FUJIFILM North America Corporation, Graphic Systems Division announces the 5,000th install of the innovative XMF Workflow at Christmas City Printing, a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based print provider.
Starting off as a letterpress, stationary, and business card print shop in 1981, Christmas City Printing has quickly transformed to a full service commercial printing powerhouse.
Workflow is a crucial function at the heart of any print operation, whether offset, digital, or a combination of the two. XMF Workflow is the central hub for all equipment at Christmas City Printing.
Fujifilm’s XMF Workflow is a highly capable workflow system based on JDF specifications and Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE) technology. This gives XMF Workflow tremendous flexibility and increased integration capabilities with MIS and other third party solutions that support the JDF specification. XMF Workflow has many high value features including the ability to scale the system based on productivity requirements. XMF Workflow is an end to end solution from PDF creation and preflight through imposition to trapping and output maintaining the PDF file format right up to the final rendering stage using the APPE interpreter.
“The streamline process that XMF Workflow gives us is ten times faster than our previous workflow,” said Chris Sicinski (pictured), vice president, Christmas City Printing. “With integrated imposition, unlimited clients (users), and also having the 3D proofing tool, our jobs are in and out of our shop faster than ever.”
XMF’s latest version, V6.1, is a powerful and flexible production hub, harnessing the high speed rendering technology Mercury RIP Architecture developed by Adobe to enable parallel processing of multiple jobs. This offers an outstanding processing capability that is two to ten times greater compared to previous systems, and in turn contributes remarkably to scaling up the productivity of pre-press operations. For instance, when required to output jobs simultaneously to the CTP, proofer, or the digital press, XMF allows minimizing the processing ‘standby time’ while the jobs are processed, and offers streamlined and effective use of the output devices. A single XMF unit is capable of performing RIP processing equivalent to multiple CTP setters. This not only greatly reduces the number of RIP units for each output device and allows cutting down on management and costs, but will also allow to ensure that calculations always stay consistent among different output devices.
“Our digital, CTP, and proofing are all being color managed to one standard with ColorPath added to the workflow,” added Sicinski.
ColorPath Sync is a suite of state-of-the-art cloud-based management tools which align output devices to designated color targets. ColorPath Sync incorporates optimized color correction and a simple, step-by-step interface to achieve industry-leading results in creating and maintaining color output device alignments, and synchronizes color across multiple output devices, printing conditions, and locations.
XMF Workflow Highlights
- Integrated imposition
- Unlimited clients
- 3D proofing tool
- ColorPath Sync
Additionally, Christmas City Printing has increased their productivity with the Xerox Color 1000 press.
“Acquiring the (Xerox) 1000 through Fujifilm was a huge competitive advantage for our digital department,” says Sicinski.
“In this industry, I’ve seen graphic art vendors come and go, and Fujifilm has always stood behind their products. We are a better company for installing XMF Workflow. I have a friendship with Fujifilm, not just a business relationship,” said Sicinski.
“With intelligent automation and diverse remote features, XMF is a workflow system that brings substantial change to the production frontlines and the communicative environment,” says Shigenori Tsuji, senior manager, Workflow Division, FUJIFILM Global Graphic Systems. “I am very pleased that the system’s ‘ability to make a change’ is being widely accepted in the global market.”
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