Business News
How to Implement ISO 12647-2 for Offset Printing Quality Control
Friday 12. July 2013 - Most printers and print buyers know that ISO standards can help improve business performance and product quality. But too many find ISO standards difficult to understand and implement, even though the standard is excellent for improving offset printing process control. As a result, Digital Dots has published Standardised Print Production (SPP) - a series of four, easy-to-understand guides that simplify ISO 12647-2 implementation.
The SPP guides are ideal companion documents for use with any printing industry certification scheme and essential for companies who want to prepare for ISO 12647-2 certification from organisations such as Fogra, UGRA, BPIF, Swedish Printers Federation and IDEAlliance.
The Standardised Print Production series explains in plain language what print firms need to do to achieve compliance to ISO 12647-2. SPP comprises four parts: Document Preparation and Prepress; Setting up the Press; Quality Management, and an Executive Summary. Each guide explains what the ISO 12647-2 standard covers and what a printer or print buyer needs to do in order to achieve ISO 12647-2 compliant print production.
The SPP guides help printers and their customers understand how to use ISO 12647-2 to improve business performance, including return on capital investments and enhanced profitability. They are also designed to help printers and their customers make workflows more efficient, tighten up process controls, reduce errors and waste, and improve colour control and consistency: run to run and across print methods. All of this directly impacts a company’s bottom line and improves profitability.
Standardised Print Production is the result of Digital Dots’ extensive experience in digital colour management. The authors – Laurel Brunner and Paul Lindström – contribute to the development of ISO 12647-2 through their membership of ISO TC130, the technical committee responsible for graphics technology. Digital Dots has also worked to develop certification schemes for ISO 12647-2, including that of the Swedish Printers’ Federation and the UK’s BPIF.
“These guides are an inexpensive and accessible way for printers and their customers to understand ISO 12647-2 and to get to grips with implementing the standard,” says Digital Dots Technical Director Paul Lindström. “They provide printers and buyers with the knowledge they need to improve workflow efficiencies, colour management and overall business performance.”
Standardised Print Production can be purchased as a complete set (Euro 275) or as individual guides (Euro 95 each) online at http://digitaldots.org