Hybrid Software

A private Production Workspace for your critical graphics production

Cloudflow is a compact, modern, and modular system for running automated graphics production workflows in a private computing cloud.

All Cloudflow interfaces are developed in HTML5, so workflows can be controlled from any web browser or computing tablet.  To keep up with customer demands, many print service providers have multiple file servers or even multiple production locations, which can make it difficult to track digital assets and balance production workloads.  But Cloudflow solves this problem by managing all assets and production within a private printing “cloud”, where they can be accessed from any location through an intuitive browser interface.

The heart of the Cloudflow system is the Cloudflow Workspace.  It provides user security, file management, and total control over all workflows and production.

Many optional modules are also available to provide additional functionality for Cloudflow users:

– Proofscope Live!: Online PDF Editing
– DAM: Digital Asset Management
– Proofscope: Softproofing & Collaboration
– Printplanner: Powerful Step & Repeat and VDP
– Prepress: Automated Trapping Prepress Functions
– RIP: Fast, powerful embedded RIP

Cloudflow is also compatible with any RIP or output device that you already own, and it is designed for ease of use.  With today’s tight deadlines, your customer service reps (CSRs) are a critical part of the production workflow, and Cloudflow enables them to collaborate with customers and prepress to meet your customers’ deadlines!

Custom Job Ticketing and Automation

Facelift provides a very flexible tool for entering, tracking, and interacting with your production data. Facelift can leverage your existing information systems to provide real-time information to everyone in your organization using a simple web browser (or tablet) interface. Ideal for cross-department job ticketing, tracking and high-level reporting, Facelift can be extended with modules for job costing, estimating, campaign management, and reporting, with tremendous flexibility in presenting your data.

But why is Facelift so important?  Because of market pressures in all industry segments, the order life cycle is growing shorter.  Businesses need to produce more and more jobs, in smaller quantities, with the same people and equipment.  This requires a tool like Facelift to orchestrate and link together the different production systems including MIS, accounting, shipping, online web ordering, customer proofing and approval, file management, and prepress production.  Since every production environment is different, Facelift provides an open and flexible environment that supports the real processes used to control an order from the first proposal to the product delivery – the complete Order Lifecycle!

Flexo Plate Mounting Workflow for the Corrugated Industry

Patchplanner takes a PDF digital design file and optimizes the layout of the printed areas as individual elements, enabling a much smaller plate to be used than the actual size of the job. The software can then be used to control very accurately automatic cutting of the plate and repositioning of the parts on to a plastic carrier.

Flexo plates are very expensive and anyone operating in a pre-press department will immediately see the attraction of Patchplanner. When producing something like a corrugated box, it is not unusual for only a tiny area to need to be printed even though the box itself may be large. Until now a great deal of manual work has generally been required in order to avoid using large flexo plates.

What Patchplanner does is to separate those printed elements in the design file and relay them so they take up the least amount of space. This data is then used to expose the smallest plate possible using an imager such as a ThermoFlexX. We can then send the information to a cutting table, for example, a Zund machine. Patchplanner software will control the cutting pattern, resulting in fast and accurate cutting.

The plate would then be reassembled on to a plastic carrier ready for the printing press. The high level of automation offered by these systems, combined with their speed and precision, makes this an extremely cost effective method of producing flexo plates for this sort of job.

>> Learn More