Words & Spaces increases the pace with workflow investment

Print Solutions

A Prinect Production Manager package is being installed at Isle of Man printer Words & Spaces which handles work as far afield as Hong Kong and the Caribbean and prints for household names like HSBC, Santander, Friends Provident and Axa as well as the government and other industries including leisure and gaming. It produces a range of promotional material and business stationery.

‘We like the idea that the software will be constantly updated and we will not have a battle between the RIP and new developments from Adobe. Heidelberg keeps on top of that,’ said Mark Green, managing director. ‘The greater automation will help the younger operators who don’t have as much experience as the older guys and we also like the fact that you can build up a library of jobs.’

The Heidelberg package is a full workflow solution with Print Colour Management (PCM) to drive the proofers. It is the ability to drive and manage colour directly that gives Heidelberg’s workflow a real advantage. There is Prinect Prepress Manager, Prinect Colour Proof Pro (which manages and drives the proofers), the PCM module for colour management, Prinect Portal which gives users access within the business without touching the workflow, Signastation imposition software and a new wash gum unit funded by a three year plate deal.

‘Now we can get jobs right first time with automated imposition which allows for creep, automatically adjusting paper length and the centring of images for different pages of a publication. The UCR (under colour removal) also reduces ink costs by minimising the use of cyan, magenta and yellow and increasing the black,’ said Mark.

He has been especially impressed by the installation process. ‘Heidelberg has great attention to detail. The company holds your hand like no other manufacturer. Having installed the front end and given us some initial training, it is scheduled to come back having given the operators time to test the system and to accumulate some questions. In the interim we have access to remote service support.’

At present Words & Spaces is running its old and new systems concurrently but by Easter it will have fully transferred to its new and more automated system.