Online print community Web Connect+, which has been established to give print companies around the world an insight into how e-commerce and automation are transforming the industry and help transform their own businesses, has set out the benefits of print automation in an inaugural webinar.

Specialists from innovative print software providers Infigo, Significans Automation and Tilia Labs, which have come together to form the global online community, demonstrated how end-to-end print automation can be achieved through a turnkey solution, delivering complete connectivity.

During the webinar, the partners demonstrated how different systems, from different print software providers, can be tied together, as a turnkey solution, to create a genuinely automated web-to-print workflow. They did so by showing how a typical print company client – in this case, the specially invented ‘Automate Brewery’ – can seamlessly order labels and collateral for the company’s range of products and manage its entire branding without any friction in the process.

The company, it was explained, has been missing promotional opportunities for added revenue. Its small team needs easy and efficient processes and doesn’t have time to constantly liaise with vendors. Instead, it wants a streamlined, well-tailored experience where it can go online and order labels effortlessly whilst managing the quality of its branding.

In so doing, it wants to increase efficiency and reduce manual effort, ideally through a “one stop shop” for all its marketing needs that provides ease-of-use across the team. In so doing, it aims to reduce cost by finding scalable solutions for its growing line of products – both standard and promotional - getting them on-shelf faster and growing brand awareness quickly to compete with medium-to-large-sized craft brewers.

Following the presentations, attendees were invited to ask questions, one of the most popular of which concerned integration with multiple MIS or ERP systems. Sean Davis, Director of Technology at Significans Automation, responded:

“Most modern enterprise systems, ERP, MIS, CMS, etc. all have some method to connect for pulling data out, and/or pushing data in. Whether it be an API, Hot Folder, or some other method to interact with the system. At the end of the day, as long as there is a method of communicating with a system or tool, connecting one or more systems together becomes fairly straightforward.”

Asked about the complexity of such integrations, Douglas Gibson, CEO, of Infigo said: “If this is something that could benefit your business, our recommendation is not to jump right in, but to take a step back, plan out your workflows in line with your business requirements and what you are trying to achieve. Then, use the Web Connect+ community as a sounding board because likely as not what you are trying to achieve will have been accomplished already by somebody else in the community.”

A further question was asked on the issue of variable data. Tyler Thompson, Solutions Director at Tilia Labs, which offers Phoenix, the Industry's first and only automated, AI-driven preproduction software for packaging, labels, commercial, and wide format, explained:

“Typically, with variable data, you will have a database of variables like first names, for example, coming from a particular source. In Tilia Phoenix, for example, we can allow you to generate the base artwork in Illustrator of PDF and then you can attach variable texts or markers which are, for example, quite common in labels. We have a way of taking that data and pushing it to each product and that can be done in Phoenix or in your Adobe Illustrator file. We then merge the data file and the base artwork file; we can then take each variable piece of artwork up the web to print.”

For those who missed the webinar, a recorded version can be watched online here. The next webinar, which will be tackling the packaging industry, will take place on Tuesday August 23rd.

To find out more about the Web Connect+ series of virtual events, you can follow the dedicated LinkedIn group page.

For more information, visit our website www.infigo.net.