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For five years now, the CIP4 Organisation has been presenting annual innovation awards (CIPPI Awards) to companies in the international graphic arts industry to honour innovative solutions in the fields of networking and process automation. With two first prizes and one second prize, HIFLEX users were once more prominent among those chosen to receive the coveted trophies.
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Presentation of Best Process Automation Implementation for North America to Ampersand Printing: From left to right: James Harvey (CIP4), Mark Wilton (Wilton & Partners) Ray Cassino (Heidelberg) and Thomas Reichhart (HIFLEX)
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Three HIFLEX customers submitted entries in the various categories for this year's innovation awards. German printers C. Maurer and the Canadian company Ampersand convinced the judges and took first place in their respective categories. Thailand's largest print company Sirivatana was rewarded with a second place.
"The renewed successes in the CIPPI Awards are proof of how enormously successful and efficient HIFLEX users are with the implemented workflow solutions," says Thomas Reichhart, managing director of HIFLEX GmbH. "Our prime objectives are customer benefit and customer satisfaction. That is one more reason for our working together so closely with the leading print industry manufacturers in the field of JDF networking. Our customers profit from our innovation-driven approach, and are thereby ideally prepared to handle all future demands."
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C. Maurer, Geislingen (Germany)
"Biggest improvement in efficiency and customer responsiveness as a result of process automation"
(Winner)
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German printers C. Maurer earned first place in the category "Biggest improvement in efficiency and customer responsiveness as a result of process automation". The jury decision was clinched with a JDF workflow implemented together with media service provider Star Publishing, who is in turn responsible for the realisation of all printed products for a premium automobile manufacturer. C. Maurer prints the vehicle owner manuals. As the completed vehicles still cannot be delivered to the final customer without an owner manual, C. Maurer plays an important role in the manufacturer's supply chain management.
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The workflow system "Sprint" used by Star Publishing receives the print data from the automobile manufacturer and communicates them to C. Maurer via JDF, together with all relevant order parameters. C. Maurer imports the data into the HIFLEX MIS, for transfer to the Heidelberg pre-press systems for processing. In this way, it is ensured that all data are passed flawlessly along the entire chain from manufacturer via Star Publishing to the print department at C. Maurer.
"The automobile branch is generally considered to be the industry with the highest levels of implemented process optimisation," explains Carl Otto Maurer, managing director of the company which bears his name. "With the aid of the JDF standard, we have managed to achieve integration into those highly automated processes and have become an important element in supply chain management." |
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Presentation of the 1st Place CIPPI Award in the category
"Biggest improvement in quality production &
customer responsiveness as a result of process automation "
at C. Maurer, Printing and Publishing.
From right: Mr. Stefan Daun (CIP4),
Carl-Otto Maurer (C. Maurer Druck und Verlag),
Philip Glasbrenner (Star Publishing),
Ramona Kaden (Star Publishing),
Andreas Kurz (Star Publishing) and
Thomas Reichhart (Hiflex) |
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Ampersand Printing, Guelph/Ontario (Canada)"Best process automation implementation – North America" (Winner)
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The Canadian print company Ampersand Printing is one of its region\'s leading print providers, and has now also collected a CIP4 Innovation Award in the category "Best process automation implementation – North America" for its HIFLEX project.
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Presentation of Best Process Automation Implementation for North America to Ampersand Printing: From left to right:
James Harvey (CIP4),
Jerzy Socha (HIFLEX),
Thomas Reichhart (HIFLEX),
Damian McDonald (Ampersand Printing),
Michael McDonald (Ampersand Printing),
Randy Neelin (HIFLEX),
Gary Marron (HIFLEX)
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With the realisation of JDF/JMF integration between a Mitsubishi printing press and the HIFLEX MIS, the Ampersand print centre is now fully networked. Already before integration of the printing press, the HIFLEX MIS served to interface the Kodak pre-press system, which in turn possesses a link to a Polar cutter.
"The direct communication between our new Mitsubishi printing press and the HIFLEX MIS has enabled us to reduce our makeready times to less than six minutes. You can see just how amazing that is from a comparison with our old system, because we used to take more than an hour for the same work," says Ampersand managing director Damian McDonald.
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Sirivatana Interprint Public Company Limited, Bangkok (Thailand)
"Best cost/benefit realisation as a result of process automation implementation"
(2nd place)
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Sirivatana is one of the largest print companies in Southeast Asia, with more than 4,000 employees operating almost 200 presses and machines. Alongside the full range of typical offset products, the product portfolio includes also pop-up books, calendars, maps and folding boxes. The company has already received "Asian Print Awards" and "Thai Print Awards" on numerous occasions.
In the past, Sirivatana worked with an unstructured workflow without an MIS. All order data had to be collected, analysed and communicated manually. The management, however, was fully aware that the implementation of an MIS and JDF workflow was imperative to raise the company's productivity. The sheer size of the company, alongside the previous absence of modern EDP systems, called for a fundamental restructuring of work processes. The whole workflow had to be redefined from scratch, and the employees had to learn to work not as individuals, but as members of an integrated team.
Once the new structures were in place, the HIFLEX MIS could be implemented and linked up to the pre-press system from Kodak via a JDF workflow. Sirivatana is thus the first print company in Thailand to have successfully introduced such a JDF workflow.
Thanks to the JDF workflow and the HIFLEX MIS, Sirivatana has been able to increase its production efficiency by 15%. Throughput times have been reduced by more than 30%. These achievements have now been honoured with a second prize in the CIPPI Award category "Best cost/benefit realisation as a result of process automation implementation".
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