Anne Lueck
In the blink of an eye, at the push of a button, with the help of a database
Like almost no other, the name Brillux has stood for high-quality paints and coatings for over 125 years. The family-owned company offers a comprehensive product range of over 12,000 products for the painting, finishing and plastering trades. Its need for labels is accordingly high. If these could be easily created at the push of a button, it would mean an enormous saving of time and costs for the paint specialist. Using priint:suite from WERK II, it was possible to switch over parts of the label-making process to a fully automated system.
Anyone who thinks that creating labels for paints and coatings is a simple process is sorely mistaken. The limited space, the precise legal requirements and extreme time pressure make the production process highly complex. In catalog production, individual elements can be pushed onto the following page if necessary, but in label production the available space is strictly limited. Additionally, the legal requirements regarding consumer warnings, ingredient lists, etc. are extremely strict. This means that positioning the various elements in accordance with all CI specifications is often a Sisyphean task. But without the right labels, the freshly produced batches in the tanks cannot be filled into their containers. Production would come to a stand-still. This means that fast, error-free work under pressure is required.
When curated data meets intelligent templates
priint:suite from WERK II is one of the available solutions and Laudert is an experienced — and certified — partner for its implementation. Instead of manually creating each label from scratch, label production is now based on a product database publishing solution (Oracle). This is supplied with data from the PIM (Product Information Management) and product management system, as well as from a safety database. The layout program and Oracle database are permanently connected via an interface called the JDBC connector. So that labels can be produced automatically, intelligent templates first need to be created. Each container size gets its own template. The template is automatically adjusted based on the language version and the specific contents, which makes optimal use of the available space. The result is homogenous, consistent typography.
Defining the rules for text layout is particularly labor-intensive. If the system registers a text overflow, a complex background process is triggered, which, in a matter of seconds, adjusts the individual text frames and shrinks the text as necessary. A graphic designer is only needed in the rare case that the minimum text size is still not small enough. Should this happen, the system stops its attempts to solve the problem and generates a warning message. Logos and relevant codes, such as QR or EAN codes, are automatically generated and placed in the appropriate locations. When the label is finished, the system generates the final file format for printing.
Now better than ever: priint:suite 4
Switching from priint:suite 3 to the new architecture found in version 4 expands the functionality of database publishing. The priint:planner offers additional possibilities for planning the publication and for generating InDesign documents on the server, allowing users to work from as many workstations, in as many locations as desired. Thanks to the new software architecture with the integrated InDesign server, numerous labels can be produced simultaneously at the push of a button. For example, this makes it possible to run the automated processes overnight, counteracting the often short production timeframes.
The proofreading workflow during catalog or pricelist creation has also been significantly enhanced: the integrated priint:whiteboard allows product managers to leave comments, which the graphic designer can view directly within the InDesign document. This speeds up the process considerably by eliminating the need to use multiple systems (or even printouts) during the proofreading process.
