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 Darmstadt, Germany (September 2, 2005) – The International Cooperation for the Integration
of Processes in Prepress, Press, and Postpress (CIP4) today announced that Kraft Druck und
Verlag GmbH of Ettlingen, Germany is the winner of the 2005 CIP4 International Print
Production Innovation (CIPPI) award in the category of "biggest improvement in
efficiency and customer responsiveness as a result of process automation" Kraft
Druck und Verlag’s application was selected as the result of ballots cast by CIP4’s advisory
board. |
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Kraft Druck has been using HIFLEX’s Management Information System (MIS) since 1995. The
system manages all business processes at the full service printing facility: order management
(administrative processing, estimating, costing, invoicing, production planning, and data
collecting), material management, shop floor data collection and eBusiness. Since production
systems from different vendors are used in prepress, press and postpress operations,
multiple entries of job data was inevitable, including the risk of typing errors and
having to deal with inconsistent data. Communication of job information and status also
required several steps and several people, which was both time consuming and costly. |
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| CIP4 Secretariat Stefan Daun presents the 2005 CIPPI award to Werner Kraft, General Manager of Kraft Druck und Verlag. |
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In order to implement seamless cross-vendor communication, Kraft Druck upgraded and replaced
several systems in 2003:
"These upgrades were not coincidental," said Kraft Druck General Manager Werner
Kraft, "but a consequence of our strategic orientation towards networked production.
We aim to provide the greatest possible customer value, optimizing our cost structure and
ensuring the highest possible efficiency in our internal workflow. We realize this by using
the highest degree possible of fully integrated and computer aided production and business
processes ." |
The resulting implementation uses JDF (Job Messaging Format) and JMF (Job Messaging Format)
to create the interconnection between HIFLEX MIS and the Creo Prinergy Workflow System, as
well as between the HIFLEX MIS and the PECOM System for the MAN Roland sheet-fed offset
presses. HIFLEX uses the JDF interface to forward customer details and printing instructions,
so that data only needs to be entered once. The HIFLEX system automatically generates the
complete production sequence, and the job information is then ready to be passed on to the
subsequent Creo and MAN Roland systems. Furthermore, all machines events are reported back
via JMF and flow into the HIFLEX order book, the HIFLEX Production Data Collection and the
HIFLEX Scheduling board. Because of the JDF connectivity in the plant, any person involved
with the job can obtain up-to-the-minute data about the production process, thus enabling
the maximum degree of transparency and flexibility.
"Kraft Druck offers an impressive demonstration of what can be achieved with modern
integration and automation. In addition to proving that JDF integration of administration,
prepress, pressroom and finishing can be effectively implemented, the company has also
managed to improve customer service and add real value", says Ursula Voss-Eiden,
Marketing Manager Germany/Alps, Creo Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of Kodak. "At the
same time, Kraft Druck has succeeded in deriving significant economic benefits by creating
digital connectivity between systems from several Networked Graphic Production partners."
The direct effect of the JDF connectivity project was an increase in productive hours (print
run hours) of +9.6% in the first period (2004 compared to 2003). In prepress alone, Kraft
Druck estimates that they saved 24 man-hours per day in job creation. "We definitely
profit from the link between Creo Prinergy and HIFLEX, said IT Manager Thomas Brickwedde.
"Take, for instance, the automatic tracking of authors’ corrections and material
consumption. Our invoicing has become more precise and much faster, since all chargeable and
non-chargeable processes are automatically entered into the MIS and monthly investigations
on lost plates are no longer necessary." |
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| From left to right Stefan Daun (CIP4 Secretariat), Ursula Voss-Eiden (Creo, a subsidiary of
Kodak), Werner Kraft (Kraft Druck und Verlag GmbH), Eugen Stein (MAN Roland), and Stefan
Reichhart (HIFLEX GmbH). |
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The company was able to eliminate a full-time scheduler’s position and customer approvals
are instantly communicated to the CSR and the planning board; allowing for optimal
production planning. Overall the Return On Investment (ROI) of the JDF implementation at
Kraft Druck is 446% within five years (which means that the investment is paid back 5.46
times). The Net Present Value (NPV) is EUR 579,826 — or US $759,777 — which equals an
Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 168%.
An honorable mention was awarded to Lavigne Inc. of Worcester, Massachusetts. According to
Lavigne’s application, they operated a "print on demand" business, which was
basically a web site that emailed job tickets. It was nothing more than an electronic
means of job submission and the internal workflow was very much similar to a conventional
job. Lavigne used JDF to connect Printable’s PrintOne Customer Center to the Indigo
ProductionFlow digital front-end to automate their process. Since implementation, they
have gone from 25 orders processed per month to over 700 while maintaining an 85% reduction
in print costs and a 92% reduction in customer processing costs.
To learn more, the complete CIPPI award applications can be downloaded from the CIP4 website
at www.cip4.org
and select "Introduction" and then "CIPPI Award". |
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CIP4 brings together vendors, consultants, and end-users in the print communications,
Graphic Arts industry, and associated sectors, covering a variety of equipment, software,
peripherals, and processes. Members participate in focused working groups to define the Job
Definition Format (JDF), PrintTalk, and other standards relevant to process automation; to
study user requirements; to test product interoperability; and to develop a range of JDF
tools. Information on CIP4, including membership details, is available from the organization's
web site: www.cip4.org
. Or contact: Stefan Daun, Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics,
+49 6151 155 575, secretariat@cip4.org. All content and ideas submitted to the CIP4 user
groups and intellectual property rights subsisting therein shall become the exclusive
property of CIP4. |
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The Job Definition Format (JDF) is the industry specification designed to facilitate process
automation and the integration of different applications and systems in and around the
Graphic Arts industry. JDF also enables the integration of business management and job
planning applications into the production workflow. JDF is based on the W3C’s Extensible
Markup Language (XML), ensuring maximum interoperability between different platforms and
ready interaction with Internet systems. More information is available at www.cip4.org.
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