Druckhaus Becker trusts in integrated Prinect Workflow
"The digital integration of management, prepress, press and postpress brings us a marked reduction in fixed cost processes", said Reiner Kief, commenting on the successful implementation of Prinect at the Druckhaus Becker, a printing plant in Ober-Ramstadt near Darmstadt. Kief, a trained computer scientist, has been responsible for software development at Becker since 1995 and played a leading role in the installation of Prinect.
No more note-writing
Now, all areas of operation in the Druckhaus Becker are connected with one another. Reiner Kief: "Before, every area was like an island, the printers were here, the folders there, the preparation people somewhere else and colleagues from the office were somewhere else again." Now, data runs from station to station without disruption. Production manager Thomas Groth also feels that the advantages of the complete cross-linkage of printing-, folding- and cutting machines prevail: There is no longer any need to write notes or to repeatedly enter the same information. According to Groth, "With Prinect, the optimization of the entire value creation chain, not just of individual departments, is of central importance". He is sure that there is still an enormous potential for rationalization here, which is just waiting to be realized. Druckhaus Becker has, after all, invested around six million Euro in this area in the last twelve months.
The advantage of time-saving
The great advantage of the Prinect Workflow is time-saving, according to Rüdiger Zang, manager of the prepress division at Druckhaus Becker. "Nowadays, who can still afford to collect information that was already available in the prepress stage again, at a later stage in the process?" Zang, who trained as a printing plate producer, as well as in management, feels that these time-saving advantages are to be enjoyed above all further back in the production process. "The necessary data has to be entered in the pre-press stage, where it takes somewhat more effort", he says. This also includes, for example, the entry of the folding and cutting patterns for every job. "But the prepress workers are not as knowledgeable in this area as the specialist department, and in the beginning, it is often necessary to seek advice from that relevant department." However, the additional effort put in at the beginning is clearly compensated during later stages of processing.
Accurate and short set-up times thanks to Prinect
The CIP3 Data or PPF-Data which comes from the Prepress area is used to preset machines with the help of the Prinect Prepress Interface. Within the framework of the Prinect Workflow, folders are controlled using the software component CompuFold (which belongs to the
Prinect FCS 100 (Finishing Communication System 100)
) and cutters are controlled via
Compucut
. The saddle stitcher
Compustitch
is digitally integrated using the Compustitch. Thanks to Prinect, the CIP/PPF Data can be transferred directly from the Prepress area to the
Prinect Signa Station
. This leads to a massive reduction in set-up times, especially due to the fact that transfers are error-free. In complicated jobs, set-up times can thereby be reduced from 20 minutes to just one minute.
The introduction of Prinect at Druckhaus Becker has proved to be a complete success. Thus, integration expert Reiner Kief's motto for any future modernization necessary in the company, in all areas, is " One-stop provision of both machines and the appropriate Software."
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