Workflow
Enhanced efficiency and automation through JDF integration
Thursday 15. January 2009 - Druckhaus Dresden opts for cross-company networking solution from KBA Complete
Druckhaus Dresden recently celebrated the centenary of its founding. Organised as a limited company with employee participation, it currently handles between 25 and 30 jobs a day, for which the 80 employees print between 500,000 and 700,000 sheets on their three Rapida 105 medium-format presses. Following investments in modern printing, prepress and finishing technologies, the focus of attention has now been turned to the optimisation of business and production processes within the company. This is also where KBA Complete offers its consulting services.
For managing directors Christl and Karl Nolle, one trend is becoming increasingly evident in the industry: Ever greater demands are being placed on print providers – more and more jobs must be handled in an ever shorter time and at lower and lower prices. “The market is ruled by cutthroat competition, and the fast producers will gradually crowd out the slower ones!” says Karl Nolle. “For us, that has meant analysing all the relevant company processes together with KBA Complete, and now optimising and automating those processes on the basis of the results. As we use systems and equipment from different manufacturers, it is decisive for us to introduce a fully integrated and allembracing workflow – effectively from a single supplier. That is how we came to choose KBA Complete as integration partner.”
Process automation as the key to success
The essential element of process automation at Druckhaus Dresden is the integration of a management information system (MIS) from Hiflex, as this permits optimum utilisation of the potential inherent to a multi-level, supplier-independent networking solution.
The MIS will offer the company seamless control over process components from the most varied manufacturers, from customer contact, quotations and incoming orders – including data upload and the approval process – via production scheduling, prepress and print, through to finishing and dispatch.
The MIS serves not only as a link between the individual processes, but also as the central control hub for communication in all forms across an integrated overall workflow, for example to marry the CIP3 data (ink profiles) exchanged between prepress and the printshop with the corresponding JDF data, or equally to facilitate effective communication between order management, print buyers and the prepress department.
“It is important not merely to invest in up-to-date technology. What we need is someone able to survey the whole process within the company,” Karl Nolle explains. “Anyone can buy a printing press – but it takes special know-how to organise and optimise the associated processes in a print company!” Lode Vlayen, managing director of KBA Complete adds: “When you have already invested in a modern printing press, there is little scope for further relevant increases in direct productivity. But there are often significant reserves lying dormant in internal practices and the digital workflow – and that, in the end, can prove decisive for the efficiency of the company as a whole.”
Well prepared for the future
Christl and Karl Nolle have a clear vision of where their company is headed in the future. “We want to achieve cost leadership! And with KBA Complete, we have a strong partner who will help us to optimise our processes. We view the integration of the various levels of the company, i.e. production, digital workflow systems, prepress, inventory management, accounting, quality assurance and the controlling management information system, not as a theoretical exercise, but rather as a practical ambition which we can now bring to fruition.”