arifiQ Awarded US Patent for Automatic Estimating and Job Onboarding Technology

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arifiQ finds the best production process and provides a quote in seconds

The US Patent and Trademark office has granted arifiQ Development AB a patent for “A system and a method of optimizing a print production process”, adding that arifiQ is the only technology in the US able to solve the industry’s severe print estimating bottleneck. arifiQ remedies the estimating problem by unleashing automatic job estimating and onboarding for ad-hoc/custom jobs.  arifiQ finds the best production process and provides a quote in seconds. The patented arifiQ technology is today used in arifiQ’s estimating products, via APIs, and also in white label products.  

In a world where everything else is available immediately, the wait for print job estimates has stood out as unusual and deeply frustrating. arifiQ eliminates the wait – completely – with the world’s fastest optimizing and estimating engine for print.

Why patentable

The system and method are patentable because they replace human decisions made by skilled estimators who work on print job estimates for days, finding the best production process. arifiQ finds and determines the best: Imposition/signatures, sheet size, printing press, paper; i.e., everything required for the job… in seconds. In the same moment that job specifications are decided, runtimes and costs are also calculated.

arifiQ automation enables sales organizations and customers to initiate any print estimate online, get the quote, and place the order.

Optimization

The automatic optimization in arifiQ does not necessarily need to be based on cost/lowest price. Optimization can also be based on waste, delivery time, environmental impact, or other variables.

The Patent

The patent underscores the power of arifiQ’s advanced approach and represents a major departure from existing spreadsheet back ends and the primarily manual methods employed by the majority of the industry.

The arifiQ patent, US Patent No.10956099, covers:

  • automatic calculation of production costs for each possible job,  
  • co-production (also known as “gang-run”), 
  • a virtual print driver, which sends job orders to the PSP[1] from any software application,  
  • an API for calculating print costs, and
  • the ability to build marketplaces and portals, with multiple cooperating (or competing) printing companies. 

Licensing

As this method for print estimating can become mandatory in the printing industry, arifiQ is expected to be inside or integrated with many different solutions including MIS, W2P, and Prepress and Production Workflows.

For instance, W2P systems of today can only provide immediate pricing for standard SKU jobs. The patented arifiQ method is breaking through that barrier to immediately price any type of print job, including custom print, making e-commerce possible for the demanding B2B segment.

“Printers and their customers cannot enjoy the benefits of digital workflows until every step is digitized.  Patented arifiQ technology closes what is arguably the last – and definitely the largest – analog gap, by automating estimating and job onboarding,” says arifiQ technology inventor, CTO Stefan Karlsson.

Link to patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200167102A1/en?assignee=arifiq&oq=arifiq

[1] Print service provider


Read the news at:

https://whattheythink.com/news/105312-arifiq-awarded-us-patent-automatic-estimating-job-onboarding-technology/

arifiQ Awarded US Patent for Automatic Estimating and Job Onboarding Technology

https://www.printingnews.com/software-workflow/press-release/21151254/arifiq-development-arifiq-awarded-us-patent-for-automatic-estimating-and-job-onboarding-technology

ArifiQ’s automatic estimating tech earns patent
arifiQ Awarded U.S. Patent for Automatic Estimating and Job Onboarding Technology

Ink usage/cost for inkjet devices

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Fast print calculation is at the heart of arifiQ. It wasn’t really that far-fetched that arifiQ could also be doing real ink usage estimations. Although it has been a struggle to be both correct and fast made ink usage estimates difficult, but the issue has now been conquered.

How arifiQ powers to automatically deliver the most rapid and accurate ink calculations:

  • Reads the print job PDF file
  • Captures the ink coverage and calculates the ink usage and cost

Together with arifiQ job estimating, this ink calculating capability provides a totally complete print job estimation, including specification of the job production process and cost.

Today this ink cost calculator is used in Canon Solutions America’s VIEW product – press release:
https://csa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/csa/company/companypressreleases/pressreleasedetails/2020/20200925-view/20200925-view

Allkopi Netprint – Norways largest print provider, automates sales- & order routine with arifiQ

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The print production workflow starts at the customer. This insight made, the Paragon Group entity, Allkopi Netprint AS choose arifiQ as their new hybrid MIS- /sales tool solution.  

  • With arifiQ, our sales team are fully equipped to bring home orders, not only RFQ’s. Our goal is not only to increase sales, but also to enhance the customer satisfaction. arifiQ’s MIS capabilities with the amazingly easy-to-use interface, made all the difference to us, says Camilla Mørstad, Allkopi Netprint.

Demanding list of Requirements

When looking around for a new MIS, the list of requirements was quite demanding. One big issue was the management of Allkopi Netprint’s many production units. The 17 units needs to run as separate sites, but also tied together as a joint print portal with joint customer database and reporting.

The main purpose with a new MIS, is to speed up the sales process and administration processes internally and for that, automation is key. By integrating arifiQ to their ERP-, freight-, and production workflow system, Allkopi Netprint will get a smooth seamless workflow, from customer to delivery and invoicing.

  • Our customers are gaining a higher service level, instant quotes, easy job onboarding and faster turn-around times. And we’re hoping to get higher profitability, more jobs to a less costly production process. A classic win-win situation, Camilla Mørstad says and smiles.   

Implementation

arifiQ set out a challenging time frame for the implementation, only 3 months for 17 production sites, 100 printing presses and 200 in staff to introduce, starting off this week. Allkopi Netprint and arifiQ are both very dedicated to pull this off before summer holidays and excited to get it into production mode.

Facts about Allkopi:

Paragon Group Ltd is a British organization present in 17 countries, with a global sales reach €750+ million turnover. Allkopi NetPrint is a Paragon Group subsidiary based in Norway, with 18 print production sites throughout the country.

Contact:
Allkopi NetPrint, Camilla Mørstad, camilla.morstad@allkopi.com, telefon +47 400 20 755
arifiQ Development, Carina Karlsson, carina@arifiq.com, +46 70 389 19 09

Asian printer visits arifiQ

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arifiQs first customer in the Asian/Pacific region was KHL Printing from Singapore. We’re so happy to be able to meet up with them in Sweden, to meet in person and discuss improvements in their arifiQ site.

KHL Printing was looking for a straight forward estiamating – job on boarding tool – that could send jobs to HP PrintOS Site Flow. They found out about arifiQ, and here we are smiling.

Hard Cover book feature

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Dust Jacket & End Papers are now available as printed parts for Hard Cover Books. Along with the Cover and Body, there is four parts that are all being imposed. All part can have a different choice of paper, print and production.

There are also new options for adding ribbons and head- & tail bands to the Hard Cover Books.

This feature makes it possible for publishers and corporations, or anyone, to get a price and order Hard Cover Books in a minute, by themselves.

arifiQ is growing

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The printing industry around the world needs a higher level of automation, both in business and in production processes. E-commerce is also a soft spot, when it comes to 80% of the market share for print. This is the kind of print, or print customers, that cannot be squeezed into the limited web-to-print shops.

arifiQ is a patent pending solution for automatic cost optimization of print production. On this algorithms we have created technology within the range of MIS, e-commerce, impositioning and advanced ink calculations.

Working at arifiQ you’ll be creating profit generating technology for a global market. We’re here to create cloud based tools that drives business to our hero’s – the Print Providers.

We know the printing industry generations back. arifiQ is a solution grown out of a print business and we’re actually still located within a print shop. We share the same lunch room and they help us solve problems every day.

Working with the latest technology at arifiQ, also requires interest in learning the print production process and absorbing the every day experiences (and the scent of offset print) from the industry we serve.

We’re looking for:
– System Architects
– System Developers
– Solution Architecs
– Key Account Manager

Read more (in Swedish) at: arifiq.com/newjob

The jobs are located in Sweden, Sollefteå & Östersund.

Workflow automation starting from Print Customers / Sales

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arifiQ is hosting a session at the Nordic Workflow Summit – about unlocking a huge business opportunity by offering a comprehensive automated quoting and order placement online service for B2B customers.

Including the print customers / sales in an automated workflow – is going to elevate the service level substantially. Any print shop can put a B2B print portal on the market and get an extensive out reach. A small printer, can seam like a lot bigger by collaborating with larger printers – and get the hands on the big print jobs (money).

Product type self setting tool

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An arifiQ site appears in different shapes, depending on the print providers production possibilities (example below). Each print provider decides which product types they would like to use as entry’s.

In the self setting tool, that now comes with each arifiQ site, the printer can be in control and match the product types with a choice of media, post-press operations, product sizes and articles.

The product tree is where the product types are added, deleted, categorized and put in a choice of structure, just by drag and drop.



HP PrintOS Users Can Eliminate Major Delays on Ad-Hoc Jobs, with arifiQ Integration 

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arifiQ today announced that HP PrintOS solutions can now also process ad-hoc jobs automatically using arifiQ technology. This significant move has positive implications for printers and their customers worldwide.

The arifiQ estimating engine instantly and automatically creates quotes, job tickets, gang-runs, cost-optimized impositions and production routes for the full variety of print jobs moving through a workflow – including ad-hoc jobs requiring custom quotes. Now, in the first implementation of the technology in a digital workflow solution, arifiQ makes this capability available to HP PrintOS users, empowering them to take ad-hoc jobs from print customers or the sales team, all the way to the press, without stops.

The arifiQ technology makes it possible for PrintOS Box and PrintOS Site Flow to receive job tickets and, most importantly, print-ready imposed PDFs – without requiring predefined products. Jobs are quoted and imposed, with printer’s marks included, in arifiQ, with preflighting in the HP PrintOS solution.

“This is a breakthrough for the printing industry,” says Eva Rosén, Co-Founder/CMO, arifiQ Development. “arifiQ had already solved the ad-hoc quoting and job-onboarding, and now, with the HP PrintOS integration, we’ve made it possible to push ad-hoc jobs through any prepress and digital workflow, without predefined products,”

HP PrintOS and arifiQ: delivering on the promise of automation

Gershon Alon, HP PrintOS Business Manager: “Many print service providers are struggling with quickly onboarding their ad-hoc jobs into production, and arifiQ technology is addressing this issue. With the new integration ad-hoc jobs can get quoted and automatically submitted into production within minutes, saving time and money, and reducing errors. I’m happy to have arifiQ on board as a new PrintOS partner, and look forward to working together and exploring new applications.”

Hudson Printing, USA, is the first print service provider to try the HP PrintOS and arifiQ integration. CEO Paul Hudson says:” At Hudson Printing, we use PrintOS Site Flow very effectively for web-to-print catalog products. We wanted a way to use the power of Site Flow for our ad-hoc digital print jobs, too. Since we were already familiar with the quick and easy arifiQ estimating platform, I suggested that a Site Flow integration with arifiQ would be very powerful. I’ve just had a look at the solution and found it to be just what I hoped for!”

He continues: “The combination of arifiQ and Site Flow will allow us to move all digital print jobs from estimating through production faster and easier than ever before.”

For more information about arifiQ for HP PrintOS users, visit www.arifiq.com/hp/.

Workflow Automation as Easy as HBO

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Workflow Automation as Easy as HBO
By Helene Smith

It’s a pleasant surprise to learn that something is simpler than you anticipated. Like HBO. I have a vague memory of getting “pay TV” when I was a kid – and remember wondering where my parents would put paper money into the cable (converter) box. When I saw that the programming came through by just changing the channel, and without paying money first, I was excited.

“Frame of reference” is a scientific term, but we use it in our everyday vernacular, as well. When I was 3 or 4, my frame of reference for seeing a “movie” was what I saw at the theater: you paid at the box office, and received a ticket to enter and watch. My frame of reference for watching TV was that you simply turned it on. I didn’t expect instant gratification. In the way I define the term, “frame of reference” is what you know to be the range of possibilities for something; more specifically, it can be what you consider the “standard” or most popular possibility within that range.

If you are reading this, you have a frame of reference for workflow automation. You probably understand, have seen, and/or possess automation that begins after creation and approval; i.e., when the job enters production. There are many companies that offer automation for the production part of the workflow.

What is your frame of reference for everything that happens before that, though? Pat McGrew, the Director and Evangelist of the InfoTrends Production Workflow Service (a service of Keypoint Intelligence), defines the processes of onboarding as follows:

Onboarding is the set of processes that start when a customer places an order and ends when the job is in the production workflow. It includes acquisition of the final job specifications, print files, associated data and resource files, job ticketing, logging the job into the accounting system, establishing proofing requirements, defining delivery requirements, and defining the payment methods.

Yeah, all that.

Viewed as one of the most painful parts of the job, every stakeholder – and especially print service providers – say that this is by far their biggest bottleneck[1]. Getting quotes, customer approval, changes, the right media, permissions, POs, art… it can take hours, days, and even weeks. In fact, it is why arifiQ’s co-founders started the company! Raised in printing, they saw the quote approval process as the biggest detriment to throughput… and profit.

What they did, then, was to invent a product that gets all of onboarding done, and more – no matter how complex or custom the job is – in a few seconds.

An accurate quote based on real-time device and inventory availability. An accurate quote on a complex, custom job. Online estimating.

With its cloud-based application in use at a growing number of sites worldwide, arifiQ knows that people do not grasp the huge benefit of its solution because a few seconds for a custom quote – based on real device and inventory availability, no less – seems impossible.

This is because no one has seen, or done it, before. It’s no one’s frame of reference.

However, there is now a new standard for onboarding turnaround time, and it’s under a minute. It’s time to add this to your frame of reference.

This means your salespeople can give a customer a quote onsite. The salesperson or the customer themselves can look at different – real — quotes while they are reviewing mockups for a campaign, even. From anywhere. They can add devices, change inventory, change the job. And still get a quote in seconds.

The arifiQ application does more.  It can gather all the rest of the information Pat McGrew refers to in her onboarding definition, above; keeping it as XML data in the file itself, and/or accessing and sharing via a connection to an MIS or ERP[2].

There’s more, but I’m afraid to push your limits on a frame of reference like this one.

Fine, I’ll just tell you:

When arifiQ puts the estimate together – in seconds — it considers (and specifies) the most efficient production path, as well. This is called optimizing the workflow – and get this: when you submit the job, arifiQ creates an imposed PDF of the file.

Bottom line, you can now turn quotes around in seconds, starting at $56 per month for one sheetfed press[3].  Get approval in the next breath, and arifiQ can tell your production automation solution – maybe Enfocus Switch, or Agfa Apogee, or another – what the most efficient workflow will be… and those solutions can automate production accordingly.

Pat McGrew and her colleague at Keypoint Intelligence, Ryan McAbee, recently saw a demonstration of the latest version of arifiQ. McGrew says, “The new arifiQ Optimizer is a great option for printers who do a wide variety of work and want to optimize ganging and imposing. Pair it with the arifiQ quoting tools and this is a powerful onboarding and production solution.”

When you grow up and get a job in this industry, that can sound better than getting HBO.

 

[1] (Ref: RIT Study and Zwang/Sherburne article in WTT)
[2] arifiQ offers an MIS module, as well
[3] Pricing is determined by device. $56 is for a 14 x 20, sheetfed offset press, 1-7 colors.