PDF Standardiser solves colour management issues

Alwan Colour Expertise has revealed that Data One has solved its workflow and colour management issues and cut production times by up to half by using Alwan's PDF Standardiser.

Data One has five full-colour Kodak Versamark inkjet printing systems and a selection of mono xerographic systems, including three Xerox IGen 3s, two Xeikon 6000s, four OCE PS 440s, and two IBM 4100s.

The company specialises in full-colour industrial label applications and direct mailing activities.

Its customer base comprises large telcos, banks, insurance companies and retail chains.

It uses its xerographic machines to print personalised marketing collateral, as well as personalised direct mailings and our inkjet systems to print invoices and other transactional documents.

Despite its advanced printing equipment, until recently Data One relied on a relatively basic pre-press workflow.

Nicolas Halabura, project manager in charge of colour solutions at Data One, said: 'We typically received native QuarkXPress and Adobe Indesign files from our customers.

'We didn't rely on an automated pre-press workflow system, as our requirements were too specific for most out-of-the-box workflow products,' he added.

However, workflow automation was not the only challenge.

Data One was also struggling with colour management issues.

It was facing an ink coverage issue with its inkjet machines.

Excessive total area coverage resulted in paper bloating, which in turn created problems with folding and envelope conditioning systems.

In addition, colour consistency between different printing units was often insufficient, producing unreliable results in a distributed printing configuration.

Halabura said: 'The product has a flexible workflow architecture, so we can assemble our own bespoke system by linking components together.

'PDF Standardiser includes the CMYK Optimiser engine, which automatically adjusts the colour of incoming images and pages to match our accepted colour standards and TAC limits,' he added.

After an initial two-week trial using PDF Standardiser, Data One was impressed with the results.

Laurent Quere, customer integration manager at Data One, said: 'The system is easy to use - setting up the system and training our users took less than two days.

'It has solved our issues and reduced our file preparation overheads.

'Previously, manually checking a complex document such as a catalogue could take up to three or four weeks.

'Now, files are pre-flighted on the fly and customers get confirmation that everything is OK within a few minutes.

'The business impact has been huge - we've cut our production times by half,' Quere added.

On the colour management side, PDF Standardiser has provided colour consistency.

Quere said: 'All documents receive identical treatment, resulting in stable and consistent colour output.

'We've done away with unpredictable colour deviations from one machine to another.

'Also, our total area coverage is now under control, with a maximum value of 300 per cent, which is well below the generally accepted offset threshold.

'In addition, ink bleeding has been greatly reduced and our envelope conditioning issues are gone.

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