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by Mauricio Jungbauer**
An efficient software solution for the generation and management of printed packaging for the pharmaceutical and consumer goods sectors is coming onstream. Packaging experts, sector insiders and software developers have come together in creating PacOnline. This Artwork Management System enables automatic artwork generation.
The data contained in a database is processed using PacOnline and converted automatically to pdf or eps files.
In the pharmaceutical and consumer goods sectors, artwork managers are confronted with heavy workloads. Quite apart from the development of packaging for completely new products, many and frequent changes are required for the packaging of existing products. This adds up to a high volume of artwork modifications and eats up the lion's share of available resources.
Recent years have seen a number of new IT-based schemes aimed at simplifying these work processes, while at the same time enhancing efficiency and reliability. However, to date these schemes have failed to produce a viable alternative to manual artwork creation, often requiring the transmission of data per email. The search for a solution to this problem has also been taken up by a leading pharmaceutical producer. The outcome has been a decision to further develop, in cooperation with its producers, the first web-based Artwork Management System featuring automatic artwork generation. The system is called PacOnline.
The new PacOnline Enterprise Edition is currently under trial. More details of this trial phase will be outlined in our next two issues.
Folding boxes need to contain a whole lot more information than most consumers normally realize. Alongside graphics and text, a range of production-relevant data, such as codes, collating marks or varnish-free surfaces.
Data of this kind can be conceptually grouped into a number of different levels (Fig. 1). The creation of artwork requires that these various planes of information are brought together.
More than just a printed box
The various strands of data are gathered together by interaction between the various specialist departments within a company. In the past the cost of fully integrating all of this data has unavoidably resulted in very high expenditures for the departments involved. And once gathered, the data needs to be implemented into production, forwarded sometimes simply in old-style files of various kinds. Procedures at this level practically exclude any kind of viable version control. In the innovative approach provided by the PacOnline System, for the first time all data for artwork creation is digitally gathered and processed within a unified, closed system. This facilitates the fast retrieval of data, and enables a proper system of versions. Having all data stored centrally provides clear gains in working efficiency.
Layouts: the modular breakthrough
Grouping assembled contents in an artwork file has up to now been standard practice in the domain of artwork creation. However, in the pharmaceutical packaging sector, this approach is now technically outdated. With the technical options available today, automatic generation of artwork files is now within reach.
By storing all items of data in a central database, it is possible to interrelate individual items of data, bringing them together in pdf or eps files.
In addition, the application of PacOnline achieves layouts which dynamically adapt to contour (e.g. die-cut of a folding box) and contents, whereby the description of both contour and contents is generated from the same system.
A modular system for the data is thus achieved, in which, for example, an appropriate layout is assigned to a die-cut (design specification).
This layout adapts the position of place holders for contents to each different size of die-cut. The result is something resembling an empty template of variable size. Types and categories of contents for the place holders are selected to be appropriately filled out at a later stage of the artwork process when the artwork is assembled. The end result of this process chain is a complete description of the artwork. PacOnline processes this description to printable files in pdf or eps format.
Even given a large product range, the design guidelines in a pharmaceuticals company for product packaging normally provide a unified look and feel to the packaging. Nevertheless, frequent modification requests as demanded by laws and other regulations create high workloads when frequently repeated contents have to be changed universtally.
A change made to a single text may necessitate modifications across many areas of the product range, requiring modification of the artwork of each individual packaging.
The Quantum Leap:
1000 Variations, 1000 Modifications
Companies having to deal with these tasks are faced with high costs in completing them. Not only is there is a high cost in terms of resources, but this situation tends to result in counter-productive practices between the individual departments involved. In relieving co-workers of routine tasks, PacOnline represents a big step forward. The administrative processes involved in the execution of these tasks can be minimized, while production teams are able to rely on the high-performance process control provided by the system. The artwork processes are rendered both transparently and easier to overview.
New, wide-ranging options are provided by PacOnline. Never before has there been a unified system containing texts, pictures, artwork and proofing documentation in an all-in-one application. Unequivocal version control for both the packaging itself and the contents can thus be achieved, with enhanced reliability and efficiency.
Not only providing automatic artwork generation, PacOnline also ensures workflow support in the proofing and release of artwork, not forgetting automatic documentation of all the communication processes involved.
More about this topic in the March and April issues..
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