New digital era

Packaging printers are run by complex, impenetrable software. Packaging & Converting Intelligence talks to Geert van Damme, managing director of CERM, about how the firm writes code that boosts the efficiency of the production line while helping manufacturers prepare for the rise of the digital press.

It took a little while for CERM to find its métier. A software company specialising in the provision of business management software for narrow web printers, 30 years ago its product offering was more generic.

"[The company] started developing anything for anybody," says Geert van Damme, the firm's managing director. "After a few years, though, [it] started working together with the Belgian Graphic Arts Federation."

Slowly, but surely, that led CERM into the business of writing software that ran printing presses. The main product that resulted was what Van Damme calls "a little enterprise resource planning (ERP) system" to handle administration, from quote to invoice.

That program led the firm into exploring how it could boost the efficiency of the packaging production process itself. It's led to some measure of success for the company. "CERM is 55 people with almost €8 million in sales," says Van Damme. "It has become a business."

Cardboard spine

"First of all, there is the backbone," Van Damme says of his company's product offering, which he explains can be compared with any ERP system. Every packaging company needs to quote, accept and then deliver orders from customers. "Sometimes," says Van Damme, "you need to produce; you need to take things out of stock; you need to send invoices."

CERM has written modules to manage each of these aspects of the packaging production process, in addition to the management of KPIs and business intelligence.

"That is the basic layer," says Van Damme. "For packaging print, a production steering layer was added. That meant that the company got out of the scope of reproducing a simple ERP and specialised in [guiding] all the production steps on the work floor with precise instructions."

CERM went about creating interfaces for pre-press workflow systems that optimised management of artwork requested by the client. Van Damme uses the example of an order of two different labels: one for a still water bottle, and another for sparkling.

"The customer will send those two label artwork files to the printer, and he will then make sure that they are imposed on printing plates in that pre-press section," he explains.

CERM 's interface enables the print shop to know when the press needs to print, that the paper is available, and that the next step - the die cut - is ordered and that it is there on finishing. "Every individual step will get the necessary information from Cern : how to produce, when to produce, how much to produce, and with what technical characteristics," explains Van Damme.

CERM hasn't forgotten the role of the customer, either. "The customer will be able to participate via a web front end, meaning that they will see the status of their orders," says Van Damme. "They can order new things, or announce new products, and have more information on the stock of products, so they will participate as well. On the other side, suppliers will also be able to do so. CERM will be sending electronic orders to, for example, paper suppliers, with the exact quantity needed for the production of the next few days."

Waste reduction

Greater sustainability on the production line is another positive side-effect CERM's customers have enjoyed.

"The scheduling tool will enable the printer to nicely order all production jobs for each machine with the same paper, or the same colours, or the same die cut, one after another," explains Van Damme. "Another aspect is that CERM provides tools that greatly increase the cost-effectiveness of production.

"For example, the same label could be produced on a digital press or on a conventional press. The latter will be fast in producing, but slow in set-up, because you need to mount plates. A digital press will be slow in production, but very fast in set-up. So, small quantities, or a wide variety of labels, will be best produced in digital, and larger quantities will be best produced in conventional."

If both production methods are available, CERM 's software modules are capable of choosing the most efficient of the two to enable manufacturers to reduce their set-up times and waste generated during printing. Van Damme is confident that the company is ahead of the curve when it comes to providing this service. "About 25% of all new presses installed are already digital presses," he notes.

He is also certain that the rise of the digital press will encourage automation to spread to other sections of the production process. "When a new job is printed on a roll of paper, you can print a barcode," explains Van Damme. "That will then be read by the next step to retrieve instructions for that job. Within a job, you can also identify the individual lanes of labels - those for still water and sparkling, for example - as being next to one another. Then, you can identify not only the job but also the lanes and products."

In that way, machines are instructing machines. "All of this will reduce waste," Van Damme says. "Automatic devices will read barcodes, and will not even ask the human being to do things any more."

Over 40% of CERM 's added value is re-invested into its internal research and development programme. This commitment to innovation has yielded palpable results for the firm and its customers.

"For some decades now, we have had a system wherein the customer needs to invest in yearly updates," explains Van Damme. "They invest and we invest in turn, meaning that the more money we get from our customers, the more developers we get to employ. The more developers we have, the stronger our product will be."

Listen to customers

Van Damme claims that CERM was also one of the first software companies to pioneer a subscription model for its products, with customers effectively renting the software. "That was 25 years ago," he says. "Only nowadays are companies like Microsoft really beginning to implement that model."

The reason why CERM did it first is because, as Van Damme says, "the nature of our work is to listen to customers, to trends, and to new things that are happening."

This anticipation of customer needs has resulted in other innovations. "A few years ago, we added shrink sleeves and flexible packaging," says Van Damme. "We saw that more and more printers were doing this, so we developed dedicated tools and instruction sets for that type of product."

Above all, however, CERM is dedicated to the goal of preparing its customers for a wave of automation that it predicts will engulf packaging manufacturing.

"Automation, accompanied by more computers within printing companies, and more electronic instructions, will change the way that people work within those firms," explains Van Damme.

"Print shop owners should be aware that this will put a burden on their own management, thanks to the fact that they will need to improve constantly, and not just install an MIS and sleep for ten years. They need to educate their people almost permanently in this evolving world."

25/09/2018
Source: pci-mag.com