EFI Ignition Open House Events Address Challenges of Labor, Supply Shortages

At the EFI Ignition Open House Events held October 13, 2021, at the EFI Global Inkjet Innovation Center in Londonderry, New Hampshire, Electronics For Imaging Inc. spotlighted several new technologies that enable opportunities for digital printing providers. While the announcements and insights spanned applications across markets, one topic that stood apart in the event kick-off was how to help print providers and converters be able to do more in an environment challenged by both labor and supply shortages.

In a session announcing EFI Fiery JobExpert’s availability for all Fiery servers, Giselle L. de la Moriniere noted that Fiery JobExpert can help print providers leverage less experienced operators to optimize Fiery jobs. Because the software automatically chooses the right color and imaging settings, the operators need less training to be production ready. The operators do need to accept the changes and be knowledgeable enough to recognize a properly optimized file but they don’t need to know all the specific detailed settings to achieve the optimization.

She also noted that Fiery software can be used to nest printed products extremely efficiently thus requiring less board. A feature that would be clearly welcome as print service providers face paper and other shortages.

As Ken Hanulec noted in a session that explored several new innovations including EFI’s super high speed signage productions solutions such as Nozomi 18000+ LED printer for display graphics producers coming in 2022 and the 138-inch-wide VUTEk Q3r and 208-inch- wide VUTEk Q5r roll-to-roll production printers launched in 2021, Hanulec shared how EFI is working with a customer in Ohio to create a fully automated production line with a robotic infeed and a robotic outfield. Hanulec shared that many customers have realized, coming out of the pandemic, that putting bodies to problems can’t be the go-to anymore. Firstly, “people don’t have the labor, and they can’t hire labor,” Hanulec remarks. Secondly, the pandemic has shown that there are some very human reasons why labor isn’t always as reliable as automation.

In a session exploring New End-to-End Solutions Enhancements for Print and Packaging, Nick Benkovich noted that the download pricing pressure is requiring more automation across the print production and ordering process. One telling comment by Benkovich, “The challenge for a lot of the customers we're seeing is, how do I beat the beast?” Basically, how do print service providers optimize the ordering process to keep up with the beastly fast production presses? Benkovich shared that the business model used to allow print service providers to spend hours to process a new printing job. Then downward pricing pressures required PSPs to drop that ordering processing time to something around 30 minutes. Today, Benkovich regularly hears, “If I touch this job, I’ve lost money.”