Collaborating with a Repro House offers numerous advantages for Brand Owners in the prepress phase, which is the stage before packaging printing.
By leveraging the specialised skills of a Repro House, Brand Owners streamline their packaging production processes, ensure superior print quality for their packaging, and reduce their time-to-market.
Understanding the Role of the Repro House
A Repro House is a service provider specialising in prepress packaging. They play a crucial role in preparing files for packaging printing with the following objectives:
- Achieving the highest possible print quality
- Meeting Marketing and Regulatory Affairs' expectations
- Ensuring uniformity regardless of the number of printers involved in the project, the different printing substrates (plastic, paper, metal, etc.), and the various printing processes (flexography, gravure, digital, offset, etc.) used.
In summary, the key aspects of reprography for Brand Owners are: Quality, Uniformity, and Compliancy of packaging. This makes Repro Houses an invaluable asset for Packaging Managers.
A Cost-Effective Production Process
One of the main benefits of incorporating a Repro House into the packaging process is the cost-effectiveness it brings to production. The Repro House possesses specific expertise and high-end software capable of adapting artworks for optimised print quality.
The Repro House identifies potential graphic inconsistencies before printing, reducing the risk of costly reprints or market launch delays. By integrating a Repro House into their packaging process, Brand Owners can streamline their packaging processes and reduce their time-to-market, thereby increasing profitability.
Packaging Print Expert
The Repro House works closely with printers. It understands the printing parameters of each printer and produces custom files to ensure optimal print quality. With in-depth knowledge of printing processes, colour management, and regulatory compliance standards for packaging, the Repro House ensures that packaging is compliant, uniform, and visually appealing.
Relying on a Repro House allows Brand Owners to benefit from their expertise and experience in packaging printing, thus optimising the entire packaging production process.
Expertise in Colour Management
Colour management and quality control are critical aspects of the printing and packaging industry. The Repro House masters colorimetry (accurate colour reproduction) and colour consistency throughout the printing process.
This expertise becomes especially valuable for Brand Owners when they submit the same printing project to multiple printers. It is not uncommon to observe colour discrepancies at the end of the process. Such situations are detrimental for Brand Owners because, for consumers, this alters their perception of the brand and the quality of the products.
Inconsistent print quality is a major concern for Packaging Managers.
Expertise in Regulatory Compliance of Packaging
The Repro House performs rigorous quality checks at every stage of file adaptation to identify any issues or deviations from current standards. Prepress operators adapt visuals while adhering to regulatory constraints such as minimum font sizes to ensure the readability of ingredients, marketing claims, etc.
Streamlined Workflow and Effective Project Management
Brand Owners also appreciate that their projects are centralised and managed professionally. The Repro House provides a clear schedule, communicates on project progress, and promptly handles any design errors or change requests. This saves Brand Owners time and resources.
In the end, packaging project management becomes smoother and faster. Some Repro Houses go even further by offering software solutions like Millnet to digitise workflow management and facilitate packaging artwork approval for Brand Owners. By using these collaborative platforms, marketing teams approve packaging artworks online, increase compliance rates, and reduce time-to-market.
Next step
Miller Graphics is a multi-process Repro House specialising in packaging printing on all substrates (cardboard, paper, plastic, metal, glass, etc.). Discuss your project with one of our prepress experts: https://www.millergraphics.com/contact/
