Ahmedabad’s Pin Mark Block improves productivity with Esko Automation Engine

One of India’s leading flexographic trade shops, Pin Mark Block, has improved its productivity and efficiency after automating its prepress workflow with Esko Automation Engine. The Ahmedabad-based flexo plate manufacturer recently installed the specialist workflow server at its facility to standardize and automate all its prepress tasks.

Rutul Zaveri, a partner in the company, said having developed a relationship with Esko for more than fifteen years, the decision to continue its digital transformation journey with Automation Engine had been a simple one. “We wanted our workflow smooth and error-free,” said Mr Zaveri. “Esko Automation Engine helps us achieve this, and by reducing the involvement of operators in routine jobs it enabled us to enjoy efficiency gains by optimizing the time of our skilled workforce.”

Esko Automation Engine is the workflow server that delivers a new standard for prepress automation. Not only does the software automate production tasks, but it also integrates with other business systems to speed up the prepress process. Importantly for Pin Mark Block, Automation Engine reduces the error rate and need for operator intervention across the entire process.

“It accepts a wide range of desktop publishing formats and the Preflight task automatically detects most content errors in whatever files we receive from the customer,” said Zaveri. “Standardizing processes and offloading tasks to the software helps us to increase our throughput and therefore our productivity.”

Established 67 years ago, Pin Mark Block has made a name for itself in the list of top suppliers in India and is listed in Trade India’s list of verified sellers offering supreme quality. As Automation Engine is fully customizable, Zaveri said his team use it for specific jobs to help ensure the business continues delivering the best level of service while also maximizing resources.

“Our customers – both brand owners and designers – often supply designs as PDF files, which presents many challenges for packaging converters and print service providers in cost effectively delivering high quality, precise reproduction,” said Zaveri. “For a trade shop like us, time lost in corrections, errors or oversights potentially leads to massive expense in hours and added costs.

“Pre-flighting, adjustments, and making corrections for printability and optimizing quality are necessary before files are ready for output. But with Automation Engine at the center, the standardized workflow performs many of the prepress tasks automatically, saving huge amounts of time for our team. Since the installation, there has been a significant improvement in the way we receive, handle and convert jobs and send them to customers,” said Zaveri.