Apple Colour in Bristol is the first print business to buy an ROI360 web to print system following a partnership between the software company and Heidelberg UK.
The two suppliers have been talking for around a year as Heidelberg realised that it made no sense to stretch its own staff to support web to print software and that a partnership approach would work better. Chris Matthews, digital product manager at Heidelberg UK, says: “ROI360 is well suited to address the market that we are looking to address. They have been operating for a long time and have the resources to support the installations. And the model that they have with the Storefront solution means that the entry level system is quite manageable.”
The ROI360 software integrates with Heidelberg’s Prinect production workflow. It also has completed integrations with most MIS suppliers. ROI360 director Simon Ellington says: “We can demonstrate different ways to integrate with Heidelberg, into the Prinect with PDF proofing and through the job board. We can pass uploaded artwork and job details into Prinect for that to handle imposition, colour management and to direct the job to a press. We have this implemented at Heidelberg’s showroom.”
In reality Ellington says some kind of MIS would also be involved, as at Northend Creative Solutions in Sheffield, a Heidelberg customer which runs ROI360 into a Shuttleworth MIS. “Heidelberg has chosen to work with us because they wanted a more flexible web to print solutions and wanted to work with a best of breed supplier able to work with and support the customer.”
Other customers in common include Kingfisher Print & Design, Totnes, and Fineprint , Oxford.
A block to the companies working together was removed last year when ROI360 sold its Xerox business to Xeretec, removing an area of overlap between Heidelberg’s digital presses based on Ricoh engines.
The first user has the Ricoh C901 along with a Speedmaster XL75 and full Prinect suite. “It made them a very good example for us to start with,” says Matthews.
The company has recruited Lindsey Butcher to run the installation and he has been to the ROI360 offices in March for training. Previously Apple had been using a web to print application which required a template for every job and the process of building the templates proved a barrier to full implementation. The flexibility of the ROI360 Storefront avoids this problem.
Mark Bracey, Apple Colour’s production director, says: “We think that it will play more for the digital side of the business. We have a greetings card business which this is suited to. And we have ideas for various different products we can develop. It is very early days, but we are brimming with ideas.
“We think that the long term future of the business is about more than being able to produce 150,000 leaflets at the lowest price.”
According to Matthews the deal is a “great start to our working relationship with ROI360. Heidelberg has committed to working more closely in partnership with specialist suppliers who can add value to the overall efficiency of our customers and we are very happy with how Simon Ellington and his team at ROI360 have helped and supported Apple Colour.”
It does not conflict with Heidelberg’s Neoseven web based software. That is a collaborative working tool for agencies and designers to help them manage print and cross media projects, Matthews explains.
Chris Matthews explains that the partnership with ROI360 allows Heidelberg to offer a flexible web to print solution that is suited to Heidelberg’s customer base and which will be supported by ROI360 to ensure that its own engineers are not stretched too thinly. The first customer to specify the web to print application under the new arrangement is Apple Colour in Bristol, which is starting to implement the software.
