay ahead of the curve.
At the same time, the industry is evolving and looking for end-to-end solutions, and not just products that handle one function. Everything needs to work in conjunction together; they have to communicate and integrate to deliver the best experience. That’s why we partner with industry leaders like Esko and AVT to innovate and co-develop solutions to market that combine everyone’s core strengths – would you rather buy a standalone inspection system – or an automated workflow solution that tackles content inspection, pre-press inspection, offline inspection and inline inspection to build quality end-to-end?
That’s what GlobalVision is about - we’re not offering just another quality control product, we’re delivering a complete quality control platform.
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