Prisma Customer Success:7.3MB - Kodak

Unified Workflow
automates prepress,
drives growth at
Prisma Graphic
Success Story
from KODAK

Standardized workflow reduces
touch points, provides backbone
for expansion into new services
In the last decade, Prisma Graphic has
successfully transformed itself from a
boutique print shop into a full-service
marketing supply chain provider with a
strong online presence. Today, annual
revenues approach $30 million, and
the company’s customers have voted
it the #1 print shop in Arizona for the
past four years in a row.
One of the keys to Prisma’s success is
an ongoing investment in innovative
technology that has enabled it to develop
high-value, loyalty-building services such
as Dokshop, an online storefront that
serves over 200 corporate customers,
with 40,000 users worldwide.
Using technology to improve operational
efficiency has also been essential in the
company’s profitable growth.
Operations Manager Steve Carlson
comments, “We have to produce a
product that costs less money today
than it did five years ago.” Streamlining
the prepress workflow and minimizing
touch points as jobs flowed through the
plant became a priority.
Improved prepress productivity
In 2009, Prisma switched from its
existing workflow to Kodak Prinergy
Connect Workflow with Kodak Prinergy
Rules-Based Automation Software
(RBA). This powerful solution provides
automated file processing—including
preflight, color management, trapping
and imposition—and output to any
of Prisma’s digital and conventional
presses from a single, centralized
interface. The RBA feature enables
Prisma to transform manual processes
into programmed events, saving time,
enabling adminstrative staff to handle
routine jobs, and freeing up experienced
prepress staff to perform higher-value
tasks.
Prepress Supervisor Kerry LaBatt notes,
“With our old workflow, we’d have to
touch a file several times. With Prinergy
Connect Workflow and RBA, we just
drop the file into a hot folder and walk
away. We’re processing jobs twice as
fast, on average,” and have achieved a
zero-touch workflow in some cases.
Steve Carlson adds that improved
productivity in prepress has provided
much-needed operational flexibility,
noting that “the efficiencies we’ve gained
with the Kodak Workflow have freed
Name:
Prisma Graphic Corporation
Established: 1980
Number of employees: 180
Location:
Phoenix, AZ, USA
Services:
Full-service marketing solutions
provider offering design,
marketing analytics and
database development, offset
and digital printing, bindery,
mailing and fulfillment services
Industries served:
Wide range of vertical markets
including restaurants, hospitality,
healthcare, manufacturing,
education, finance and banking
An experienced prepress operator uses Kodak Prinergy Rules-Based Automation Software
to create rules that standardize and automate prepress. This capability has allowed Prisma
Graphic to handle more volume with the same amount of staff, and redeploy people to highvalue
areas including quality control and R&D.

“ With our old workflow, we’d
have to touch a file several times.
With Prinergy Connect Workflow
and RBA, we just drop the file
in a hot folder and walk away.
We’re processing jobs twice
as fast, on average.”
Kerry LaBatt, Prepress Supervisor,
Prisma Graphic
up some available time in the rest of the
plant, either on the digital or offset side.
We can do parts of a job ahead of time and
optimize press utilization.”
Streamlined job submission
and proofing
Prisma has also integrated the Kodak InSite
Prepress Portal System within Dokshop
to standardize job submission and project
management processes. This powerful
and user-friendly collaboration tool, which
Prisma has branded PrismaExchange,
provides secure Web access to customers
for remote job submission, progress
tracking, collaboration, remote proofing
and approvals.
Production Manager Tom Belanger
explains, “The InSite Prepress Portal
System is incredibly powerful. With our
old workflow, clients might upload files to
an FTP site in the evening, and it could be
12 hours before the job was even touched.
With the InSite Prepress Portal System
clients receive an instant preflight when
they upload their files into the system, so
they can immediately resolve any issues
with their files. We then publish a soft
proof, so they’ve seen their job once before
generating any hard proofs. That’s where
we’re seeing significant time savings and
cost savings.”
Tom continues, “The files clients see
are the actual files being used to print
the job. We’ve found it to be very
consistent and reliable. InSite Prepress
Portal System really is the future.”
Steve Carlson says that “Kodak’s integrated
workflow solutions automate and
standardize prepress processes, so we can
grow our business with the same amount
of people.” He continues, “Prepress
automation allows us to produce more
work in a shorter period of time, which
helps save us money in the press area and
deliver jobs faster.”

Service & Support enables
seamless transition
Prisma’s transition to its new workflow
system was made easy by Kodak’s
experienced support staff. Tom Belanger
comments, “Kodak gets an ‘A’ for
startup and installation. Their team took
our mixed environment and different
servers and devices, and got everything
talking and working very well. When
we switched over, the transition was
relatively seamless.”
Improved color quality,
reduced make-ready time
In 2010, Prisma Graphic installed Kodak
ColorFlow Software Pro, which manages
the complex color relationships between
devices, formats and platforms. Tom
Belanger notes, “ColorFlow Software is a
very good product for our sheetfed and
heatset webs. It’s extremely user-friendly
and intuitive.”
Steve Carlson adds, ”Our critical proofs
are now matching at press. When we go
to press, we’re pretty close on that first
pull. The color comes right up and it’s
balanced. Make-ready times are at least
25% faster than they used to be, and the
color is so much better. Our customers
want full, rich colors without losing
details, and really refined midtones.
ColorFlow Software allows us to achieve
that level right out of the gate.”
Poised for continuing growth
Kodak Unified Workflow Solutions are
delivering the productivity advantages
that Prisma requires to sustain its
ongoing growth trajectory.
“We have to be able to turn
large volumes of work in a
short period of time. Kodak
Unified Workflow Solutions
allow us to have a fast-track,
accurate, color-controlled
and cost-controlled prepress
process. It drives everything
we do, and it’s driving
our future.”
Steve Carlson, Operations Manager,
Prisma Graphic
Steve Carlson concludes, “We have
to be able to turn large volumes of work
in a short period of time. Kodak Unified
Workflow Solutions allow us to have a
fast-track, accurate, color-controlled and
cost-controlled prepress process.
It drives everything we do, and it’s
driving our future.”
To learn more about solutions from Kodak:
Visit graphics.kodak.com
Or in North America, call +1-866-563-2533
Produced using Kodak Technology.
Eastman Kodak Company
343 State Street
Rochester, NY 14650
© Kodak, 2011. Kodak, ColorFlow, InSite, Prinergy and Prinergy
Connect are trademarks of Kodak.
Subject to technical change without notice.
U.UWS.101.0611.en.01 (K-838)