Offset Printing
pixartprinting like the London Philharmonic. URAGANO directs the orchestra!
Monday 28. February 2011 - pixartprinting keeps its promise for another amazing introduction in 2011, completing the actual implementation of Uragano, the brand new software whose name already conjures up a true "revolution" in traditional work methods.
“Our objective is to perfectly harmonise all the individual phases of the process, ensuring an automated, fast and efficient flow and minimising the margin for error. Uragano, metaphorically speaking, is for us the new director with the job of getting the company to play as if it were the London Philharmonic Orchestra” – comments Matteo Rigamonti, pixartprinting CEO. For this reason, yet again, pixartprinting has decided to invest in “tailor-made” software to flank the management software finalised last year, further optimising production. Designed entirely by the engineering team, Uragano is able to combine orders according to five variables: length of run, type of paper and weight, format and delivery times. Automatic management of all preprint phases saves time, minimises start-ups, avoids material wastage in processing and reduces production costs: an advantage which pixartprinting will provide to its European customers, offering truly unbeatable prices, already part of an aggressive advertising campaign dedicated to offset printers at the start of the year.
The idea for Uragano initially arose from the need to organise the offset department, set up last year with the installation of two Komori systems, using order management procedures which were certainly innovative compared to those traditionally used by the operators. In pixartprinting, digital and offset coexist and the two technologies are considered to be absolutely complementary. The proprietary management software automatically dispatches jobs to one technology rather than the other according to a series of considerations such as the general workload, page layout optimisation and timing requested by the customer. This system is now flanked by the new Uragano software which revolutionises even further the rules of the game, bringing break-even between offset and digital to 200/250, with extremely competitive costs per copy. This is possible since the software combines orders by type of support and customer selected delivery times, grouping orders for maximum optimisation without the need for operator intervention. “Before, this job was managed manually with much longer lead times and greater margins of error. Uragano is a further demonstration of our idea of a completely automated company with the objective of maximum efficiency” – adds Rigamonti.
Operational since January 2011, Uragano is providing exciting results. Initially designed to better exploit the potential of offset systems, Uragano was subsequently improved to automatically manage all orders, both large and small formats, offset and digital. In large formats, for example, it can significantly simplify the preprint process, especially in managing rigid 3×2 sheets. Grouping orders and combining them by type and delivery time can lead to parallel processing of jobs and drastic reduction in wastage of up to 15%. Maximum productivity also in small formats, grouping orders according to the type of paper and weight chosen by the customer.
Uragano, able to work in three modes – fast, normal and accurate – according to the number of jobs to be sent into production, today also contributes to speeding up the management of finishing processes. In particular, in small formats, both offset and digital, good results have been obtained in folding and cutting. This function is currently “work in progress”: the aim is to improve it to obtain total automation in finishing, firstly only for small formats but ultimately for large formats as well.
Pixartprinting, founded in 1994 by Matteo Rigamonti, is specialised in the online supply of small-sized (magazines, catalogues, postcards, stickers, labels, brochures, etc.) and large-sized (high resolution reproductions, posters, billboards, banners, displays, etc.) print services, packaging and much more. Pixartprinting now has 65,000 customers throughout Europe and receives an average of two thousand orders per day filled by a last generation machine pool that is peerless in Europe.