The squeeze in retail space—on the shelves or on the Web with consumers buying online or in smaller supermarkets—means that shelf space is at a premium more than ever before. Yet, consumers want choice. This makes packaging an excellent differentiator. More than ever, brands are using packaging to push visibility. For stakeholders in the label production supply chain, the challenge is to determine, in real time, how to produce more SKUs under a faster life cycle by taking into account all the regulatory compliance requirements and traditional and digital printing processes.
During Labelexpo Europe 2019, held in Brussels from 24 to 27 September, DALIM SOFTWARE will present the many advantages of its solutions for the production of labels, packaging and marketing materials, on its booth, 8A30. DALIM SOFTWARE technology makes it easy to manage packaging and marketing through a single online platform, while maximizing return on investment.
The DALIM ES solution will be presented, with its ability to simplify the design of a project’s workflow. As Dr. Carol Werlé, CEO of DALIM SOFTWARE, explains, “The goal of DALIM ES is to offer a simple web-based solution. This unique and cutting-edge platform allows brands to finally manage their marketing campaigns from A to Z. It validates the creative and technical production of packaging, while associating all marketing projects by organizing the content within a digital asset manager. We strive to accelerate marketing production cycles, standardizing workflows, and simplifying content communication to improve ROI. And, we have proven that with this productivity, companies can experience an accelerated ROI.”
Products are evolving rapidly in the current development environment, as are their competitors and the technologies on which they are based. Optimizing time-to-market is therefore absolutely essential, since it directly affects revenues. DALIM ES coordinates all internal and external activities, from design to final print, regulatory compliance, localization and versioning, to ensure efficiency.
One of the primary features of DALIM ES is its ability to simultaneously manage labels and packaging, as well as promotional marketing projects. Werlé explains, “Thirty years of experience with thousands of workflows in production at a variety of businesses worldwide has allowed DALIM SOFTWARE to reinvent the workflow management process.
While many solutions for marketing workflows are time-consuming, DALIM ES makes it easy to streamline these workflows to shorten the time to market. With this experience, DALIM SOFTWARE has also created simple default workflows for those who prefer not to start with their own custom-built processes. This has involved companies in many industries—including pharma, food, general packaged goods, design agencies, converters and printers—who are all looking to utilize automation to optimize production, ensure product quality, and accelerate time to market.
DALIM ES has a powerful API to seamlessly integrate and communicate with existing ecosystems, such as corporate PIM, PLM, MIS, ERP, etc. With this, DALIM ES accelerates validation cycles, traceability (accountability of stakeholders) and simplifies collaboration and compliance with a variety of regulations (EU/FDA/21 CFR/INCO). This solution allows users to simultaneously manage all of their campaigns and create packaging as part of the overall marketing mix including, for example, cross-links between packaging and promotional materials.
- Digital asset management (DAM) for content organization: With more and more SKUs, marketing projects need a wide variety of content such as images, videos, 3D, and HTML5 content. DALIM ES has received 10 Core certification, recognized worldwide as an elite status. This validates that a system meets the ten minimum requirements for the characteristics of a complete DAM system. With DALIM ES, brand owners can organize, edit, and repurpose their content as the single source of truth. In addition, they can manage all their regulatory texts, creating new language versions of their packaging, since DALIM SOFTWARE’s custom content management tools support translations within artwork. This also helps get content ready for ecommerce sites, such as product information and images. Companies benefit from a quicker return on investment without complex, custom development.
- Fast and intuitive screen proofing: Traditional proofing methods do not necessarily lend themselves to effective collaboration, due to tight deadlines and the geographic distance of trading partners. Soft proofing therefore becomes the obvious alternative. Whether you want to review and comment on digital content, or to create a color accurate soft proof, DALIM ES helps streamline validation cycles and meet deadlines faster. At Labelexpo, DALIM ES will offer online softproofing technology—even on mobile phones. It’s the fastest and easiest solution to check content, with new bar code detection and new capabilities to inspect each color channel.
- 3D files: To meet 3D requirements in files such as sample labels on cans or bottles, DALIM ES allows users to share 3D files and display, annotate and visually compare differences between two 3D models. This allows packaging services to inspect boxes and other packaging prior to the start of production. It also helps to repurpose computer-generated images, such as marketing communications projects for new products, even before the first prototype is produced. Brands can generate images from 3D files rather than conducting photo shoots.
- Augmented Reality: More and more online and traditional sellers are turning to augmented reality, offering better interaction between the product and the consumer. The DALIM ES connector to the Augment platform allows customers to simulate virtual products in 3D in the real world, through their smartphone’s camera viewer.
- Intelligent packaging reinforces packaging with connectivity elements, readers, smartphone apps, and scalable cloud-based software solutions. DALIM SOFTWARE solutions help digitize businesses via packaging throughout the supply chain—from manufacturing to after-sales service.
- Gantt and Kanban: DALIM ES also has new planning tools that are extremely popular with brand owners. The Gantt charts can be initialized from a workflow to create tasks and set deadlines and durations for them. All can be done through a simple drag and drop interface. Meanwhile, the new Kanban component helps users to see their to-do list, communicate with project members, and make notes or upload tasks.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for project evaluation: An exceptional business intelligence tool, DALIM ES simplifies the preparation and analysis of complex data within the workflow of packaging companies. To identify bottlenecks, users can create indicators to measure a project’s performance and workload. The breakdown of data—the time period and the reasons for rejection, for example—allows the development of continuous improvement initiatives. Indicator data can also be used to evaluate the performance of marketing campaigns.
During Labelexpo, visitors will learn how to access files in DALIM ES and make online changes with CHILI Publisher 5, which integrates seamlessly and seamlessly. This solution offers powerful editing functions and a comprehensive set of tools, which until recently have only been available on dedicated editing applications. System Integrators can choose how to integrate Chili Publisher into their DALIM ES workflows for packaging, brand management, web-to-print, magazine publishing, print promotional materials or other applications.
Visitors to the DALIM SOFTWARE booth will also learn how to streamline content from Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, or Photoshop to the DAM system via the 65-bit Adobe CC connector from Silicon Publishing. One of the greatest challenges to packaging is changes to text, which may be altered many times before printed. The powerful 65bit EasyCatalog plug-in allows DALIM ES users to automatically create and update labels and packaging automatically starting from a predefined template.
Using a template and referring to a content database automatically creates different versions of packaging. This assures accurate quality, especially for regulatory copy or translated text that can change for different regions—or for images, logos and text that can change with brand extensions, such as different flavors or ingredients. The template points the system to the source of information, usually coming from a PLM, a PIM—or even an Excel document. EasyCatalog can even be used for personalized labels.
Dr. Werlé concludes, “DALIM SOFTWARE solutions have proven themselves throughout the supply chain of label and packaging production—from brand owners who want to control the process to designers looking for assistance to create packaging and streamline collaboration with the supply chain. This includes printers and converters looking for workflow and project management tools. We look forward to showing the label community how much DALIM SOFTWARE has made production more efficient and profitable. “
