Firstan Limited, Cambridge, UK, has successfully
piloted a newly developed interface between Esko’s Automation Engine Connect
and EFI’s Radius software applications. The pilot at the leading independent
pharmaceutical packaging and food packaging manufacturer comes two years after
Firstan’s £7m investment in two Komori 18,000sph presses – a six-colour
Lithrone GLX640 and a multi-unit Lithrone GLX40RP, and a Bobst Expertcut die
cutting blanking machine.
Established in 1976, Firstan employs 140 and has a
turnover of £24m. The company produces one billion cartons a year and has two
main divisions – Firstan Pharmaceutical, which develops and manufactures
pharmaceutical and healthcare packaging, and Firstan Quality Packaging, which
supplies food, confectionery, cosmetics and beverage cartons and sleeves. It
prides itself on its award winning in-house design and repro studio, and
utilises the latest production machinery. It has an optimum factory workflow,
and, with the combination of Esko’s Automation Engine and EFI’s Radius
packaging MIS solution, delivers market-leading quality and service.
The company was also the first UK packaging printer
to become a pressSIGN Offset Standard (POS) certified printer, which signifies
it has the skills, equipment and knowledge to produce consistent colour
quality. It was also the first in the UK to achieve PS9000:2010 for the supply
of pharmaceutical packaging. It was ISO 14001 certified in 2012.
Joining
Forces for Improved Process Efficiency and Error Reduction
Esko and EFI joined forces for the benefit of their
mutual customers such as Firstan to develop a solution that would enhance
functionality for the label and folding carton market segments. “There were two
primary drivers for our discussions,” stated Lieven Plettinck, Esko’s Director
Software Engineering, “process efficiency and error reduction.”
Plettinck points out that with print runs getting
shorter and cycle times getting tighter, many companies experience excessive
administrative overhead that negatively affects profitability and can even
cause more time to be spent on administrative tasks than actual print
production. By optimizing processes so data is only entered once, flowing
automatically from the MIS system to prepress, not only are administrative
processes more efficient, but there is also much less opportunity for human
error.
“By addressing these two drivers simultaneously in
partnership with EFI, we have been able to address these challenges more
rapidly, with development taking only four months,” Plettinck added. The result
is a bundled solution that can be deployed in just five days, as proven by the
Firstan pilot project. We appreciate the effort Firstan put into the pilot
project. Their insight and guidance was invaluable.”
Since every company has different needs, Plettinck
was quick to highlight that the bundled solution can also be easily modified to
address individual and specific needs, as was accomplished for Firstan.
Dean Murden, Firstan’s IT Manager, confirmed the
value of the integration, saying,“This was essentially a time saving and risk
reduction exercise. We had duplicate data entry going on across both Esko and
EFI Radius systems. They were effectively siloed solutions. Formerly, artwork
approval status required manual updates in Radius. This integration enables us
to make use of a much more automated workflow, from receipt of artwork through
to step and repeat, whilst also reducing risk due to data entry error.”
Hazel Hocknell, Firstan’s Pre-Press Manager, adds,
“We’re still in the trial stages with the pilot project, but we are confident
that this solution will ultimately enable our prepress department to become
fully automated. This is a massive step towards a paperless workflow that will
make a huge difference for our business.”
Packaging
Connected
Murden compliments the EFI and Esko teams for the
effectiveness of their collaboration, including frequent progress updates and
an openness to taking Firstan’s feedback into consideration during the
development process. “Teams from both companies are knowledgeable, efficient,
and have collaborated in an extremely open and positive way to develop a
workflow that meets our specification,” he remarked.
Kevin Blakey EFI Product Director, Packaging adds:
“EFI has enjoyed a highly positive relationship with both Firstan and Esko for
a number of years, and this project represents an exciting step forward for the
packaging industry. We are very proud to have been part of this project to
deliver a highly optimized print production workflow.”
With the integration of Automation Engine with EFI
Radius, Esko has taken another important step toward creating a Packaging
Connected workflow that will help move the packaging industry into a more
automated future. Seamlessly connecting the workflow and power of Automation
Engine with EFI Radius through an out-of-the-box approach to implementation
enables rapid deployment and speedy return on investment through increased time
savings and reduced errors.
This standard integration solution is now
commercially available.
