Agfa Canada Partners with Innovative Displays to take its Web-to-Print Portal to a New Level of Efficiency

Asanti Storefront, Agfa’s (Booth C8130) cloud-based e-commerce solution enables Innovative Displays to achieve “Right Time Printing” while significantly improving its internal processes.

For almost 10 years, Agfa Canada has partnered with Innovative Displays of Mississauga, Ontario, establishing an ongoing level of trust and guidance. This partnership became even more important during the COVID pandemic when many of Innovative Displays’ clients were forced to work from home. Receiving print orders via the Internet — and making the entire process seamless and simple for the user — became absolutely essential. That’s where Agfa’s Asanti Storefront Web-to-print functionality came to the rescue.

“When looking at the Asanti System, we were laser-focused on some key areas that helped us move in the direction of ease of use and simplicity. This included reducing human touch points within the system, measuring how efficiently orders went into production, and determining how these overall steps developed into process plans throughout our facility to deliver what we call Right Time Printing,” says Jason Hamilton, chief innovation officer at Innovation Displays.

“Ultimately, we wanted an e-commerce system that not only provided simplicity on the process of managing print for our customers, but we also needed to make sure that the system provided improved efficiency on how we managed our business internally,” he says. “Asanti provided both. Any use of a website ordering portal within our business must also provide to us a strategic advantage in managing and improving our operational costs — and our bottom line.”

The easiest way to achieve this goal was the integration of Asanti into its in-shop workflows to drive their core wide-format inkjet printing systems such as the Jeti Tauro H3300 LED and the Jeti Mira flatbed presses from Agfa. Being able to push job files directly from Asanti Storefront into the Asanti workflow system for pre-flighting, and then to production assignment (i.e. determining the most efficient press to use for any specific job) saved the company — and its customers — valuable time.

“If we build our Web-to-print portals correctly, anyone from anywhere in the world should be able to order through our web portal,” Hamilton says. “Our 24/7 approach is to provide the least amount of  ‘clicks’ to determine what our clients want, choose the quantities they want, and know exactly when the final product arrives in the customer’s hands. Automation is the key. This new form of uptime and automation for the 24/7 space has allowed us to measure our reach without limitations, and to expand our offerings well beyond print. Unfortunately, and fortunately, the pandemic allowed us to push the envelope of what the portal could sell and provide as a service. For example, the evolution of our Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) business through our Asanti Storefront e-commerce portal helped to expand our business — and for sure it helped us offset the slowdown in print sales that most of us in this industry experienced during the pandemic.”

Web-to-print continues to grow world-wide. Hamilton sees it as a “bridge strategy” to current and new revenue streams. “Our success will always be measured by our partnership and reliance on Agfa Canada, and the development of their powerful Asanti e-commerce portal system,” he says.