CONNECT POINTS WAY FORWARD FOR PRINT

Connect 2024, the conference of print and packaging software developer eProductivity Software, is showing how AI and intuitive interfaces are dealing with the deskilling and diversification of the print industry.

The conference is also looking to the ‘lights out’ print production environment, with new solutions being developed enabling no human touch between the estimate creation, through prepress, to plate production.

Simplifying and enhancing the user interface and user experience is central to the company’s product development strategy, along with automating the workflow.

As the world’s biggest management information systems developer for print and packaging, with some 200 developers working full time on its extensive range of products, eProductivity Software says it has a ‘responsibility’ to the industry to enable it to maximise value in a changing landscape.

The company is releasing a host of new updates at Connect, which it says will ensure that print and packaging business across the globe are able to meet the challenges and maximise the opportunities ahead of them.

Connect 2024 is being held as usual in Las Vegas, although in August for the first time, switching from its traditional January date, which has meant outside the cool confines of the conference centre at The Venetian Resort, delegates are enjoying a succession of 43C days.

Along with eProductivity Software, partner exhibitors at Connect include HP Indigo, ECO3 (the former Agfa offset business including its digital workflow operation), Esko, Konica Minolta, and Ricoh.

Also exhibiting is Carbon Quota, which can be embedded in ePS software, to automatically calculate the carbon footprint of each job, and that number can be auto added to the quote and the invoice.

The three-day event features keynotes and dozens of breakout sessions, along with a dedicated press track for the world’s leading trade publications, which Print21 is attending.

Keynote speakers included Gaby Matsliach, CEO of ePS, who said the company was aiming to help print and packaging businesses become better versions of themselves, in an environment of consolidation, labour and skill shortages, diversification of product portfolio, and a rise in job numbers allied with a decrease in job lengths. The other keynotes were Fernando Alperowitch, VP and GM, HP Industrials in the Americas, who was asked if lights out printing would be a reality in five years’ time, to which he replied that the jury was out; and Jules Van Sant, executive director of Two Sides North America, who gave an enlightening keynote on greenwashing in print and packaging, and presented a bullish future for print in an environmentally concerned world..

One of the biggest developments is the move of its Monarch software to the cloud, with support for classic desktop Monarch eventually being cut off when the move to the browser is eventually fully established. The company says it will be beneficial to all its customers, especially those like WestRock, whose 50 plants will all use the same single iQuote estimating software.

There is a new structure for Monarch Job, to accommodate what ePS says has bene an ‘explosion’ in diversification among print businesses, as the silos of the past melt away. Monarch also has a new Material Director module, which automatically requests materials according to the PrintFlow schedule. PrintFlow itself is now PrintFlow 4D, which Nick Benkovich, vice-president of product development, says is ‘ten times’ faster at calculating a production schedule, and says it can be set to reschedule every 15 minutes, according to the latest data it is receiving from the shop floor and the order department. He said, “It will reschedule 4000 jobs in less than 20 seconds.”

The company has also released an intuitive guided estimating package, with visual guide, for non-estimators, and a web-to-print e-commerce package to connect underneath a printer's website front.

There are many more developments being released during Connect 2024; the next issue of Print21 magazine will have a full report.