The CIP4 International Print Production Innovation (CIPPI) Awards are amongst the most coveted in the print media industry, and following on from 2007 and 2008, this year a KBA sheetfed customer once again stood on the winners' rostrum. Dutch printer Ten Brink / Hooiberg Haasbeek, which is owned by the Euradius group, scooped the awards in two categories: "Most innovative use of process automation technology in an implementation" and "Best process automation implementation – Europe". What prompted the jury to give the Meppel-based company top ranking is the JDF-enabled system in which the highly automated KBA Rapidas, Kodak Prinergy workflow and Xgram MIS are embedded.

Installed in 2009, the four Rapida 106 four-colour perfectors sport KBA's makeready-minimising DriveTronic SPC dedicated drives, Plate-Ident plate recognition and pre-registration module, and unique Flying JobChange module, which allows the plates to be changed in idle printing units during the production run, and the press to be converted to the next job with almost no down time. The result is an exceptionally high level of net productivity.
 
The nine KBA presses totalling 45 towers at Ten Brink / Hooiberg Haasbeek are fed with plates via four CTP devices. With such large numbers of plates, mistakes are easily made. To prevent this, in pre-press each plate is given an individual data matrix code based on master JDF data. With the aid of this code the press recognises whether the plate is new or used, and to which printing couple it has been assigned. It also checks that the correct language version has been selected. During plate recognition the relevant job and presetting data are downloaded from the MIS via LogoTronic Professional, eliminating the need for manual loading of job data.

Enhanced productivity and customer satisfaction
Investing in highly automated litho presses in tandem with an all-JDF/JMF workflow has enabled Ten Brink / Hooiberg Haasbeek to boost productivity and earnings enormously. For example, the number of production errors due to wrong plates has been cut to zero, the Rapidas' output increased by some 50% and scheduling costs cut by over 5%. Ten Brink / Hooiberg Haasbeek calculates that RoI for the period 2010 to 2012 will be an incredible 4,000%.

The Dutch company's customers are also profiting from this process automation. Prior to JDF networking, scheduling staff had to go to the press room to check on the status of individual jobs. Today this information is automatically transferred in JMF from KBA LogoTronic or pre-press to the MIS and can be downloaded from there.