Enfocus to Create Magical Mini Mes at PRINTING United Expo

As I’m on my way to the US, the excitement for PRINTING United Expo begins to bubble! I'm really looking forward to the energy of the show, connecting with so many of you, and sharing what we've been working on at Enfocus.

This year, our booth will, again, tell a story. A story of powerful partnerships, boundless creativity, and the incredible potential of automation. Combine that with the atmosphere of one of our favorite novel series, and you get: the Chamber of Automation.

In a series of articles, I'd like to elaborate on how we get things done at the show. Let’s start with one of my concepts that has become well-known by now: the mini me. This year we’re giving the Mini Me a magic twist to fit in our theme.

This is my version of the magic Mini Me!

Why Do We Produce Mini Mes at a Show?

I’m just a marketing guy. I try to come up with creative ways of telling the story of the solutions I want to promote. That’s how the concept of the mini me came to mind in 2023.

What if we could:

• Get a picture taken of anyone at our booth
• Have the background automatically stripped from the picture
• A cut path generated on-the-fly
• A base added so that the mini me could stand up
• Multiple mini mes automatically nested so that it can be printed and cut with as little substrate loss as possible?

How much time would all of these steps take when done manually?

If we can do this at a tradeshow, lights-out automated, and delivered within a minute, wouldn’t that show the power of automation? Turns out it does, but when I or my team get creative, you still need superheroes to configure the flows.

Luckily, we have a few Switch maestros at Enfocus. And even more luckily, when we share our ideas, we get enthusiasm back after a first initial sigh. But then the maestros run with it! In this case, I’m talking about Laurent De Wilde, who made the initial Mini Me flow, which we premiered in 2023, and Davy Verstaen, who has added some extra steps to improve the flow, and involved some extra partners to make the flows even better.

Producing a Mini Me is Really 'Simple'

Here’s the full Switch flow we used. Might look intimidating at first, but Switch admins know what I’m talking about 😉

Every icon in this image (which is not a folder) represents one (ore more) steps that no longer need to be done manually.

A brief summary of what this flow does:

• Take in webform data using Paperform. Customers scan a QR code and fill out some details. This data populates cards in Trello.
• Using the Trello app, our booth staff can find the correct visitor and take the photo to attach to the job.
• Improve the image quality using Viesus Cloud. We run this fully automated, and it typically improves lighting a lot.
• Remove the background using Photoroom.
• Turn the subject in the picture into a magic mini me which fits our theme using 4o Image Generation (Open AI) which integrates with Switch thanks to the AI Connect app from BlueWest. Davy spent a lot of time perfecting the prompt, as we want visitors to recognize themselves. We can share that prompt should there be interest.
• Automatically create a smooth cut path using PitStop. Compared to 2023, PitStop generates way smoother cut paths to speed up production. And that cut path smoothing was the first feature that I ever requested that made it into PitStop. It only took me 10 years at this company!
• When 40 Mini Mes are done: nest a sheet and add the bases using Griffin Auto within Switch.
• Send everything to Digitech for printing
• Send cut files to Kongsberg for cutting

And thanks to creativity, partnerships, and automation, Printing United visitors can leave the show with a miniature version of themselves.

...and that's how you (or in this case, fellow marketing mastermind Claudina) can not only see the magic, but become the magic at PRINTING United Expo 2025!

During every step of this process, the flow sends updates to our specially made Trello board, where everything is clearly visualized:

• Which mini me is getting the background removed?
• Which mini me is ready for nesting
• Which mini me has been produced and is ready for pick up?

In a way, this is “just” rule-based automation, enhanced with some AI. But in the end, it’s miserable, mind-boggling work taken off our shoulders. And that is just… magic!

Of course, I like to show off the things we’re able to do using our solutions. But it’s just one mere example of what automation can do. And it can do a lot more for you!

Think About This: Which Task Makes Your Life Miserable?

Come by our booth, let’s have a chat. In preparation of your visit, whether you’re on a plane or in the car. Take a note (plane) or a voice note (car, eyes on the road!) and think about the one task that makes your life miserable.

We’ve got our team of certified integrators with us at the show, and I’m sure they’ll be able to help you out.

Spoiler alert: There’s a fair chance that they already automated that task at your competitor.

See you next week!

- Piet

The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with Printing Impressions. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Printing Impressions. Artificial Intelligence may have been used in part to create or edit this content.