Procedes Chenel Beilken Digital Printing specialises in large-format digital printing, textile architecture and aluminium construction. Founded in 1990, the company now employs 250 people across eight locations worldwide. Its customers work in areas including trade fairs, exhibition construction and interior design.

With support from Impressed GmbH, a supplier and service provider for digital prepress solutions, Procedes has extensively automated prepress at its headquarters in Lemwerder, Lower Saxony.

During peak periods, Procedes processes around 500 PDF files each day. Until 2013, employees prepared these files manually using action lists, which required considerable time.

The company therefore decided to increase prepress automation. Its goals were to check print data faster, make processes more reliable and reduce manual errors.

Impressed combined three solutions to achieve this:

• An internally developed web tool maps production orders using Microsoft SQL Server. A traffic-light system allows employees to view the current status of each order.
• Enfocus Switch automates data reception and delivery. It also filters, sorts and routes files through the workflow.
• callas pdfToolbox checks and corrects incoming PDF files, preparing them for largely automated production.

Seamless Processing

Procedes also uses Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

“Our technical department enters orders received by email into the ERP system,” explains Jörn Kleinekathöfer from the Procedes IT department. “Our web tool then reads the order data for further processing.”

An employee first checks the data visually. If everything appears correct, Enfocus Switch retrieves the files and sends them to pdfToolbox.

pdfToolbox checks the incoming print data for image resolution, colour spaces, fonts and page dimensions. Where possible, it corrects any problems automatically.

The software also:

• Embeds the output intent
• Adds production marks
• Replaces special colours where required
• Converts customer files to a standardised ICC profile

An integrated DeviceLink profile transforms colours directly from the source colour space to the target colour space. This produces more reliable results and adapts the customer’s files to Procedes’ specific production conditions.

Hardly Any Manual Intervention

“As soon as the customer data is available in our web tool, the remaining process is automated,” explains Carsten Uebermuth, Head of Prepress at Procedes. “This includes checking, correcting and preparing the PDFs for print.”

At the end of each working day, the team enters the required information into the system. The automated workflow processes the data overnight, allowing production to begin immediately the next morning.

Employees only need to intervene when the system reports an error.

says Carsten Uebermuth.

The quality of the supplied print files has also improved in general. Just a few years ago, for example, font problems were commonplace. Procedes also benefits from the fact that customers and agencies have now built up expertise and are already delivering higher-quality files.

A look into the future

Procedes wants to further increase the level of automation in the prepress area and is working on a way for customers to upload print data directly for specific orders. This would eliminate the need to manually enter orders into Microsoft Dynamics Nav, which is currently still received by e-mail. The company is also planning to pass on the expertise built up at its headquarters to other locations so that they too can automate their prepress operations.