EFI Showcases Integrated Workflow, UltraDrop Technology, EFI Fiery Color Management at GRAPH EXPO

CHICAGO—September 26, 2014—EFI is presenting a full range of high-powered products at GRAPH EXPO 14 (Sept. 28 - Oct. 1) to fuel printing companies’ success, including the industry’s leading MIS/ERP workflow software, wide- and superwide-format inkjet printers and color digital front end (DFE) technologies.

EFI’s exhibit in booth 1902 includes the most awarded lineup of technologies in company history with a record-setting 11 Must See ’Ems awards for products presented at GRAPH EXPO 14. According to EFI’s Guy Gecht, “The entire EFI team is passionate about the technologies we have prepared to exhibit at GRAPH EXPO. We are coming to Chicago with a whole new level of innovations targeted at helping our customers be more competitive, efficient and profitable.”

At the core of this offering is the EFI Enterprise Automated Workflow, a multi-product solution honored with a 2014 Must See ’Ems award for its ability to streamline workflows and identify obstacles before they become costs, providing printing the highest level of visibility and control on offset and sheetfed digital work.

The Enterprise Automated Workflow being shown at GRAPH EXPO 14 provides real-time, two-way updates on production progress and challenges and includes EFI Monarch Portal or EFI Digital StoreFront Web-to-print software to collect job files and specifications; Monarch ERP/MIS for order management, invoicing, financials, reporting and analysis; Monarch Planner for production planning, smart layouts, mailing and finishing instructions; EFI PrintFlow Dynamic Scheduling for building smart run lists based on priorities, loads and capacities; EFI Fiery DFEs to automate makeready and produce high-quality digital output; integrated connectivity to third-party offset workflows; EFI PrintStream for fulfillment and warehouse management; and EFI SmartLinc for shipping.

New opportunities, lower costs and more profits with EFI inkjet
EFI’s advanced wide- and superwide-format inkjet printers on display at the show include the North American debut of the 2014 Must See ’Ems-winning EFI VUTEk GS2000LX Pro printer with UltraDrop™ Technology. This two-meter, hybrid flatbed/roll-fed printer offers superb image quality and continuous print for faster job turns. It joins existing VUTEk and EFI Wide Format LED inkjet printers in lowering production costs, promoting a greener working environment and enabling users to extend their application opportunities to a wider range of materials.

EFI’s new UltraDrop Technology combines seven-picoliter drop sizes with grayscale imaging and more precise control. It provides true multi-drop addressability in each dot position, giving high apparent resolution and high-definition quality with four-level grayscale and two ink density levels. UltraDrop Technology also produces outstanding smoothness in shadows, gradients and transitions, as well as superb text quality with four-point text with fewer satellites and more clarity in all print modes.

Leading-edge technology in a complete, innovative product portfolio
EFI customer West-Camp Press in Westerville, OH, recently bolstered its high-end production capabilities with recent printer purchases that included a new, 3.2m EFI VUTEk GS3250LX Pro printer, becoming one of the first companies in the world to use UltraDrop Technology. “We updated our fleet to include two EFI VUTEk GS5000r UV roll-to-roll printers and the new GS3250LX hybrid flatbed/roll-to-roll printer with UltraDrop, which gives us the level of quality and throughput required to support our large base of retail customers with signs and display graphics,” said Ed Evans, West-Camp Press’s CEO.

“We like to stay on the leading edge with technology, and we value partners who are constantly introducing new products and capabilities, ensuring we can go to market faster, delivering higher quality and more throughput,” added Evans. “That’s exactly what EFI does for us, with superwide-format inkjet, print MIS and our Fiery digital workflow.”

Also at GRAPH EXPO 14 is the 2014 Must See ’Ems-winning EFI H1625 LED printer, a new, entry-level production device. This 65" hybrid roll/flatbed printer offers a remarkably low total cost of ownership with production-level LED inkjet capabilities. Its eight-level variable drop grayscale printheads provide exceptional quality, including the industry’s best white ink as a standard feature.

Higher productivity = higher profitability
Improving customer productivity is a key theme for EFI at GRAPH EXPO 14 and throughout its product development strategies. This is clearly in evidence in the 3.2m, high-volume EFI VUTEk HS100 Pro UV inkjet press with fully automated material loading and unloading systems and a new, 2014 Must See ’Ems-winning material edge guide (MEG) system for printing corrugated board and other challenging substrates at press rated-speeds.

The latest version EFI Fiery proServer on display features FAST RIP (Fiery Accelerated System Technology), which can process complex vector data up to 7 times faster than its predecessor. Designed for EFI VUTEk printers but compatible with more than 500 wide- and superwide-format printers from numerous major manufacturers, Fiery proServer version 6 also supports FOGRA PSD certifications, and it offers new tiling features for improved usability. A dynamic smoothing feature on the new Fiery proServer ensures superior gradient output.

Color your business profitable
The new, 2014 Must See ’Ems-winning Fiery Color Profiler Suite version 4.6 has been updated and enhanced to allow even novice users to create high-quality output profiles with confidence. The Suite’s Express Profiler module is the fastest, easiest way to create a color profile.

The new Fiery FS150 Pro DFE platform, the core processing technology in the Canon imagePRESS F200 server, will be driving new production engines from Canon, Ricoh and Xerox at GRAPH EXPO. The new DFE platform includes the latest version of EFI’s JDF-certified Fiery technology, which can connect users’ operations into efficient, plant-wide management workflows.

The Fiery FS150 Pro DFE supports the latest version 3.0 of the Adobe PDF Print Engine rendering platform as well as variable-data formats and standards such as PDF/VT 2 and PPML 3.0 for higher-value, personalized documents. It also enables seamless integration to EFI MIS and Web-to-Print products and leading workflow solutions – including Kodak PRINERGY, Heidelberg Prinect, Agfa Apogee and Océ PRISMA – for increased shop automation and productivity.

Fiery HyperRIP, a feature on the FS150 Pro platform that will be available on new DFEs for leading production printer manufacturers, accelerates performance by simultaneously processing print jobs on four processor cores. As a result, users can get their full-color digital print jobs processed up to 55 percent faster than Fiery Driven presses without HyperRIP while taking advantage of Fiery’s exceptional color management capabilities.

A broad portfolio of EFI innovations on display
EFI is presenting numerous additional technologies at GRAPH EXPO, including:

• Marketing automation and image personalization technologies from one of EFI's latest acquisitions, DirectSmile.
• New, 2014 Must See ’Ems-winning CRM and mailing modules for EFI Monarch ERP software.
• The EFI Pace MIS integrated with EFI Metrix impositioning software.
• A new version of EFI PrintSmith Vision business management software for the quick print, franchise and small commercial segment.
• EFI Fiery Digital Embossing, a new, 2014 Must See ’Ems-winning image processing technology for designing and previewing clear toner and ink embossing and debossing effects automatically in a PDF workflow.
• EFI IQuote automated estimating software, a 2013 and 2014 Must See ’Ems winner and a 2014 PIA InterTech Award recipient, that offers new price list functionality and tools for more-accurate costing on variable-data work while providing advanced, unrivaled automation for estimating offset and digital print jobs with minimal user interaction.
• The latest version EFI Fiery Command WorkStation job management interface featuring new, automated job presets, faster job searching capabilities, a new user interface, advanced tools for printing multi-bank and bleed-edge tabbed documents, and an integrated, free analytics tool, Fiery Dashboard.
• An updated Fiery Go app for iOS and Android devices that allows control of Fiery print jobs from mobile devices anywhere in the printing facility.

The complete collection of products exhibited at GRAPH EXPO 14 speak to the continuing work EFI does on behalf of its customers, providing consistent, financially stable support and backing and a strong commitment to R&D.

About EFI
EFI is a worldwide provider of products, technology and services leading the transformation of analog to digital imaging. Based in Silicon Valley, with offices around the globe, the company's powerful integrated product portfolio includes digital front-end servers; superwide, wide-format, label and ceramic inkjet presses and inks; production workflow, web to print, and business automation software; and office, enterprise and mobile cloud solutions. These products allow users to produce, communicate and share information in an easy and effective way, and enable businesses to increase their profits, productivity and efficiency.

Source: EFI.