Artificial Intelligence in Prepress: A Pipe Dream or a Groundbreaking Tool?

As an innovative company, the SAUERESSIG Group has been exploring the fields of machine learning and computer vision for some time. At the eighth Packaging Printing Expert Meeting, organised by Innoform, SAUERESSIG packaging expert Ingo Beutler gave an inspiring presentation on the future of artificial intelligence in prepress. But what potential does AI hold for print and media production?

The SAUERESSIG Group is convinced that new approaches are needed to make the Design2Print process more efficient. Packaging printing still relies heavily on the technical expertise of employees. From order creation to prepress production, a deep understanding of specifications and graphic data preparation is required. Prepress experts carry out the repro work and transform initial sketches and ideas into printable data.

However, a company’s dependence on experienced employees can become a critical issue, as training them is a lengthy process. Staff absences and similar circumstances can also lead to inconsistencies within an order or missed deadlines. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly important for packaging printing companies within print and media production to engage with AI in order to use its potential effectively within their own organisations.

A vast amount of information and data is generated during the prepress stage of every packaging printing project. Much of this is created by employees using their specialist knowledge and experience. The aim of AI in packaging printing is to analyse this information and graphic data and use the resulting insights to develop AI-based algorithms. In the future, business processes can therefore be supported extensively through automated actions and recommendations, reducing the level of technical expertise required from employees.

AI-supported applications are already being used internally throughout the entire Design2Print process. With the development of the cLynx product range, the SAUERESSIG Group has become an expert in computer vision technology. This technology is the key to extracting information from graphic data and making it available to AI.

By training the AI with historical data, instructions and recommended actions are developed for the entire prepress process. In the future, AI is intended to provide comprehensive support for print and media production. This will drastically reduce complexity within the company and lessen its dependence on the technical expertise of employees on site.

Although most of the developments currently planned or already implemented focus on internal applications within the SAUERESSIG and SGK Group, these technologies also offer considerable market potential for external users.

The SAUERESSIG Group is still at the beginning of this journey. However, the unprecedented opportunity to revolutionise prepress processes through the use of AI is already becoming clear.