Background
When Hollywood Agency “The Refinery” decided it was time to upgrade their poster printing system, they turned to Spectraflow for help. They were able to replace two Epson SureColor P9000 printers with a single SureColor P9570, thanks to the speed improvements on the newer model. They also chose the BlackMagic RIP by Serendipity Software to drive their printer, in part because it is one of the few RIP options that runs natively on the MacOS.
Epson Cloud Port Software
One benefit of the P9570 that has proven to be an unexpected and a critical advantage is the Epson Cloud Solution Port Software. Cloud Solution Port is browser-based printer monitoring and cost accounting software. The Cloud Solution Port’s Dashboard is particularly useful if you manage a fleet of printers and want to monitor which printers are being most heavily used (for load balancing) or which are up and ready for production vs those that have an error.
But since The Refinery operates just one printer, they found Cloud Solution Port’s Cost Accounting feature most valuable. Cloud Solution Port lets users enter the cost per roll of media and ink cartridges to calculate supply cost per print. The Refinery added extra factors – like operator salary, operator time for each print, printer and RIP upfront cost and maintenance annualized over a year, packaging, etc. – to determine a true cost per print. These costs can then be assigned to specific clients for accurate billing.
Other Features / Limitations
Another nice feature of Cloud Solution Port is it is not necessary to tell the software which paper is being used. Once the paper type is entered into the printer’s control panel, it is automatically communicated to Cloud Solution Port.
There was one limitation noted by The Refinery – Cloud Solution Port must run on a Windows machine to establish connection between the printer and the Epson Cloud Solution Port site. They were able to overcome this limitation by creating a Windows instance with VMWare on the same Mac computer hosting the Serendipity RIP software. It runs quietly in the background and needs almost no monitoring.
Summary
“Epson’s Cloud Solution Port has been a game changer for us at the Refinery,” says Danny Verde, Product Specialist. “Before, we had to maintain a variety of spreadsheets requiring frequent manual inputs to do our cost accounting. Now it is almost completely automated. A huge time saver. The ICC profiling and other support we get from Spectraflow has also helped us ensure our clients consistently receive the high quality posters they have come to expect from The Refinery.”
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For more information, call us at 415-382-8681 or contact us on our website.
