Analyse this

It seems to me that data analytics is all the rage these days. But leaving aside FaceBook and dodgy data mining, there is a practical reason for using data to understand the way that your business is performing with a growing number of printing equipment manufacturers lining up to sell your data back to you.

Graham Avery, Business Manager worldwide consultant for Heidelberg.

Perhaps the most prominent of the schemes currently on offer is Heidelberg’s Analyze Point, which is part of the Prinect workflow. Earlier this year I met up with Matt Rockley, Heidelberg UK’s marketing and product executive for sheetfed B1 and B2, and Graham Avery, worldwide consultant for Heidelberg’s Business Manager MIS, to take a closer look at Analyse Point and the purpose behind it.

Just about every piece of equipment in the modern print factory records a fair amount of data about the way that it works. Much of this is for maintenance purposes so that an engineer can find the source of any problems quickly. In many cases, the equipment can remotely send diagnostic information back to the support staff and often this is used to prevent problems occurring by flagging up a component that’s underperforming and likely to fail soon. Sometimes an MIS can also use this information, for example, to calculate how often a machine is down and whether or not it is delivering a return on investment. So, the obvious question is why not just leave it to your MIS to pick up this sort of information?

Rockley says that Analyze Point has a different focus altogether, noting: “The MIS is job costing primarily whereas what we do with Analyse Point is a little bit more press room reporting.” He adds: “What you don’t see from an MIS is the 45 jobs that you have printed that day, which operators, how fast they can make ready across a shift. Also, I can find blank spaces where the machine is doing nothing, not printing or being maintained.”

So Heidelberg is really focussed on the overall productivity of the press, such as the time taken for make readies and maintenance but also idle time spent waiting between jobs. The aim is to help customers identify issues in their processes to really squeeze the maximum amount of productivity out of the press. Rockley adds: “We are looking for efficiencies that we can get through our reporting.”

Analyze Point is part of Pressroom Manager and is included now with all new presses that come with Prinect 18. Avery says: “It was an optional extra but we see it’s a tool that will drive productivity on presses so it’s now included with all new presses.” The software only works with Heidelberg equipment but can include prepress and finishing kit as well as the presses. There’s also a data terminal so operators can manually add information for other shop floor processes. Rockley says: “The data feed coming out of the press is automated so if I do a blanket wash then the machine is being sent a signal and that same signal also populates the data pool so you can pick trends in order to analyse it such as running, stopping, starting, waste amounts and so on.”

There are different views and these can be colour coded to show different elements such as makeready times or blanket washes. The system can show various key performance indicators, including time, speed and quality, which are the three elements used to create an Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or OEE, index.

Matt Rockley, Marketing and product executive for sheetfed B1 and B2 for Heidelberg UK, showing off the CS92.

Rockley points out that you can document print quality and note deviation from target colour values for any printed section and verify the colour quality of that print run. It can identify which operators are quicker or manage to get more out of the press. But Rockley says that it’s not about penalising individuals but rather for a team to work together and identify the best practice for each process and to be able to show those individuals why a particular way of working produces better results. Avery recommends that companies should hold weekly meetings to share the data and encourage the operators, saying: “It’s about how you deal with the data and present it to create a positive work ethic.”

Avery says that the system also helps to focus attention on what’s happening in the press hall, pointing out that all sorts of things, such as the paper used, can affect productivity. So, for example, someone from a different department might order cheaper paper and not realise that it causes problems on the press but this system can compare many different factors such as how the press runs with different paper stocks. Avery adds: “You can link the production back to the purchasing and the people in the office can see how the logistics have affected the press running.”

Rockley says that Heidelberg can use the data to discuss equipment requirements with customers, because the data might suggest which press would better suit their workload. Heidelberg can also use the data to benchmark how a press should perform and to show customers how they are doing and whether or not they could squeeze more profit out of their investment.

Rockley says that Heidelberg sees Analyze Point as offering a partnership between itself and its customers, adding: “Lots of people collect data but it’s the ones that use the data to their advantage to find out the problem areas in their production that are the ones that are successful. They can run their productivity up because they are identifying their weakness.”

It’s worth pointing out that many companies invest in new hardware to compete more effectively but I have long argued that it is better to invest time and effort to tighten up your processes before buying in new equipment. As such, Analyze Point is a useful tool for helping printers achieving this by looking not just at the way the kit works, but also at the way that people work with that kit.


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