114 | Labelexpo Americas 2022 / Workflow and softwareWORKFLOW AND SOFTWARE Automation, collaboration and consolidation were the key workfow trends on display at Labelexpo Americas 2022. James Quirk reports s consolidation continues apace in the label sector, it was no The company’s business is split evenly between supplying OEMs surprise that major announcements from workfow software and direct selling to customers. ‘You’d struggle to fnd a digital press suppliers at Labelexpo Americas 2022 were centered on at the show which didn’t have a solution from one of our group Amergers and acquisitions. companies,’ says CEO Mike Rottenborn.The show also saw advancements in other key workfow trends: Label Traxx announced a merger with its two key partners, increased automation, the move toward cloud-based operations, Siteline and Batched, to create a fully integrated, end-to-end and increasingly open systems that allow data collaboration and production technology designed specifcally for the label and integration across multiple technology vendors. fexible packaging market. For the last six years, Label Traxx has collaborated with Siteline to develop and deploy a web-to-print technology that enables NEW ACQUISITIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS Labelexpo Americas 2022 was the frst public showing for AMP, a label customers to reorder, approve the artwork, pay invoices and recently founded new member of the Baldwin Technology family manage their label product catalogs online. of companies. Described by chief IoT offce Steve Metcalf as ‘a Label Traxx has been collaborating with Batched for the last health data app for the converting process,’ AMP is a cloud-based three years. Both companies developed production optimization data aggregation and analytics platform designed for printing technologies specifcally targeting the unique needs of label companies to create new Industry 4.0 advantages with their printing, including automated scheduling, capacity planning production data. The vendor-neutral platform can connect to and and operational dashboards. This integration allows production collect data from any physical pressroom asset in addition to MIS, operations to schedule and manage complex, multi-step production ERP and other workfow software. environments more effciently.Esko was joined at its booth by newly-acquired AI software ‘We are approaching our 30th year in business. Over the last six developer Tilia Labs, whose range of intelligent algorithms for years, we have cultivated partners to accelerate our innovation. sheet layout, estimation and planning will be integrated into Esko’s Now it’s time to consolidate the portfolio and the teams to bring existing software suite. a well-coordinated and seamless solution to the industry,’ says Ken Esko also announced a new partnership with GMG, which will see Meinhardt, co-founder of Label Traxx.GMG’s profling and color prediction technology GMG OpenColor For the last year, Label Traxx, Batched and Siteline have connected to Esko’s native pre-press editing software, ArtPro+. The consolidated operations across sales, support, professional services connector will be launched in November. and product development. This consolidation results in a unifed The new ArtPro+ GMG OpenColor Connector enhances the approach to support existing customers and build a team with connectivity and data exchange between the two technologies, complementary skill sets. The unifed system includes the Label creating a smoother and more effcient color conversion process. Traxx system of record using a data model. Siteline provides This integration ensures uninterrupted fle processing and color the front-end web application for optimizing the front offce, conversion, without losing mission-critical metadata between and Batched provides the web application for optimizing the systems – allowing both technologies to operate at their best. production foor.Geert de Proost, director of product management at Esko, The ownership/leadership group will consist of Ken Meinhardt says: ‘The manual reseparation of images and artwork to (Label Traxx), Jennifer Matt (Siteline), and Matt Murphy (Batched), match brands’ color accuracy demands can be a laborious and with no outside investors. Rob Mayerson will lead day-to-day error-prone process. But by automating the reseparation using activities and the consolidation of operations as president. ‘Label GMG OpenColor technology, via the unique integration with Esko customers of all sizes are participating in rapid consolidation,’ ArtPro+, pre-press professionals can now accurately visualize color says Mayerson. ‘We are investing in the ability to service growing in before-and-after states and assess color deviations on-screen organizations with the upcoming release of Label Traxx Enterprise, with precise Delta E readouts.’ which will support multi-site operations. Siteline and Batched are The new connector will deliver wide-ranging benefts for tightly integrated into Label Traxx while being “loosely coupled” to converters using ArtPro+ and GMG OpenColor, including the Label Traxx, which means that in mixed ERP environments, Siteline creation of a standardized and automated process for color and Batched will be able to work across the Enterprise. The new matching and reseparation of multi-color image and vector data, REST API from Label Traxx will extend the ability to connect Label eliminating manual work, reducing the risk of errors and saving up Traxx to external systems.’to 60 minutes of operator time per job.Hybrid Software Group showcased its recent acquisition of TECHNOLOGYiC3D by demonstrating 3D visualization throughout the entire Artwork Flow presented its fexible workfow management system pre-press process. iC3D joined its Hybrid Software Group sister for multi-stage approval and artwork collaboration. Additionally, the companies – Hybrid Software, Global Graphics Software, ColorLogic, company featured AI-enabled Smart Proofng for FDA compliance, Xitron and Meteor Inkjet – at the show. The latest acquisition brings helping brands go to market faster. the group’s employees to around 300 and adds 3D visualization Axicon showed its 15000 series 1D/2D barcode verifer, technology to Hybrid’s extensive software and hardware offering. designed to read both linear and two-dimensional matrix barcodes labelsandlabeling.com