Esko launches AVT iCenter inspection tool

Esko has unveiled its latest print inspection tool, AVT iCenter, which helps to easily manage quality and production standards across jobs, printing equipment, shifts, and even sites.

Esko has unveiled its latest print inspection tool, AVT iCenter, which helps to easily manage quality and production standards across jobs, printing equipment, shifts, and even sites

The new cloud-based platform integrates with Esko Automation Engine and AVT Helios automated in-line inspection technologies for label and narrow web printing. 

‘Connecting between pre-press and inspection, iCenter enables users to control and deliver one standardized source of truth throughout the quality inspection setup process,’ said Ornit Gluzman, Esko AVT alliances and workflow solutions director. ‘With increasingly shorter job lengths and lead times, today’s label suppliers already face significant challenges. These are compounded by the constraints of siloed software applications and duplicating data between the pre-press, inspection, and production process.

‘The inspection job setup process is often manual and fragmented, leading to significant lost time in setting up the right quality level for each job before print and then waiting for supervisors to approve them. At the same time, the manual process makes it challenging to control quality on jobs across various different operators and systems, while inaccurate or non-specific quality inspection setup can dramatically affect production speed.

‘But with iCenter, inspection quality standards are defined only once and then leveraged automatically throughout the process to every live job. This means that quality standards - and therefore products - are consistent across sites, with 100 percent hands-free on-press operation eliminating the need for operator input and in turn, human error.’

Gluzman explained that with automated touchless workflow through the Esko integrated solution AutoSet, iCenter enables label and narrow web converters to eliminate errors and enjoy consistent, standardized, company-wide inspection quality standards.

‘Inspection make-ready is automated, based on machine learning and AI-based image analysis, and there’s also support for multi-site operations to ensure consistency across a business, regardless of which facility completes the job. With total digitization, all the operator has to do is type a job name or scan a barcode, and iCenter retrieves and applies all the standards for the job – the whole process takes just 20-30 seconds,’ concluded Gluzman.