Imagine a world where you can see how your BOBST machines are performing, wherever you are. Where you’re at the heart of your production, and in control of your productivity at all times, with an interface that is intuitive and clear. Where decisions can be made easily and remotely, and where technical support can be prioritized based on real-time data, enabling fast resolution. That world is here now, with BOBST Connect.

BOBST Connect is a cloud-based digital platform that enhances and improves your printing and packaging productivity.

It brings all the BOBST data-driven services together in one fully connected platform by integrating raw machine data with BOBST knowledge and expertise, enabling an efficient orchestration of the full production process.

“The packaging industry is in the midst of a digital revolution, which is forcing all companies to break new ground, to question their previous ways of working, and to think in terms of holistic and digital processes,” says Léonard Badet, Chief Technology officer at BOBST. “It may seem daunting as well as exciting. BOBST Connect is the glue that holds all the digital solutions together, supporting customers in every phase of production.”

BOBST Connect provides solutions to support fully integrated workflows – designed to enable improved planning, better-informed decision-making, faster and more effective intervention, and continual optimization.

The benefits keep building
As a live platform, BOBST Connect continually evolves to include new functionalities, new machines and more machine and workflow data.

New machines from BOBST come equipped with BOBST Connect Essential, which is the entry level version of the platform and provides an easy and smooth start into the data-driven world.

With BOBST Connect Essential, you can access the data you need from anywhere, in real-time, and with history available. This data offers you the power to optimize production performance, improve machine handling and even increase shift output. It also provides exceptional technical support when you need it, with augmented reality video assistance available to diagnose electrical and mechanical problems, remotely and in quick time, significantly reducing downtime.

But it doesn’t stop there. New features are added to BOBST Connect on an ongoing basis.

For example, BOBST has recently launched TooLink, a new and unique feature to the market. This tool management solution offers unprecedented control over TooLink equipped dies. Customers can indeed track their tool performance and history, access a digital inventory where maintenance activity and feedback are reported, and finally foster optimal collaboration with their tool makers. With an intuitive interface, it provides users with data driven insights to bring tool management to the next level.

In folding carton production, ACCUCHECK Job and Recipe Management allows users to remotely prepare and set up an inspection recipe based on the artwork file, and to save recipes and retrieve parameters, anytime, anywhere. This not only shortens set-up times, but also avoids input errors offering the beginning of the close loop solution.

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Converters can review performance dashboards using BOBST Connect.

Digital dashboards make for a positive user experience
At the heart of the user experience of BOBST Connect are performance dashboards, which BOBST developed in close cooperation with customers. Plant managers for example, can see their current operating states and the most important performance data in real time. Which order for which customer is currently running on the machine? When did production start? How many packages of this order have already been produced? The answers to these and many other questions are visible at a glance.

The same applies to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). The availability, set-up times and machine speeds as well as the downtimes and the quality produced (good parts/rejects) are visualized clearly on the dashboards, which have been thought through down to the last detail with customers, in the form of trend displays, percentages and diagrams.

“Using the performance dashboards, our customers can easily compare jobs, shifts or days, for example, and summarize OEE key figures such as set-up, downtime, or number of micro-stops,” said Léonard Badet. “With the help of these comparisons, losses in efficiency and quality can be identified and resolved in a very targeted way. These options are particularly popular with our customers. We get feedback that shift management has never been so easy for them.”

The BOBST Connect Community is growing – are you in?
The BOBST Connect community has grown with every machine our company has shipped. Today, more than 4,500 BOBST machines in almost 100 countries are currently connected to BOBST Connect and Helpline.

A key component here is the integration of BOBST Connect with customers' Enterprise Resource Planning, Manufacturing Execution and Management Information Systems, as well as with their artwork management and prepress solutions. BOBST offers its customers this integration via easy-to-use APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). The order data can then flow automatically into the machines and their quality control systems.

Another area of focus in the BOBST Connect roadmap is the development of innovative solutions for monitoring sustainability.

“BOBST Connect is central to our industry vision, based on four key pillars – connectivity, digitalization, automation and sustainability,” said Léonard Badet. “In the future, the entire value chain of printing and packaging production will be digitalized and connected – from the design ideas for the packaging of the Brand Owner through production to the logistical go-to-market processes and reporting. This will enable the industry to achieve a completely new level of performance. BOBST Connect is the catalyst for this exciting future.”