Esko Share & Approve honored with first award at EFIA 2020 Awards
Esko, the leading developer of integrated software and hardware solutions for the global packaging, labeling and wide format sectors, has received a Bronze Award at this week’s European Flexographic Industry Association (EFIA) 2020 Awards – the first for its innovative Share & Approve tool.
Esko received the honor in the Technical Innovation – Supplier category for Share & Approve, the new and unique approval tool launched worldwide in 2019. The innovative software runs as a service on Esko cloud architecture and enables users to upload, share, annotate and approve packaging and labels jobs in 2D and hyper realistic 3D.
“We’re thrilled to have been recognized by the judges in this hugely competitive category”, said Paul Land, Esko Product Manager. “The EFIA awards are renowned for acknowledging outstanding commitment to the flexographic print process and we’re delighted that Share & Approve has been praised for its ability to simplify and significantly boost approval speeds.
“Securing approvals can be a confusing process and cause production delays, so we developed Share & Approve specifically for today’s high speed, and often pressured, packaging business environment”, said Paul. “It’s often hard for the approver to envision their 2D design once finished and there is also no easy way to gather and interpret feedback from multiple stakeholders on a job without significant time delays impacting the project”.
The Esko Share & Approve software solution enables users to realistically visualize their packin 2D and 3D and annotate the file with feedback in a single, centralized online tool. This new clarity reduces the amount of approval iterations and hortens the time required to get the job completed, enabling brands and their supply chains to operate more efficiently and drive down time-to-market. The software has a super easy user interface enabling upload and set up in only four clicks and incorporates a range of unique packaging inspection tools for measurements, deep zooms and separations viewing, as well as barcode and braille reading.
“We now see approval loops finishing in a maximum of eight or nine days instead of a few weeks” added Paul. “We have also observed the number of job revisions decreasing from as many as eight or nine to just three or four with use of the software”.
Creating visibility on job management, Share & Approve provides a complete audit trail of operator actions and versioning, as well as making approval rates up to three times faster than traditional approval processes.
“With Share & Approve designed as a cloud-based service, there is no IT overhead costs or efforts involved for our customers, compared to traditional in-house solutions”, said Paul. “There is no web deployment, no servers to maintain and keep up to date, no need to provide for data security and back-up scenarios and the uptime of the service is guaranteed”.
