Modern Litho

Modern Litho is a printer that has always lived up to its name, continually investing in state-of-the-art technologies to deliver world-class printing to a growing customer base across the U.S. Their long-term Kodak partnership has been critical in this quest, bringing automation, remote access, and other benefits that help them work faster and smarter.

Modern Litho leadership has always understood that to stay ahead, they must know where they lose money and where they make it—and where they need to invest it. A dedicated team seeks out technology solutions that help keep the company innovative, quality-focused, and productive. In Kodak they've found a long-term partner to help them make smart choices as the industry evolves. Modern Litho was an early adopter of KODAK PRINERGY Workflow Software, bringing labor-saving automation to their offset and digital production and integrating smoothly with their MIS/ERP system and with KODAK INSITE Prepress Portal for customer self-service. However, they recognized that their hub-and-spoke arrangement of local servers across multiple facilities risked widespread production outages if the single hub went down. Moreover, pandemic supply disruptions plus evolving customer expectations proved they needed better remote access, increased customer self-service, and even more efficiency, flexibility, and integration across their entire workflow.

A long-time Kodak shop, Modern Litho relies on essential equipment such as KODAK MAGNUS Q800 Platesetters for offset work, running KODAK SONORA XTRA Process Free Plates for robust, high-quality imaging with the sustainability perks of eliminating plate processing. But what's most helped Modern Litho advance has been partnering with Kodak on software and tech solutions. With PRINERGY Workflow's automation and tools, they've been able to serve more customers and scale their business from regional to national. So when Kodak reached out about transitioning to the cloud-based KODAK PRINERGY On Demand Platform, Modern Litho was intrigued by the chance to give up maintenance of local physical servers and gain greater remote access to jobs and other data. Concerns about security, control, and speed were quickly alleviated when they saw the cloud solution in action, hosted securely on Microsoft Azure, and offering more storage options, fast file transfers, and tight integration with their existing ERP. Soon Modern Litho was aiming even higher: They wanted an end-to-end solution that integrated all aspects of their workflow—not just prepress and print production, but also communications, CRM, and back-office activity. This ambitious goal was met when in late 2021 they became the first customer of the latest PRINERGY offering: KODAK PRINERGY On Demand Business Solutions, a custom solution of print-specific software that integrates seamlessly with any other applications a business uses, all managed by Kodak.

Follow Modern Litho's ongoing implementation journey toward end-to-end workflow

PRINERGY Workflow's Rules-Based Automation (RBA), which Modern Litho now uses for ripping, trapping, imposition, and customer self-service, is reliable and hands-off—letting them reallocate team members to tasks that require human intervention. As a result, today they have the same staff headcount as 15 years ago, doing 10 times the work. The switch to cloud services has had no impact on production speed, with file transfers to platesetters taking the same four minutes as from the old physical servers. And the investment in faster internet service is more than balanced out by eliminating the expenses of physical server infrastructure. The cloud solution also paid off by enabling many employees to work remotely during the pandemic. Soon, Modern Litho will be realizing the efficiency and productivity benefits of their comprehensive PRINERGY On Demand Business Solutions system.