Automated and integrated workflow software is said to be behind a soaring publishing efficiency at publication printer Corelio Printing in Belgium.

The company says 85 per cent of production is running 'hands free', and overall labour savings of ten per cent have been achieved.

Staff and customers benefit from the streamlined workflow integration which allows staff to focus primarily on customer care instead of administrative or low-level production management tasks. Centrepiece is EFI's Technique software, which schedules jobs, connecting business management, prepress and production processes with virtually no intervention across several plants running a variety of printing technologies.

Corelio chief executive Jan Lynen says an influx of smaller publication runs in 30,000-50,000 quantity range created the need for faster turnaround: "We produce from 12,000 to 20,000 plates per month, but our customers' PDF files now go straight to the platesetter with no staff involved.

"If a change comes in on a job, the software recalculates how many new plates have to be made and reassigns them to an available platesetter."

The implementation is estimated to have yielded a ten per cent saving in labour, and "customers love not having strict deadlines". Files can be uploaded at their convenience 24 hours a day, with a help desk dealing with unusual orders.

Under its original ownership, Corelio Media printed the first issue of De Standaard, Belgium's largest-circulation newspaper in 1918. Its current portfolio also includes commercial printing, digital publishing and broadcast media as well as newspapers. Much of its growth has come from mergers and acquisitions from which it inherited additional printing facilities. In 2009, a reorganisation split the company's printing into Coldset Printing Partners for newspaper production and Corelio Printing for commercial applications including magazines.

The new workflow is a result of cooperation between EFI for MIS and prepress supplier Agfa Graphics. Next step will be to give customers direct login access.