Esko has announced that its workflow for large-format printing, Esko i-cut Suite, has been named a recipient of a 2012 Printing Industries of America InterTech Technology Award. Since 1978 the InterTech(TM) Technology Awards sponsored by Printing Industries of America have honored the development of technologies predicted to have a major impact on the graphic arts and related industries. More than 80% of technologies that receive an award experience continued commercial success in the marketplace.

This is the sixth InterTech award Esko has received in the past ten years. Other recipients include Esko FastVariants (2003), Esko WebCenter (2006), Esko DeskPack 3-dX (2007), Esko Neo (2008), and Esko Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves (2011).

“Esko received, once again, wonderful news from the Printing Industries of America. We are flattered that i-cut Suite was deemed worthy of this prestigious award. We believe our track record of awards accentuates our continuous innovation, supported by our significant R&D investments,” comments Carsten Knudsen, Esko President and CEO. “Yet, we are even more honored that i-cut Suite is being adopted by many large format printers who are finding exceptional productivity and quality gains. Until i-cut Suite, wide format printers either tried to piece together prepress components – or did very little at all. i-cut Suite was the first workflow built specifically for wide format shops; not commercial print operations whose jobs are very different.”

“The judges acknowledged that wide format workflows have been, for the most part, missing. Every large format digital printer has different RIPs and capabilities. i-cut Suite provides a unified workflow,” comments Mark Bohan, Vice President, Technology and Research, Printing Industries of America. “In particular, i-cut Suite provides an innovative solution linking the print to the finishing equipment. The judges also were impressed with i-cut’s ability to automate the process, especially important since large format can be a very labor-intensive form of printing.”

Esko i-cut Suite: a workflow that oversees large format, from design to print to cut
i-cut Suite is a collection of software specifically for users of large format digital printers and/or digital finishing systems. Different modules provide companies with essential tools to deliver sign & display products with optimal efficiency and productivity, regardless of the type, source and variety of the incoming job information. It includes i-cut Preflight, a simple PDF preflighting solution for large format digital printing. i-cut Layout interactively builds (nests) and edits sheet layouts, saving printing time and increasing substrate utilization – even creating cutting paths, if missing. i-cut Layout creates two complementary files, one for the digital printer and one for the cutting table.

Often, slight distortions between printed graphics and contour cuts may cause unacceptable results. The i-cut Vision Pro control system – found on a range of finishing systems – offers accurate die-less cutting. It uses a camera to register the size and position of the printed materials. Then, cutting shapes are adapted to the shape of the graphics.

i-cut Automate ties the pieces of the i-cut Suite together, automating the entire prepress production with a conditional workflow system. Operators can easily monitor the workflow, intervening when necessary. i-cut Automate can also be integrated with MIS, enabling automatic job creation and the submission of job parameters to the workflow via XML data.