As one of the first online print shops in Europe, Onlineprinters has proved its high quality standards also in postpress during PSO certification, allowing the online print provider to carry the Ugra label for certified product quality according to ProzessStandard Offsetdruck (PSO) including postpress. This was confirmed by lead auditor Armin Schörghofer of Ugra, the Swiss Center of Competence for Print and Media Technology, following thorough inspection. All certification requirements were fully met without any complaints or improvement recommendations.

Postpress certified for the first time

In addition to offset print quality, this year's audit also focused on postpress operations for the first time, scrutinising individual postpress steps from folding, cutting, punching and stitching to the final product ready for shipping. The quality expert also examined the work of the employees directly in the production halls. "For example, I look at how diligently the employees prepare the individual work steps," says Armin Schörghofer, who showed himself impressed by the smart solutions for individual process steps. Dr Michael Fries, CEO of Onlineprinters, comments: "Online printing is a relatively young industry. We produce customised products on an industrial scale – this only works with efficient processes and high standards. Having our roots in a conventional print shop, we understand the needs of other printing companies and resellers who are our customers. Quality and process stability are priorities for them, of course in finishing, too."

Standardisation from the very beginning

Thomas M. Schnitzler, co-auditor and external quality specialist, has assisted the company in complying with uniform manufacturing process standards since 2006. "Onlineprinters has addressed standardisation issues from very early on. This is paying off today," says Thomas M. Schnitzler; together with members from the company, he prepared the audit of the postpress operations based on current Viscom guidelines for print media processing and ISO 16762.
The PSO print audit covered all processes from data acquisition to proof printing, CtP printing plate creation and the final print result. Again, the special focus was on the print quality in order to continue to be able to deliver customers reproducible colour quality, e.g. when reordering the same product.