Agfa Graphics Launches: ApogeeX with Automatic Barcode Generation.

Ensures Seamless Integration of Pre-press and Post-press Equipment by Adding Reliability, Control and Automation.

• Press release
• Mortsel, Belgium
• July 16, 2007 16:00

Agfa Graphics announced today that :ApogeeX 3.5, Agfa's award-winning prepress production workflow software, now provides automatic generation of barcodes. These barcodes, which contain valuable production information of the printing project, ensure the seamless integration of prepress, press and post-press equipment by adding reliability, control and automation, and allows smooth printing and finishing (cutting and folding). :ApogeeX 3.5 supports four different barcode standards that can be read by press and post-press equipment providers WST Systemtechnik GmbH www.wst.eu, Müller Martini AG (www.mullermartini.com), Nela GmbH (www.nela.de) and Lehner GmbH (www.lehner-gmbh.com).

:ApogeeX 3.5 offers a variety of prepress automation tasks, which has now been extended with controlled automation features towards post-press equipment. :ApogeeX dynamically generates barcodes which can be used to prevent errors during collation and folding of printed sheets.

To allow the integration of current post-press equipment, :ApogeeX supports different barcode standards including the 2/5 interleaved standard used by WST Systemtechnik GmbH, the Code128c and 2/5 interleaved read by Müller Martini AG, Code39 of Nela GmbH and the datamatrix standard supported by RCC9 (Lehner GmbH) .

"The dynamic barcode generation by :ApogeeX significantly enhances the post-press efficiency and reliability," said Erik Peeters, Product Manager of :ApogeeX, Agfa Graphics. "Together with our partners of post-press solutions, we are proud to support an integrated workflow solution that prevents errors on a finished product and helps commercial printers to be more efficient."

Star Publishing GmbH of Böblingen (www.star-publishing.com), responsible for DaimlerChrysler publications, co-operate exclusively with suppliers using a bar-coding system. Star Publishing uses the barcode-supported monitoring system developed by "WST Systemtechnik," a company based in Espelkamp. WST offers optical sheet control, matching and mailing systems for the printing industry and has developed a unique and patented multi-track-barcode scanner, which is able to detect a barcode mark with a height of only 0,9mm. If necessary, it is possible to combine the barcode system with additional image detection. Using a printed barcode, it identifies the appropriate page and offers 100 per cent security when gathering the printed pages.

"Our customers expect 100 per cent quality and delivery reliability, particularly products that have a large number of sheets and are printed in different languages. They cannot be produced with missing parts. By using the barcode system, we can target and optimize production times and quality in order to achieve a high efficiency benefit for the enterprise," said Ramona Kaden, Managing Director of Star Publishing. "Thanks to the automatic positioning we can achieve with :ApogeeX and the AsirCode on all pages of individual jobs, the productivity and reliability of our production has again increased," said Pedro Castillejo, manager for postpress operations, AVD Goldach (www.avd.ch). "Our prepress operators only have to position the barcode one time per template on the first page. :ApogeeX then automatically actualises the barcode for every page of the job. This results in less manual labour and higher reliability, because the barcoding process prevents mistakes, especially with bigger and more complex print jobs. At the same time, we can monitor the production flow more efficiently and check if the right pages are in the proper sequence on the correct production machine," Castillejo added.

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