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Aided by suppliers Creo, HIFLEX, MAN Roland and MBO, Kraft Druck is driving
ahead with JDF integration in a project that will network its corporate management information
system (MIS) with production systems in prepress, press and postpress. It is already clear from the
results so far that the benefits of Networked Graphic Production™ (NGP) are no exaggeration. |
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Located in Ettlingen, near Karlsruhe, Germany, Kraft Druck and Verlag GmbH boast a 82-strong payroll
and state-of-the-art technology, producing high-end commercial publications, posters, and weekly and
monthly magazines. One special service that has been instrumental in boosting both Kraft Druck's sales
volume and awareness of the company is the end-to-end production of displays, including the CAD design.
Catalogs in multiple languages and loose-leaf documents round off this full-service provider's broad
spectrum. |
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Last year, Kraft Druck extended its philosophy of openness and responsiveness to customer needs by
installing the e-business module of HIFLEX industry software. Since the year 2000, customers have been
able to access not only the production status of all their current jobs, but also the history of older
documents using any standard Internet browser. In the future, it will also be possible to request
quotations online. |
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Kraft Druck's management and administration teams work with Office XP and HIFLEX MIS industry software on
Linux and Windows® 2000 servers. Electronic production data collection (PDC) in
combination with HIFLEX was introduced back in 1995 as a key component for objectively measuring costs and
performance. |
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In the Kraft Druck prepress department, it is the Creo Prinergy® PDF workflow
that keeps production flowing smoothly at all times. Digital platemaking is taken care of by a
fully-automatic Lotem® 800 Quantum thermal platesetter, which replaced an older Lotem 800V at the
beginning of 2003. Kraft Druck’s specialty in the pressroom is the 3B format. A total of 18 Roland
700 print units are allocated to one 4-color, one 8-color, one 5-color with one varnishing unit. All
three MAN Roland sheet-fed offset machines are equipped with the PECOM system. The full service continues
into the bindery department, which integrates essential processing capabilities such as cutting,
folding, stitching, and perfect binding. |
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Seamless and cross-vendor communication between the corporate-level HIFLEX MIS and the various production
systems is what Kraft Druck was searching for and ultimately received from integration via JDF standard
interfaces. Says Thomas Brickwedde, head of office-based sales and IT, "Digital integration streamlines
operations beyond mere production processes. It also helps us exploit cost-cutting opportunities that were
previously inaccessible. As far as we are concerned, JDF has proved to be the icing on the cake of a
business workflow that was already extremely efficient before we started." |
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"JDF's greatest benefit is that it motivates us to implement standardized production throughout
the company. By networking our entire production process from prepress to conversion, it forces us to
reconsider every single workflow phase," says Brickwedde. |
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HIFLEX Print forms the hub of Kraft Druck's integrated JDF network. The management information system
covers all administrative, business and planning topics—from estimation through job-relevant
correspondence, to accounting, cost finding, and statistics. It also merges the areas of production
planning, material management, and production data collection. The information supplied by the HIFLEX
system is vital for ensuring proper organization in all technical departments. Conversely, the MIS needs
information relating to production data collection and production for cost finding, statistics and
invoicing. Says Brickwedde, "The data interchange that now takes place between HIFLEX and the production
systems benefit us enormously. After all, our aim is to avoid multiple inputs and errors. Less manual
entry makes us that much more efficient, because people are no longer so bogged down with organizational
chores and are better able to focus on their actual production tasks."
The link between Prinergy and the HIFLEX Print system to facilitate the communication of JDF and dynamic
JMF data was finally forged in the fall of 2003 with the help of the Creo Synapse Link software module
and the HIFLEX JDF controller. Today, HIFLEX Print can automatically create a new job in Prinergy as soon
as a quotation becomes a firm order. In the opposite direction, Prinergy delivers continuous information
about processing and output tasks (such as operations specific to the job, author and proofreader
corrections with explanations) and respective material consumption (proofs and plates, including cost
center time), while the job is actually being produced. Bi-directional real-time communication between
the systems ensures that each page is always up to date. And since Prinergy meticulously reports all
activities, all incurred costs subsequently reappear in the job view. |
Since the Prinergy workflow was first introduced, the CIP-PPF data for the ink-key settings has been
supplied from the prepress to the MAN Roland sheet-fed offset machines via an online connection. The MIS
uses the JDF interface between HIFLEX Print and the PECOM control systems to make job information
(customer name, job number, product designation etc.) and relevant printing parameters, such as format,
paper, length of run, number of plates and inks, directly accessible to the presses. This provides
additional transparency while simplifying and accelerating makeready steps. In the reverse direction,
the control consoles of the sheet-fed offset machines can send machine events to the MIS automatically
as required.
The next stage of JDF integration at Kraft Druck is an online connection between HIFLEX Print and the
MBO (Maschinenbau Oppenweiler Binder) folders in the finishing department. JDF communication allows the
MIS to supply job information and parameters to the folder control systems. |
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"JDF's greatest benefit is that it motivates us to implement standardized production throughout
the company. By networking our entire production process from prepress to conversion, it forces us to
reconsider every single workflow phase," says Brickwedde." We are closely watching the ongoing
debate about networked print production. Many people still see JDF integration as something technical and
miss the point of its true purpose, namely as an instrument for organizing operations more efficiently.
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