EFI, a world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today announced that its powerful Auto-Count® direct machine interface technology is now integrated with Heidelberg high-speed cutting equipment to enable customers to have real-time reporting and scheduling capabilities for this manual step in the production process. In use in the marketplace for 30 years, Auto-Count is an industry-leading direct machine interface system that has been deployed on sheetfed and web presses, flexo presses, perfect binders, saddle stitchers and folders.
 
In partnership with Heidelberg, EFI developed an interface from Auto-Count to the Heidelberg POLAR XT guillotine cutting system solutions (using various model cutters, joggers and peripherals) that allows Auto-Count to capture data from the systems. This has not been widely implemented before and is now ready for customers on a broader scale.
 
Modern Litho-Print Co., a full-service provider in Jefferson City, Missouri, operates the complete EFI Monarch suite and utilizes Auto-Count throughout their plant. The company is one of the first to beta test this new integration. Jim Tomblinson, plant superintendent, says: “Until now, the cutter was a black hole in our workflow since there was no way to schedule this equipment or capture data from it. With the new Auto-Count integration to our POLAR 137 XT, we’re able to obtain and track job information and operator productivity, and schedule the cutter in our overall workflow. This scheduling capability is especially useful for large jobs with multiple versions.”
 
“Interfacing and capturing data from postpress equipment is often talked about, but seldom put into action and working practice. Modern Litho’s vision to connect the POLAR cutting system with EFI Auto-Count brings data capturing for this segment to a new level,” says Rob Kuehl, director of product management, postpress OEM for Heidelberg USA, Inc.  
 
“EFI Auto-Count has been delivering real-time production intelligence to print providers for years, and the new integration capability with Heidelberg further enables our customers to improve operations and increase profitability,” said Bob Howard, EFI Auto-Count product manager. “Businesses will now truly have complete visibility into every step of the job process.”
 
The latest version of EFI Auto-Count with the Heidelberg integration will be available in December. For more information about EFI products, go to www.efi.com or contact 800-875-7117.