The packaging industry continues to grow and adapt to the very real threats of today. Supply chain volatility, labor shortages and rising consumable and energy costs all underline that converters need to accelerate their search for increased efficiencies throughout the workflow. That’s why Esko has launched a series of innovations to help businesses accelerate their digital transformation and unlock considerable productivity gains.

Esko Release 22.03 includes a host of new features, such as:
• New – Next generation Color Preflight with Automation Engine and ArtPro+
• New – Assembly instructions with ArtiosCAD, reducing assembly time by up to 20%
• New – Native Apple Silicon support for ArtPro+, DeskPack and Studio
• New – ArtPro+ Digital Edition for digital print workflows
• New – Improved WebCenter user experience and reporting

“This latest software release sees a number of breakthroughs in innovation that will streamline complex workflows,” said Jan De Roeck, Esko Director of Marketing, Industry Relations and Strategy. “We are simplifying processes from structural design through to reporting analytics, ensuring process control, and advanced color software to deliver guaranteed quality and output to levels that were previously unattainable.

“Our continued software innovations respond to the market need for more effective processes that connect workflows between presses, departments, and even between remote facilities,” says de Roeck. “Many companies are now digitizing many of their processes, tasks and workflows. We continue to support that ongoing digitization by making our solutions even more powerful, robust, yet simple to engage and user-friendly.

“Addressing a growing need for actionable insights, this release also includes new features to enable businesses to make optimal use of data,” he  adds. “For those organizations who are already advanced with their digital transformation, collecting more data than ever before, we are empowering them to make more with what they have.”

New reporting tools in Automation Engine and business analytics in WebCenter help to turn that data into useful business insights that can help shape a business by identifying and untapping new efficiencies and eradicating further waste. “New additions to WebCenter, our packaging management solution, remove barriers and improve the user experience by increasing ease of use, while advanced reporting features and dynamic 3D viewing serve to better equip teams to meet today’s challenges,” says de Roeck.

“Our close relationship with customers and partners informs how we identify and respond to specific market trends,” he says. “With color accuracy and consistency being key concerns for brands – and therefore to our customers – the ability to deliver accurate color, regardless of run length or substrate, is of paramount importance to today’s packaging converters. That’s why we have introduced our next generation Color Preflight in ArtPro+ and Automation Engine.

“Delivering a true forecast of color conversion results, and with defined tollgates ensuring color quality, it not only delivers accuracy on press but simplifies the editing process, simplifying color matching work and speeding up the entire process,” states de Roeck. “What’s more, with Esko Release 22.03 we are making some of these innovations more accessible than ever. We want to remove barriers to digital transformation and ensure that everyone is equipped with the data, analytics and production intelligence to meet the challenges they already face today and are prepared for the emerging challenges of tomorrow.

“That’s why, for example, our new release also features a Digital Edition of ArtPro+. This underlines our commitment to digital print production, enabling digital printers to benefit from our native PDF editing software and take their own steps towards getting more jobs to press through automation. Similarly, this latest release has Native Apple Silicon support for ArtPro+, DeskPack and Studio.

“Esko Release 22.03 delivers value right across the workflow from ideation to production, be that through protecting the integrity of a design idea from screen to pack or driving efficiencies across the process and reducing the amount of waste generated,” he adds. “These latest updates are focused on enabling customers to enhance and improve their workflow processes, by leveraging the benefits of the cloud and accessing the latest in automation technology.

“In the face of the disruptive market trends in the industry, we continue to work closely with our customers, listening and developing innovations that respond to demands and deliver tangible benefits,” concludes de Roeck. “This latest software release achieves this goal by enabling packaging converters to enjoy the accelerated business benefits that Esko solutions deliver.”