Print production workflow advancements and inkjet print technologies for signage and industrial applications yield eight honors in 2017 awards program 

FREMONT, Calif. - Electronics For Imaging, Inc. earned eight of the industry's coveted Must See 'Ems honors, becoming the top winner in the annual graphic arts technology awards program for the seventh consecutive year. The Must See 'Ems program, which recognizes new technologies from exhibitors participating in the Graph Expo and Print tradeshows, is one of the industry's most-respected print technology competitions.

"Our R&D teams are to be commended once again for developing products that advance the state-of-the-art in printing and give our customers competitive advantages," said Ghilad Dziesietnik, EFI's chief technology officer. "With this year's awards, EFI has won 60 Must See 'Ems in the past 7 years, and behind each of those honors is a technology that creates new opportunities for print businesses."

The 2017 Must See 'Ems winners from EFI include leading-edge imaging technologies that give customers the ability to adopt new, growing market applications with digital print. EFI's winning products also reflect customers' need for innovations that drive automation, efficiency and better business management.

Re-engineering processes for better, cost-effective results
One of the winning products, the newest version of EFI iQuote Dynamic Intelligent Estimating and Planning software, was recognized for the new, powerful and flexible capabilities it provides in label and folding carton production. The software simplifies the process of creating highly accurate estimates and streamlines planning processes; it has already successfully transformed production workflows in many commercial printing businesses. EFI is now bringing these superior capabilities to the packaging market.

EFI customer Premier Press, a commercial printing company based in Portland, Oregon, adopted iQuote software in one of its divisions, and quickly witnessed the benefits.

Unlike other estimating systems that require users to make decisions up front about the production path, "iQuote starts at the completed product and works backward considering hundreds of scenarios to generate the least expensive option to produce a job," said Scott Gorman, Premier Press's vice president of manufacturing.  

"We are excited about the efficiency gains we are already seeing through this solution," Gorman added. "We plan to roll it out to the rest of the company in about a month and I'm very confident we will see efficiency gains in both time and costs."

EFI's 2017 Must See 'Ems Award-winning products, with categories shown in parentheses, include:

• EFI iQuote Dynamic Intelligent Estimating and Planning software for labels, tags and folding cartons  (Management Systems)
• The EFI Productivity Workbench (Management Systems)
• The EFI Cretaprint C4 Twin digital inkjet printer (Pressroom: Digital Presses)
• The EFI Cubik printer (Pressroom: Digital Presses)
• The EFI Industrial Textile Ecosystem (Future of Print: Technology Demo)
• EFI Metrix Software for High-speed Inkjet (Prepress and Premedia)
• EFI VUTEk® 3r and 5r LED printers (Pressroom: Wide-Format)
• EFI Corrugated Packaging Suite integration with Esko ArtiosCAD software (Prepress and Premedia).

EFI will be sharing details about its range of award-winning products at Print 2017, in booth 2302, September 10-14 at McCormick Place in Chicago. For more information about EFI products, visit www.efi.com.