Since its founding in 1896, Sando Sanyo Printing Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Sapporo, Hokkaido; President: Takayuki Matsuoka) has upheld a spirit of heartfelt craftsmanship, responding sincerely to customer needs while continuing to evolve its print-centered products and services for over 128 years.
“We are committed to fostering a workplace where every employee can make sound decisions and act proactively through compliance training, information management, and environmental initiatives,” explains Masanori Yoshida, Executive Officer and Head of Production. “Driven by the trust of society and a sense of pride in our workplace, we strive as one company to offer services that exceed expectations, create new value, and refine the human capabilities behind it all.”
With a clear vision of the future, Sando Sanyo Printing is undertaking company-wide efforts to automate its operations—from order intake and production to logistics and delivery. Automation of the cutting process, in particular, has brought significant benefits including improved productivity, consistent quality, cost reductions, enhanced safety, and solutions to labor shortages.
To maximize the impact of the POLAR fully automated cutting system N 137 PACE, the company transitioned from a legacy workflow system to Heidelberg’s Prinect Workflow. The integration between Prinect and PACE has since delivered tangible results.
The previously used workflow system was fragmented across different stages of production, making it difficult to share data smoothly between departments. This hindered the company’s goals for greater efficiency, transparency, and time savings.
“We decided to switch to Prinect as we envisioned a future where the entire process from prepress to shipping could be handled by a single platform,” recalls Mr. Yoshida.
Kimi Suenaga, Manager of the Prepress Department, adds, “Prinect is a vital tool for automation and significantly reduces the workload for production management.” Although creating custom manuals for staff was a challenge during the rollout, her team’s dedication has paid off.
Thanks to the smooth transition and Prinect’s automatic imposition capabilities, the number of jobs processed in a particular month jumped to five times that of two months prior.
To reduce physical strain on workers and improve cutting efficiency, Mr. Yoshida focused on the heavy labor involved in the cutting process. “Paper is extremely heavy, and after eight hours of labor, output slows dramatically in the afternoon. For large orders, this led to inevitable overtime. But overtime with depleted energy only led to inefficiency and a negative cycle.”
He notes a remarkable 50% reduction in overtime hours following the PACE implementation: “We’re seeing more smiles during our operators' evening farewells.”
He adds, “The PACE system is so finely tuned to human movement, it almost feels like it’s programmed with the motions of a trained operator. It supports the operator at just the right moment—like a robot that’s studied human behavior.”
In the pressroom, the company has also achieved high marks for its color management initiatives.
“With Prinect Color Toolbox, we generate color charts, print and measure them, and automatically create calibration curves. This has greatly stabilized our print quality,” says Suenaga.
Traditionally, operators programmed cutting dimensions manually into machines using actual paper samples. Now, the process is automated through Compucut software installed in the cutting machine.
Prinect can send imposition data (PPF or JDF) to the cutting system, allowing Compucut to generate the cutting program required for PACE. This reduces setup time and enables even non-expert staff to perform cutting tasks, minimizing operator input errors and eliminating the stress typically associated with high-precision cutting work. This seamless integration between Prinect and PACE has streamlined operations significantly.
Mr. Yoshida emphasizes the need for full automation in postpress. “In a future of declining labor availability and increased risk, machines should handle what they can, while people focus on tasks only humans can do.”
He shares his vision: “I often imagine a future where AGVs (automated guided vehicles) transport products to the next process, and robots are attached to each machine, performing operations. The PACE cutting system is our first step toward that vision, and I believe Prinect will serve as the command center for all robotic operations in the future.”
