Digital Impact reduces errors and boosts efficiency with Esko Automation Engine

Streamlining the process

Digital Impact LLC is a part of The VT Group, based in Yeadon, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1966 as a plate-making trade shop for corrugated converters, VT Group has evolved into a Point of Purchase (‘POP’) industry leader servicing various Fortune 500 and top name brand companies both in continental US and internationally. With this evolution, the company has established and maintained its reputation for reliability, speed to market, and a long-standing razor-sharp focus on customer service.

Digital Impact was formed as a division in 2004 to further support the group’s relationship with various POP display manufacturers and leading consumer products companies across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It produces large format, high-resolution, semi-permanent corrugated and mixed material POP & Point of Sale (POS) displays, product packaging and specialized permanent displays for companies across many sectors.

So, what did Digital Impact come to Esko for?

“In our business, it is important that we handle the artwork files we’re sent with real care to make sure there’s no distortion to what our customers have provided,” said Mike Mormile, General Manager of Digital Impact LLC.

“Previously we would take the customers’ files, prepare working art files, then manually create the PDF softproof for customer approval and the production PDF, in addition to inspecting and fixing the CAD file. Now, we can take the Illustrator art file, which has the dieline in it, and Esko Automation Engine will create the PDF softproof and a one-up production PDF on the fly.”

Automating and integrating

For several years, other businesses in The VT Group had been using Esko Automation Engine, the workflow server that delivers a new standard for prepress workflow automation. “Once we were ready to automate everything in our wide format business, it made complete sense to use Automation Engine as we were already familiar and impressed with it,” said Mike. “We’ve used Automation Engine in Digital Impact for a couple of years now.”

“Not only does the engine automate print production tasks, but it also integrates with other business systems to speed up the process. Importantly, Automation Engine reduces the error rate and need for operator intervention across the entire print process and jobs we want to automate to ensure it’s helping us optimize our resources.”

Saving time and money

Automation Engine helps us save time across the board,” explained Mike, “and saving time obviously means we save money. For example, on the production floor, the Printer Operators can take the same Illustrator art file, have Automation Engine step it out to fill a specified sheet size and send the art to the printer rip and the dieline to the cutter queue.”

These efficiency gains have boosted overall productivity at Digital Impact, with the team being able to complete more jobs in less time. “If you don’t have this piece of software in your set up, I would advise you to get it,” Mike said. “Reduced errors and quicker setups add up to more productivity. When combined with the increased speed of production and throughput, not forgetting the reduction in both time and materials wasted at the production stage, the benefits are clear.”