Druckerei Schmidbauer: Taking Advantage of Digital Opportunities with EFI For 25 years, customers of Druckerei Schmidbauer have been able to rely on high speed, reliability and quality print production. The company owes its success to precise organization and rapid solutions through extensive implementation expertise. The Fü rstenfeld, Austria-based company has differentiated its product range in recent years with digital equipment–offerings that help the company execute extraordinary ideas for customers that only need short or medium-length runs. The company’s most recent digital expansion was in large-format digital printing with an EFI (Booth 1349) H1625 LED printer. The printer has allowed Druckerei Schmidbauer to more than double the number of wide-format jobs produced in a year. To cope with the volume, Druckerei Schmidbauer also relies on workfl ow automation tools from EFI, including a recently implemented EFI Digital StoreFront. web-to-print and eCommerce operation. “The speed at which changes are taking place is still increasing.” The statement, from Manfred Sattler, Druckerei Schmidbauer’s Digital Printing Manager, perfectly describes the challenges the company is currently facing. Management and staff at Druckerei Schmidbauer are working to withstand this pressure and actively shape the changes. “Each change also opens up opportunities, which we try to seize and use to our advantage,” emphasises Sattler. And the company has every reason to be optimistic, because it is enjoying continuous growth in digital printing. Bursting at the seams Druckerei Schmidbauer paved the way for this path four years ago. At that time, the company began collaborating with the Sattler advertising team and entered into digital printing together. It was absolutely the right decision, and growing volumes led Druckerei Schmidbauer to doubling its digital color printing capacity. Manfred Sattler is convinced the best way to meet today’s market requirements for short runs, extremely fast delivery times, individualization, and personalization is with digital printing. The space for digital printing at the site in Fü rstenfeld was, however, relatively small so the company had to rent a new production hall when installing its second color press. In taking this step, the company also acquired the space to include large-format digital printing in its portfolio. This was, according to Sattler, virtually inevitable if the company was to continue expanding. “We have a fl air for creative solutions and the latest technology, and we are always tapping into new application areas,” he says. Manfred Sattler, Digital Printing Manager, Druckerei Schmidbauer The company’s product range goes far beyond paper and cardboard and the other usual substrates of large-format printing and includes metal, glass, and wood. This is possible thanks to the UV LED technology in the EFI H1625 LED printer which allows the company to choose from an incredible variety of materials and process both fl exible and rigid substrates. “The market expects this kind of fl exibility from a print service provider today and we have responded to this with the EFI H1625 LED printer,” says Sattler. So now, in addition to looking after direct customers, the company can also cooperate with local carpenters or glaziers, for example. Possibilities multiplied For newcomers to the market, the EFI H1625 LED printer, with its price-performance ratio and a 1,200x600 dpi maximum resolution, presents an ideal solution without having to compromise on quality. Druckerei Schmidbauer was not particularly focused on producing as much square footage as possible, they were more interested in the EFI H1625 providing the ability to continuously test materials and discover new application areas. The printer’s 65" width, its material thickness of up to 2" and its high-quality white ink really does multiply the possibilities, according to Sattler. Direct printing and immediate fi nishing reduce the processing time up to delivery by about a third and eliminate mistakes that might otherwise occur doing lamination. With the printer’s direct-to-rigid substrate capabilities, printouts go from the printer to cutting plotters and milling machines to for fi nishing. Integrating the customer Digitization in printing has of course also left its mark in the workfl ow. Within the last fi ve years, the total number of orders has more than doubled at Druckerei Schmidbauer. With so much going on with the company, it is always important to maintain an accurate overview and in this respect, the company relies on EFI Dynamic Intelligent Estimating and Planning software. “We now know at the push of a button where a particular job is and this transparency helps us provide our customers with the best service,” says Sattler. Druckerei Schmidbauer also started looking for ways to integrate its customers even more into the digital workfl ow. “We have been looking for a tool that would allow us to enhance automation and simultaneously improve customer loyalty,” explains Sattler. In the end, he was won over by EFI Digital StoreFront which, on one hand, fi ts seamlessly into the company’s existing workfl ow and, on the other, closes the gap with customers in terms of their ability to create and submit jobs. Sattler says the integration effort to add Web-to-print was virtually zero because the software and the hardware from EFI were designed for this from the outset. From data input to accounting, the company has achieved a high degree of automation in order to cope with the rising number of orders. And customers can now trigger print jobs directly from their own intranets. In addition, Druckerei Schmidbauer is in the process of gradually building on-line shops for special products. Druckerei Schmidbauer is also able to collaborate with some of its partners through Digital StoreFront, offering additional products from those partners within the main online storefronts Druckerei Schmidbauer creates. In the future, according to Sattler, Druckerei Schmidbauer will place more emphasis on incorporating the widest variety of data streams in print products, be it geo data, customer data, etc. Personalization has well and truly arrived in the industry and so it should no longer matter whether it is a conventional or a personalized print product going through the workfl ow. Variable-data printing has to become standard, in Sattler’s view. “We want to help our customers turn their visions into reality,” he says, “and with the investments in digital printing and workfl ow, we are now best equipped to do that.” The company’s most recent digital expansiton was in large-format digital printing with an EFI H1625 LED printer. The printer has allowed Druckerei Schidbauer to more than double the number of wide-format jobs produced in a year. 26 | September 27, 2016 | GRAPH EXPO 16 Offi cial Show Daily | PrintingNews.com
GraphExpo_ShowDaily_September_27_2016
To see the actual publication please follow the link above