Etiketten CARINI Boosts Capacity and Productivity while Maintaining Highest Quality with ArtPro+

Etiketten CARINI is a leading label manufacturer producing top-class self-adhesive labels for producers of consumer goods across the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetics industries. Printing machines with up to nine colors guarantee the highest standard of production, while CARINI also offers a wide variety of techniques – offset, letterpress, flexographic, screen printing and digital printing – which can be combined for optimal, tailor made solutions. For special customer requirements, the experts at CARINI combine and apply up to four different printing techniques in a single pass.

A label manufacturer with a strong family tradition and heritage, Etiketten CARINI was founded in Vienna-Penzing in 1939. Quality, reliability and integrity have been cornerstones of the company from the outset, which in 1945 relocated to Lustenau, in the Vorarlberg region of the Rhine Valley. Offering a comprehensive range of services, the business enjoys a reputation earned through decades of delivering exemplary quality and exceptional flexibility when it comes to fulfilling special customer requirements.

Now one of the most renowned label printers in the German-speaking region, the team at Etiketten CARINI carries out all main prepress tasks in-house – from typesetting and image processing through to the finished printing plate – to ensure a consistently high print quality that further enhances the company’s standing.

“We pride ourselves on being among the pioneers in terms of technology, quality and flexibility,” said Daniel Rumpelnig, Prepress Manager at Etiketten CARINI. “As such, we were quick to identify the potential and possibilities of a fully automated workflow.”

“As the market continues to evolve, the needs and particular demands of our customers also change, with everything from a growing number of requests for shorter runs and turnaround times to incredibly complex designs and embellishments, not to mention a significant increase in overall volumes,” said Daniel. “Due to our continued success and growth, the business – and therefore our in-house prepress team – faced the challenge of handling more and more orders while at the same time guaranteeing the high-quality results for which we have become renowned.”

Daniel said that in order to optimize prepress workflow and automate processes, CARINI opted to install Esko ArtPro+ in 2019, alongside Automation Engine. “We of course upgraded to ArtPro+20 following the launch,” he said. “We are using it daily as an addition to our other solutions and it is now an integral and invaluable component of our prepress set-up.”

In 2020, CARINI upgraded to ArtPro+ 20, the latest generation native PDF editor for packaging and label prepress. With advantages including 70% faster trapping and significant time and material savings for staggered plate cutting, the latest version of the software delivers a significant boost to prepress operational excellence.

ArtPro+ was developed to enable prepress operators to reduce unintentional errors when editing and allow users to automate repeating tasks without the need for any special programming skills. With ArtPro+ 20 – launched in 2020 – Esko built on these key needs to address the specific issues packaging professionals such as CARINI face in today’s business environment.

With ArtPro+ 20, a new Preflight tool automatically solves potential print issues, so users can safely and precisely edit only the item that needs attention. A new aesthetic trapping algorithm, which recently received a prestigious InterTech^TM Innovation Award,, closes misregister gaps and accommodates individual exceptions making trapping jobs up to 70 per cent faster. Action Lists and formula-driven marks concepts now also automate repeating tasks, without the need for any programming skills.

Daniel said the combination of ArtPro+ 20.0 and Automation Engine had led to significant benefits for CARINI. “With the help of Esko, we have been able to substantially increase our prepress capacity in recent years,” he said. “Almost everything now runs fully automatically via the workflows. The ‘good-for-printing’ proof for the customer, the creation of multiple copies and, recently, Dynamic VDP, run fully automatically with the help of Esko technology.”

Daniel said there was one key benefit that had particularly contributed to efficiency improvements. “For us, the best feature of ArtPro+ 20 is the Action List,” he said. “There are so many opportunities for process improvement and optimization by using this feature. Processes that previously required literally hours of work can be shortened to just a few minutes with the Action List.”

“The relationship we have developed with our customers and partners is massively important and highly valued by both sides,” said Daniel. “Our outstanding product quality and specialization in all finishing variants is integral to this. Through integrating ArtPro+ 20.0 and other Esko solutions, we have been able to meet the challenge of handling an increasing number of orders while at the same time ensuring we continue delivering the very best quality product for our customers.”