Kennesaw, Ga. – By year end 2019, Hobby Lobby will have 900 stores across the United States. In order to satisfy its printing needs for future expansion, Hobby Lobby Printing has replaced an older press with a Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106 4-color press with UV capabilities. To ensure that the press is reaching peak productivity, Hobby Lobby is using Heidelberg’s Saphira Consumables and Heidelberg Assistant – an intelligent online platform of data driven smart services for Heidelberg customers.

Speedmaster XL 106 Triples Hobby Lobby’s Production
Originally outsourcing a portion of their work, Hobby Lobby brought all of its work in-house last year and expects print needs to increase as new locations open up. With this demand rising, the Hobby Lobby print shop needed a press that would satisfy all of its needs and that would grow with the company.

Printing at 18,000 sheets an hour, the Speedmaster XL 106 offers the highest level of automation in the market and is able to handle even the most complex job changes at the fastest speeds possible thanks to Prinect Inpress Control 2. With this technology on the press, the Speedmaster XL 106 delivers the first measuring result in less than 60 sheets, and the run is ready to start in less than 1 minute. Hobby Lobby’s XL 106 is also equipped with DryStar UV — ensuring maximum curing with minimum heat while still maintaining high-quality print jobs.

“The XL 106 is amazing. We tripled our production from our last press,” said Dave Dunn, Print Shop Manager at Hobby Lobby. “The press is fast, but we still have confidence that the color quality will be exceptional.”

The Data to Help Hobby Lobby Succeed
While the automation of the press has been impacting production, Hobby Lobby would agree that the data the company has access to through Heidelberg Assistant has been beneficial to the growth within the print shop. The online-portal provides technical and operational information, performance and predictive data, and contracts and invoice details, which can all be viewed anywhere, anytime, on any device. According to Dunn, “Heidelberg has really made it easy to access data plus it’s super easy to navigate and learn everything.”

Machines today are able to provide printers with a lot of information; however, some of this information can be hard to decipher. Heidelberg Assistant translates this information in an easy to understand platform, so Hobby Lobby can use this data in its decision making processes. Through the access to this data, Hobby Lobby has been able to increase the print shop’s Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) in the past 4 months from 19% up to 42.19%, and the company expects to reach 50% OEE in the next few months.

“The best part of Heidelberg Assistant is being able to access all of this information to see how we are performing as a print shop,” said Dunn. “I regularly meet with our press operators to discuss how we are improving as a team, and it’s definitely motivating to see what we’ve already done since installing the XL 106, and it helps steer us in the right direction of where we need to improve each month.”

While Heidelberg Assistant has several other features like service notification status, knowledge data base, invoice and contracts, and service schedulers, one of the features that stands out to Hobby Lobby is the ability to view service tickets through the portal. According to Dunn, “This morning, we had a minor issue with our press, so I told the press operator to report it through the eCall function from our press. As soon as she did, I saw a pop up; I got an email that the call has been initiated; and I got an updated email to let me know the tech was on the way. Heidelberg Assistant really helps keep me updated and gives us the peace of mind to know that someone is working on getting us back up and running.”

Through Heidelberg Assistant, Hobby Lobby has direct access to the Heidelberg eShop, which recommends and filters the print shop’s Heidelberg Saphira Consumables based on its equipment install base giving Hobby Lobby a simplified customized ordering process. “With presses, especially a UV press like the one we have, you need to make sure you are purchasing the right consumables so that you do not cause any damage to the machine. Through the eShop, we have access to our Saphira Consumables list that is specific to our XL 106’s needs so that we can easily purchase any consumables that need to be restocked in our print shop. It’s the most efficient and smartest way to purchase our consumables,” said Dunn.

Hobby Lobby employees in front of Speedmaster XL 106.