Advantage Printing Case Stady

Overview

Founded in 1960 as a book-printing shop, Druckerei Bauer in Pfedelbach near Heilbronn, Germany, began offset printing in 1967. In 1970, however, the print shop changed its focus to specializing in packaging and converting. Within the next several years, the company thrived in the market and when in 1990 Eberhard Bauer, the son of the founder Willi Bauer, took over from his father, the company was already considered a specialist in the production of folding cartons. In 2002, after the implementation of CAD-technology in 1997 and CtP in 2000, the company turned to digital printing, working with a NexPress 2100. Today, Druckerei Bauer has two Speedmaster CDs (102 FLX and 102 FLXH), two Bobst punching machines, two Pasters (Diana from Jagenberg) and the new NexPress 2100. The NexPress working together with iWay Prime, has set new standards, providing fast Print-On-Demand production for the Druckerei Bauer customers. 50 employees work at the print shop; only three employees run the digital printing department while four employees run the prepress department. In 2002, the company had a turnover of eight million euros; for 2003, Eberhard Bauer expects this figure to rise to 8.25 million euros. The implementation of iWay Prime at the Druckerei Bauer, together with the NexPress, began when one of the customers, the Wrth Group, an international business that comprises 287 companies, wanted to dissolve their label storage facilities. “We had to change the printing workflow. Up until then, we would receive faxed orders for labels, print them on our offset presses and then send them to the storage facilities”, explains Udo Gilgert, head of the digital print department at Druckerei Bauer. “What we really needed was a fully digital workflow, with fast responding times and nearly immediate Print-On- Demand service, which would send the labels directly to the production line at Wrth”. “We found the solution that we were looking for in iWay Prime”, adds Udo Gilgert. Each day, up to 1,200 labels bearing different layouts are ordered by the Wrth Group and the print shop has to quickly react to the demand, as all the labels are needed the very next morning. A full PDF workflow between the customer and the print shop has been established with a fast data connection line. “iWayis a reliable tool and runs absolutely without a fault. In order to connect iWay to the SAP systems used by Wrth, the Edifact interface was written by Prinect Systemhaus, a company belonging to the Heidelberg group. Our desire to have most of the work carried out and managed automatically has been totally fulfilled by the implementation of iWay”, says Udo Gilgert. “Our customer can now order runs of any number, from one to an unlimited amount, for any of their labels. We can receive the orders as late as 18.00 pm on each working day, print them overnight and deliver them for 6.00 am the next day as they are needed at our customers site. iWay has never let us down. We work in two shifts with the system and the Nexpress. Altogether, the implementation of iWay with the NexPress has brought us time savings of about one to one and a half shifts per week, i.e. about ten hours a week within the printing area. Work such as film handling, plate copying, make ready times etc at the offset print have been eliminated by the digital process”, adds Eberhard Bauer, General manager of Druckerei Bauer. Both managers praise the ease of use of iWay: “It is really user-friendly for the operators. Our in-house operators did not have any experience with IT-systems beforehand, but they really caught on within a short time”, explains Udo Gilgert. “Additionally, we have savings of about 1.5 days within the administrative area.” For the future, Udo Gilgert is already thinking about using iWay for the enhancement of the digital production of manuals and technical documentations.

Case Study: Würth

About the Würth Group

The Würth Group is the life’s work of Professor Reinhold Würth and is one of the outstanding business success stories of post-war German. Reinhold Würth turned the two-man operation he inherited from his father in 1954 into a global group comprising 287 companies in 80 countries. The core business of the Würth Group is the global sale of fixing and assembly materials through an international network consisting of 120 of the 287 Group companies. A range of over 48,000 products for industry and the trades makes them a competent supplier of solutions for every kind of fastening problem. The company is the ideal one-stop address for screws, screw accessories, dowels and plugs, chemical products, furniture and construction fittings, tools, and stock keeping and picking systems.

The extensive sales network of the 100 branch offices in Germany alone and over 22,000 sales representatives worldwide guarantees their customers competent advice and prompt delivery. To provide the various customers with the right contact person, the field sales force is structured according to segments automotive trade, wood and metalworking trade, construction and industry. The activities of the 167 Allied Companies cover products and markets in business segments closely related to the Würth Line operations.

Situation before the implementation of Press-sense iWay

Every label the global company needed had to be ordered, via the fax, from the Druckerei Bauer. After the film creation and the plate copying process, the self-adhesive labels were printed on an offset press, and then cut and delivered to the Würth storage facility. The minimum order value was set at 600 copies. In this way, the production cycle, from ordering to delivery, took an average of ten days.

Situation after the implementation of Press-sense iWay

Since the implementation of iWay Prime, all labels are ordered digitally, via the SAP system at Würth; the Würth employees only have to fill out a digital order form in their SAP system. The Edifact interface converts the data and Press-sense iWay polls the system every 15 minutes, for new orders from Würth. The orders are transferred via a data connection, then decompressed and submitted to Press-sense iWay. The system accesses the template in PDF-format and the order appears on the printer side of Press-sense iWay. The operator at Druckerei Bauer carries out the impositioning via Press-sense iWay and the Job can be immediately transferred to the NexPress output device, printed and finished. An archive folder receives a record of the orders carried out via data connection from Würth as well as documentation of the movements of the files. The billing of the customer is carried out according to the collected data, which are taken and printed out once a week from the iWay Server.

Any amount of each label can be ordered now. Currently, approximately 100 new labels are added to the template folder of the Press-sense iWay Server each week. The customer can place an order as late as 18.00 pm in the evening of each day; the delivery of the order is carried out by 6.00 am the next morning.

Customer Advantages

 Direct digital ordering process, thus eliminating the need for proofs, film and plate creation
 Elimination of a minimum amount of ordered labels –labels are ordered as they are needed (Print-On-Demand)
Complete Print-On-Demand production cycle that eliminates the need for warehousing/storage facilities for labels
Shorter production cycle; the time frame has been reduced from 10 days to 12 hours
Less manual work is required; the whole process of delivering the order, the data, etc. is carried out automatically thereby saving the print shop about 10 hours a week in printing time and approximately 1 to 1.5 shifts
Collective billing once a week, recorded and generated by the Press-sense iWay server, saves administrative work; time savings are about 1 to 1.5 days per week (down from a half a day daily, to one day a week)
Timesavings on the customer side as all the data for the labels are already within the Press-sense iWay system; the only task the customer has to do is to fill out a digital ordering form
All labels are definitely as the customers wants them. The PDF-files within Press-sense iWay are master files for further production. This results in a high production security
High print customer satisfaction by shortening and simplifying the generation process of the print files
Reduction of the risk of stocks and supplies being out of date
Easy and simple ordering process and disposition resulting in highly reduced administrative tasks at the customer side as well as at the print shop