With an ever growing number of customers, Digiflex, one of the leading suppliers of flexographic plates in India, has installed Esko Automation Engine at its Hyderabad facility as part of a drive to improve efficiency.
Established in 2015, the prepress trade shop has a state-of-the-art operation supplying plates to a number of major label convertors, flexible and corrugated packaging printers across the country, while also serving customers as far afield as Africa and South East Asia. In order to manage an increasing number of jobs, Digiflex has installed Automation Engine, the automated workflow server from Esko.
“We are focused on creating the highest level of satisfaction for our customers,” said Muralidhar Nalli, Managing Partner of Digiflex. “We constantly aim to fulfill both their current and future needs and our stated mission is to continuously improve all our business processes and productivity.
“As our reputation continues to grow, earning plaudits for our commitment to providing the highest quality products and services, the number of jobs the business is handling has been steadily increasing. Automating our workflow to ensure we maximized our efficiency and productivity became an obvious necessity.”
The Digiflex operation has two flexo plate imaging lines, including a new Esko CDI Crystal 5080 with the latest imaging software, installed in early 2019. “This is the only imager of this size in the South Indian market and will help us to target large format flexible printers and supply full size plates for the corrugated market,” said Mr Nalli. “We will soon be adding even more equipment for digital flexo plate processing and so looked to automate our workflow as it is vital that we continue delivering a service of the highest quality and accuracy to our customers.”
Following a full demonstration - and having discussed options and obtained the opinions of various existing users across the industry - Digiflex selected Automation Engine from Esko, the global supplier of software and hardware solutions for leading global wide format, labels and packing professionals. The scalable workflow server not only automates print production tasks but also integrates business systems to speed up the whole process. More importantly, it reduces the error rate and the need for operator intervention, ensuring both maximum accuracy and efficiency of platemaking.
“During our research we found that Esko Automation Engine was a very popular prepress workflow solution in the print and packaging industry the whole world over,” said Mr Nalli. “The combination of this incredibly positive feedback from users and our own successful demonstration made the final decision an easy one.
“Customer satisfaction and the impressive quality service we deliver is of the utmost importance to us,” said Mr Nalli. “We know Esko has secured a similarly enviable reputation for its digital flexo plate imaging hardware and its catalogue of software solutions. The service back-up the company offers in India is also particularly good.
“Our decision to install Esko Automation Engine means we can offer our customers the same or even better standard of service on which we have built our business, while maximizing our efficiency and productivity,” he said. “Not only that, but Automation Engine will clearly help us to effectively avoid errors that happen in the process of handling files, achieving cost reductions through minimizing waste.”
John Fredrick, Esko Sales Manager for South India, said he was thrilled that Digiflex was continuing its partnership with Esko by integrating Automation Engine into its workflow. “As a comparatively young business, Digiflex is making a real name for itself with its cutting edge equipment and commitment to unparalleled customer service,” he said.
“The fact that Mr Nalli has seen fit to use Esko solutions to automate his entire prepress process is testament to the tremendous success Digiflex has enjoyed with our CDI Crystal 5080 plate imager,” he said. “We are delighted to extend our relationship in this way and look forward to working ever more closely with Digiflex as the company continues on its path to growing success.”
