Prepress
EFIs Line-Up of Production Intelligence Solutions on Display at drupa 2008
Friday 06. June 2008 - New Plant Manager "Control Center" Allows Unified View of Facility
EFI (NASDAQ: EFII), the world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, is showcasing a complete shopfloor production intelligence line-up at drupa 2008 to inform print service providers how to reduce costs, waste and equipment downtime (stand C01, Hall 5, through June 11).
EFI Auto-Count and Paper Monitor will take center stage. Auto-Count Direct Machine Interface (DMI) technology collects counts, press status, speed and other critical information automatically, directly from equipment, in real-time. With Auto-Count, print service providers have the information they need to prevent costly mistakes, reduce waste and better manage their entire operation. Auto-Count Paper Monitor manages the most costly raw material, providing yield and production information on each roll. Together, these tools integrate the production environment, providing print service providers the best opportunity to maximize profitability. At drupa EFI will enhance the Auto-Count offering with the introduction of the Auto-Count Plant Manager.
“Auto-Count and Paper Monitor provide sustained performance and rapid payback,” commented Marc Olin, senior vice president/general manager, EFI Advanced Professional Print Systems. “This is true Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) for print. Our Auto-Count clients consistently eliminate the dumping of thousands of signatures, as well as many of the return-to-press incidents, due to mismatched quantities. It’s common to hear reports of a two to three percent overall reduction in paper consumption.”
Now available, Auto-Count Plant Manager is a desktop “control center” for Auto-Count, providing real-time information to support critical business decisions by giving managers a new level of visibility into the production process. This tool consolidates information from all monitored devices into desktop views, status and historical reports.
Plant Manager takes shop floor production intelligence to the next level by enabling this wealth of information to flow into EFI Hagen OA and EFI Prograph as well as non-EFI management solutions. Plant Manager can be translated into almost any language, has an easy to use interface, and includes standard reports plus the ability to create custom reports.
“We’re proud to be the leader in print management solutions worldwide. With that in mind, we know that many print service providers, particularly in Europe and Asia, are very interested in Auto-Count for real-time shop floor data collection and monitoring but use non-EFI MIS systems,” said Bob Howard, product manager, EFI Advanced Professional Print Software. “Now these customers can install Auto-Count and seamlessly integrate their existing MIS system with the Plant Manager ‘dashboard’ to make Auto-Count a powerful business intelligence tool.”
Auto-Count’s management information helps identify and analyze chronic production problems. Visual feedback, alerts, and automated shutdown options work together to hit production targets on single and multi-part jobs. Together, these features increase capacity utilization and dramatically reduce paper consumption with a direct impact on the bottom line.