MIAMI—HiFlow Solutions, a leading global provider of end-to-end management software solutions for folding carton, label converters, flexible packaging and corrugated producers, recently released a free Microsoft Windows application for imposing labels, packaging and commercial print jobs. The application can be downloaded here: https://hiflowsolutions.com/free-imposition-application/
“When a packaging company gets a request for quote, it’s important to respond as quickly as possible since quite often, whoever responds first gets the job,” states Romek Kowalczyk, product manager at HiFlow, who developed the specifications for this application. “This free imposition application can replace a time-consuming manual estimating process to offer quicker deliveries of quotes to customers.”
Kowalczyk explains that in many shops, a request for quote will be received by sales or customer service, who then needs to forward it to estimating. The estimator enters data into an Excel spreadsheet that is then sent to the CAD department. There, he says, they may use another tool, or a manual process, to draw and impose designs, which are then sent back to estimating. “This can take time,” he says, “especially if the CAD department is busy. By using our free imposition tool, this step is removed from the process altogether, unless it is an especially complex design.”
Contained in the free app is a catalog of different structures for folding carton, labels, corrugated and common commercial printing applications such as brochures, leaflets, folders and more. “These structure descriptions are familiar to most of our users,” Kowalczyk adds. “Once they choose the item from the catalog that matches the customer request, they can see the design, the flat layout of the requested item. This is always the first step in creating an estimate. They are then able to make changes to the parameters, if needed, and enter the sheet size that matches their printing equipment. Then they select Impose, and the design is automatically imposed on the right sheet size with the most efficient possible use of the substrate. This eliminates the need to involve the CAD department and immediately provides the estimator with the information needed to generate the estimate, including the amount of material required.”
Kowalczyk points out that using this ease-of-entry tool only allows creating an imposition layout for one quantity, while in the full HiFlow MIS imposition application, multiple quantities can be specified. “Even though only one quantity can be specified at a time,” he says, “it’s fast, and the estimator can simply repeat the process for additional quantities, still saving time over a manual process.”
“We wanted to make this free imposition application available to the industry to help operations be more efficient,” said Mariusz Sosnowski, CEO and president of HiFlow Solutions. “It is also an introduction to HiFlow Solutions, and we hope that it will also generate interest in implementing our modular MIS solution to gain access to more imposition features as well as other capabilities that will increase their productivity even more. But the bottom line is that estimating is where the process starts for generating a quote for a customer, and we want to enable them to do this as quickly as possible.”