Switch and Phoenix Solutions Connect to Deliver Time and Material Savings to Offset, Digital, and Competitive, Growing Large Format Market

Gent, Belgium and Ottawa, Canada - An important new solution for graphic arts professionals has resulted from a partnership between Enfocus and Tilia Labs. Print service providers with uniquely taxing time and materials costs, can now minimize those expenses substantially and achieve faster turn-arounds with the new Phoenix Plan Configurator for Enfocus Switch.

"The primary drivers we often encounter with print service providers are the need for speed and lower material costs," says Sagen de Jonge, CEO and Co-Founder of Tilia Labs Inc., developer of Phoenix.

de Jonge explains that many print service providers find that keeping material costs down compromises turn around times on jobs, and vice versa. "Reducing waste involves complex ganging calculations which can be very time consuming." Conversely, de Jonge continues, moving important jobs through quickly, without time for adequate imposition planning leads to increased waste.

"Phoenix tackles this problem head on using a cost-driven, automated approach, and we are particularly excited about the opportunities for cost savings in the increasingly competitive large format segment."

Enfocus' Director Product Management Bjorn Willems says that large format providers are already excited about Switch 13 automation benefits, and that many have been asking for help in scripting imposition algorithms to work with Switch. When Enfocus met executives from Tilia Labs and saw Phoenix, he says, Enfocus found imposition and planning in a single solution of the highest order. The result is the Phoenix Configurator for Switch.

"The advent of Switch 13 and the Phoenix Configurator for Switch allowed us to put what we believe is an incredibly fast and precise imposition and planning technology," Willems says.

"Switch has set the standard for truly open automation, making it possible for all kinds of solutions/applications to connect, and exchange data, in all types of custom configurations," de Jonge says. "This makes Switch an ideal fit for integrating Phoenix's ganging tools into an automated environment."

How it Works
The Phoenix Plan Configurator works by collecting individual orders coming in to Enfocus Switch, along with their associated meta data information such as quantities, stock, grain, spacing, etc. The files are then sent to Phoenix, which goes to work searching millions of combinations, across available presses and stocks, to find the most cost effective ganged layouts. Once planning has finished, the cheapest cost results are returned to switch in several different output formats such as imposed PDF, JDF, PDF, XML-based reports, or Phoenix jobs.