This was LabelExpo Americas 2022: A reflection on a most successful tradeshow

This was LabelExpo Americas 2022: A reflection on a most successful tradeshow

Just over one month ago, the CERM-team boarded their planes and gathered in Rosemont, Chicago for what was going to be the first big Labelexpo in over two years. Today, we are very happy to see that it was more than worth the wait. We turned our exhibition stand into a multi-functional CERM Integration Arena where we presented our latest CERM MIS Software features, launched the CERM Scheduling Optimizer and were joined by several valued partners for some very insightful panel discussions. Busy times at the CERM exhibition stand and the best gift after a few months of hard work and preparation by the whole CERM-team.

Oh, and just in case you were still wondering… The Chicago-style deep dish pizza genuinely knows no equal, underground (that’s a hint) blues bars are the best and if the nighttime networking events get too rough, there’s always a gallon of Mountain Dew to get you through the day. Thank you, Chicago! 

Great turnout for our CERM Integration Arena

The CERM Integration Arena show guide featured some interesting presentations on our latest developments and real-life case studies explained and highlighted during panel discussions with CERM-customers and industry partners:

Exactly how important is it to centralize your business processes and data analysis? 

We discussed the benefits of implementing CERM MIS with Roger Popovec, COO at DRG Technologies. Improving productivity in a structural way is only achievable when you’re being consistent throughout your whole company, housing all your processes in one system with all information centralized and at the fingertips of all your employees. Shopfloor data collection and having a broad range of metrics ready to be developed and customized, as well as 3rd party integrations with other software or machine hardware are crucial to building that information. 

Other talking points were CERM Smart BI becoming the center point for all measurements or data access and implementing the CERM Production Monitor on site to visualize real-time production data. Proving that DRG Technologies is making huge steps forward in being a smart factory and taking decisions based on data analysis and factual numbers, not just subjective conjecture.

(continue reading below the photo)

Another big printing issue we had on our CERM Integration agenda was how to improve efficiency when converting complex short run digital jobs?

As a central guest, we invited Dr. Adrian Steele to elaborate on his “lights out” automation project as Managing Director at Mercian Labels, together with integration partners Matt Burton, Sales Director at AB Graphic and Stuart Morrison, Technical Sales Specialist at Screen.

“In the label- and packaging market, every printshop or label converter gets confronted with the same challenges – how to get shorter runs, how to get quicker lead times, improving productivity and getting your cost base right – and has the same technology platform to take on these challenges. For us, Mercian Labels, it was important to be conscious about where to put our efforts. And the real elephant in the room was to take on those complex digitally printed labels and improving our efficiency”, as was stated by Dr. Adrian Steele.

“Back in 2016, I went to ABG with the lights-out terminology and the brief was to build me a machine, placed in a dark room, running automatically. Adding the Screen technology and having all partners interact with the centralized CERM MIS Software made a huge difference. Everyone involved has been a great collaborative partner and really understood the benefits of workflow automation.”

Matt Burton, Sales Director at AB Graphic agrees, “We’ve come up with something that’s really unique, but equally scalable. It is now an off-the-shelf solution, and any customer can buy some equipment from us and plug that into their CERM system and automatically the systems can start talking to each other.”

“And might just have been the differentiator in this specific project”, according to Stuart Morrison, Technical Sales Specialist at Screen. “Lots of people want access to their shopfloor data for costing analysis, but in this case we needed to transfer and share this data between all different parties involved. We needed to generate a unique QR-code for each SKU to help set up the finishing and reduce waste or downtime.”

(continue reading below the photo)
 

Launching the CERM Scheduling Optimizer

Label- and packaging converters are being continuously challenged to optimize their scheduling to increase efficiency and to process more orders, faster and better. No better place or time than the CERM Integration Arena to launch our most recent development: the CERM Scheduling Optimizer.

The primary objective of the CERM Optimizer is to schedule all jobs, or as many as possible, to be delivered on time. Our new scheduling tool handles these fast-changing situations – as a result of an increase in (short-run) orders or multiple press runs because of increasing production steps - and provides the best solution according to predefined parameters.

“This AI, cloud-based scheduling engine will have a very big impact on our customers. The scheduling operator will only have to solve incidents and last-minute urgencies”, says Geert Van Damme – Managing Director at CERM.  “And this is only the start. We will keep on improving this tool, closely together with our customers, as they are used to!”

(continue reading below the photo)

CERM on tour

Follow us anywhere around the globe! Our next tour dates are scheduled for LabelExpo Mexico (April 2023) and LabelExpo Europe (September 2023). 

In case you missed us at LabelExpo Americas 2022: the CERM demos and presentations on Variable Data Printing, the CERM Production Monitor or CERM Smart BI 2.0 are still available. Let us know and we’ll be in touch asap!  

As usual, you can also book your FREE personalized demo or apply for a CERM Test Drive and convince yourself!