The 70-staff Auckland firm turned to existing pre-press supplier Fujifilm NZ and Mellow Colour agent Colour Graphic Services (CGS) to get the certification.

Managing director Fred Soar said “Last year, I did the top technology tour with Heidelberg in the lead-up to Ipex. We went and saw best-practice printing plants in the UK and Europe.

“They also all had ISO 12647-2, which they called ‘print by numbers’,” he added.

Soar (pictured) also saw Mellow Colour demonstrated at the UK trade show, and said the fact it was widely used in Australia helped sway his decision.

The installation included the Mellow Colour PrintSpec software, a new Epson proofer plus consultancy, delivered by CGS founder David Crowther.

Crowther said: “The team at Soar Print put a lot of time and preparation into this. The timing and date for the certification process was put off a number of times over the last few months until they felt they had everything in place and were ready.

“The careful preparation was not wasted – they achieved a perfect 100% score,” he added.

Fujifilm NZ national business manager Ian Gibson said: “The overwhelming smoothness and success of this PrintSpec ISO 12647 implementation proves that FFNZ is on the right track in choosing to support the Mellow Colour product range and methodologies for implementation.”

Fred Soar told ProPrint that becoming ISO 12647-cetified had already saved time and money by speeding up makereadies and reducing our set-up waste.

“For any printing company that is producing lots of four-colour process work, print-by-numbers is a must. It removes the argument from clients about different presses running different,” he said.

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