15,000 HEI lights during Drupa! |
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15,000: This impressive number represents the amount of Prinect demonstrations Heidelberg performed during Drupa. Customers from around the world came to Halls 1 & 2 to see and believe Heidelberg’s print shop workflow.
Prinect is our print shop workflow and integrates the complete range of print shop management and production processes. Prinect optimises, simplifies and automates workflows based on an open data standard - the central JDF document - that contains all the job data. Virtually all Heidelberg presses, platesetters and postpress equipment can be integrated into the Prinect print shop workflow.
The potential for optimisation in workflow was proven by Southern Colour (VIC). At drupa they were, presented with the “CIPPI award” for the best process automation in Asia Pacific during Drupa. The CIPPI award is given every year by the CIP4 organisation and recognises leading printers that have demonstrated uncommon leadership in their pursuit of process automation technology. Southern Colour uses Prinect components in their Prepress and Pressroom.
During Drupa, Heidelberg featured 7 different areas with a specific focus, for example packaging, small and medium format and one-pass productivity. All areas were fully integrated printshops. All production data from all equipment was sent back for analyses and reporting and could be seen by customers while the equipment was in production.
At more than 30 demo workstations across both halls customers saw various new Prinect products and a number of enhanced applications. One of the “HEI Lights” was the new reporting function from the Prinect Pressroom Manager. It provides full transparency of pressroom activity: allowing capacity analysis and comparisons between different presses on the shopfloor and gives a comprehensive overview from single jobs to the entire production. Production data can be accessed live – while the job is running. Capturing information such as how many good sheets were produced for (say) the last 3 months or how much time was spent on make-ready and on wash-up etc. This type of detail was previously close to impossible to catch and report. With the new functionality the data is captured automatically during normal press operation. The same transparency and reporting functionality can also be achieved in finishing with the new Prinect Postpress Manager. This brings the old adage “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it” into focus providing information to assist making decisions regarding new investments and resources. The profitability of jobs and customers can now be analysed from real production data at the click of a button.
How do you schedule your production today? How do you handle job changes? For the majority of printers today this is a manual process which involves meetings, walking from department to department, phone calls and often without knowing where the job bag is. To overcome this challenge Heidelberg has developed the new Prinect Scheduler. The electronic scheduling board lets users plan all production steps while keeping track of production activities in real-time. It supports forward, backwards and priority scheduling and gives alarms if plates, paper or customer approvals are not on schedule. Jobs with same spot colours or same folding sequences can easily be identified and scheduled together to save make-ready time. The Scheduler also provides a capacity overview for each production device to identify bottlenecks faster. Maintenance times, shift durations and public holidays are managed automatically. The production board can be accessed by everyone on the network so they can see what’s happening but security functions ensure the ability to actually change the board remains with one person, which is defined by user login. If a job changes e.g. to use different stock, the Prinect Scheduler will adjust the length of production automatically if the speed on press and in the stitcher has to be reduced.
On the CtP side Heidelberg has extended the Suprasetter family by the VLF format in line with its entry into VLF presses. The VLF Suprasetter range images a maximum plate format of 1425 x 1915 mm with up to 25 plates per hour. The plate throughput for the smaller Suprasetters 74 and 105 is now increased to up to 38 plates per hour, along with a new and more powerful laser module to increase the throughput of “green” plates.
The Suprasetter range has a great uptake and is well established in the market. During Drupa, Heidelberg’s CEO Bernhard Schreier handed over the 2000th Suprasetter to John Della from Pageset. The order includes a Multi Cassette Loader for up to 600 plates and the Prinect Prepress Manager for an automated prepress workflow. The Suprasetter replaces the first of nine Trendsetter units currently being used by Pageset across Australia and receiving the 2000th unit was a great tribute to Pageset’s success and loyalty to Heidelberg CtP over the years.
While JDF and Integrated workflow have been the catch cries of past drupa’s, this drupa in our opinion was different. Heidelberg showed a fully integrated Prinect workflow, that is already working in the field and that’s deliverable today. The demonstrations showed live production data and customers responded by looking beyond the novelty and focussing on how they could benefit from investing in an integrated Prinect workflow, specified and scaled for today’s needs with room to grow.
Further Information:
Soeren Lange
Product Manager – Prepress & Workflow
Tel. +61 3 9263 3386
Email: Soeren.Lange@heidelberg.com
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We're bringing drupa to you
If you will not travel to Dusseldorf in May this year, we will present Heidelberg's innovations and HEI Lights during July. HAN invite you attend our post drupa information sessions in a city near you!
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