Cary Sherburne: Hi, I’m Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and I’m here with Yoshihiro Oe, who is the General Manager at Horizon, how are you today?
Yoshihiro Oe: Very good, very good, thank you. How are you?
Cary: I’m doin good. I’m doin good. I’m happy to be here with you.
Yoshihiro Oe: The weather here is nice.
Cary: Yeah. So, I was… I understand that you’ve got some pretty interesting ideas about kind of the future of feeding and finishing and how that all fits in with the need to automate printing operations. Maybe you can talk to me a little bit about where you see that going in the future.
Yoshihiro Oe: Our finishing device is for offset printing environment, and also digital printing environment. But because of the digital printing is becoming more popular, so the demand for digital finishing is more and at the same time, many people ask for more automation. We have been working on the product automation, which is set up, changeover is automated, JDFK portability. We have done this part. The next step is how to automate a different finishing device or how to automate together with printing device. So that is our next step...
Cary: So the device itself is, is automated, but now you need to actually take that a step level with inline, okay.
Yoshihiro: Finishing processes are still cutting, folding, binding. It’s relatively separated, but we want to make this one more connected and automated for operation efficiency and also error-free operation. That is something we are going to… we have to do in the future.
Cary: And I understand you’ve done a lot of work with the user interface to make it easy for operators to move from one type of equipment to the other.
Yoshihiro: Yes. We… our operation partner is Icon-based, so it’s very easy and intuitive operation, already there, but many customers who want those type of things, all our equipment is JDF-ready.
Cary: Okay.
Yoshihiro: We use a PX Net system, which is our JDF Quattro by use of this JDF Quattro, PX Net, we can have more advanced automation in this process.
Cary: And it takes people out of the… people, like you said earlier, people and error out of the process.
Yoshihiro: Yes, that is something we have to do as a next step. The integration check or matching system type of things, that’s something we are looking.
Cary: Yeah because mistakes at the finishing end are expensive.
Yoshihiro: Yes. That’s right. The customer is printing with a lot of cost and then bringing to the finisher. And then finishing, one mistake makes a process repeat once again or a lot of waste. So finishing is very important. So we are hoping that many customers to focus more on the finishing. Not just a…
Cary: Yeah, not just the printing.
Yoshihiro Oe: Yes, not just the printing. Just the printing doesn’t make any money; finishing makes money.
Cary: And the job’s not finished till it’s finished.
Yoshihiro: Yes, that’s right. Yes.
Cary: Thank you.
Yoshihiro: Thank you.
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Discussion
By Don Piontek on Jul 05, 2011
I admire Horizon's commitment to JDF. But JDF (in my opinion) never reached "critical mass" in the offset industry. In digital, it's even worse, as digital print manufacturers all have their own proprietary workflow platforms. So, I am really unsure as to how JDF-enabled devices would play in a digital finishing environment.
By Clint Bolte on Jul 06, 2011
Don has a good point. The hiccup in offset printing is, of course, overwhelmingly due to the aging legacy equipment. His premise is even stronger in digital printing since any post press function performed off line is not even a consideration to any of the digital press manufacturers.
Those isolated printers who have invested in post 2000 era technology AND in the IT infrastructure (hardware, software, and essential training) to go from JDF-enabled to JDF-working have achieved print manufacturing nirvana...automation.
By Mark Hunt on Jul 06, 2011
Horizon has been engaged in the relentless pursuit of short-run efficiency in every corner of the bindery for decades now, and shown that JDF is just one of many tools available to streamline finishing workflows. Even printers who haven’t taken the JDF leap are driving-down labor costs and changeover times through advanced operator interfaces and precise, servomotor-driven automation.
Finishing is the final frontier for print production efficiency.