The final round of the global print simulator-based productivity contest will be a ‘face-to-face’ showdown at drupa. Over 150 students from Asia, Europe and North American have been remotely competing from simulators at their technical schools. UPM is sponsoring the travel of the international finalists to Dusseldorf to participate in the finals.

The final round of this contest will be held on May 7^th at 15:00 on the Sinapse Print Stand *E64 in Hall 6, close to the UPM stand.

Please join us at these Finals for a chance to interview the students and to learn more about these unique training programs.

The competition is based on solving a series of simulated printing problems in a limited time. The winner will be determined after five 10-minute heats on who solves the problems with the highest quality and the lowest production cost.

The “SHOTS Heard Round the World” productivity contest encourages skills improvement of printing students globally. The event is co-sponsored by UPM, Printing Industries of America (PIA), and Sinapse. Contestants will operate the SHOTS sheetfed simulator from Sinapse — winner of the PIA Intertech Award and used in the recent WorldSkills Competition.

Simulation at UPM/PIA/Heidelberg

Simulation-based training is now the worldwide norm in almost every profession to optimise skills and problem solving. UPM have been successfully using printing simulators to help train their customers and staff to improve process understanding of printing technology. PIA uses these as part of their training and problem-solving seminars, Heidelberg uses them as part of apprentice training.

Simulators allow the user to ‘see’ the results of process adjustments on the simulated print copy and the related production cost.

UPM works closely with Sinapse Print Simulators — the leader in this field — to implement a unique training environment. Simulators can be built into press consoles (like airplane simulators) to provide a perfect way to demonstrate, analyse and solve problems in an industrial context. Alternatively, they can be used on one or dual screen PCs.