KBA Complete is a new company, created specifically to address the myriad complexities in print these days, with the aim of ensuring printers are optimising their business activities, reports Wayne Robinson.
THE pre-drupa open house also saw the launch of KBA Complete, a new services and consultancy company that KBA has founded to advise printers on optimising their businesses.Operating as a team of independent consultants, KBA says KBA Complete offers a diversity of solutions geared to sustained strengthening of the future prospects for businesses in the graphic arts industry. The company has been formed with KBA and MIS developer Hi-Flex providing the staff and concept.
KBA Complete has been formed in response to the changing nature of the print business. As the tasks to be handled by print and media service providers are becoming more and more complex, and ever greater volumes of print are being produced to ever shorter deadlines, while at the same time, the spectrum of auxiliary services offered is an increasingly significant factor differentiating the individual providers on the market. For Ralf Sammeck, director for sheetfed offset sales at Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA), one possible solution to such dilemmas is to be found in the optimisation of business processes: He says, “At the end
of the day, process optimisation can help our customers to distinguish themselves from their competitors and to secure economic success.”
Even functioning processes can be improved. The greatest difficulty, how-ever, is to actually identify the potential. Ralf Sammeck: “We can only be successful ourselves, if our customers are too. That is the basic idea behind KBA Complete – a partner offering our customers independent consulting services and assistance to analyse, optimise and automate their production workflow processes.”
Roland Kastner, managing director of newly founded KBA Complete, adds: “I am looking forward to the cooperation with KBA and the additional customer benefits we will be able to offer users- through KBA Complete. Hand in hand with both the customers themselves and a team of expert technology partners, we can reveal and implement the economic potential of seamless and integrated intra-company networking. That means not just the technical workflow, but also all the necessary instruments for transparent business management.”
KBA Complete analyses printers’ processes, develops proposals for optimisation and supports print companies during the implementation of new business models. The benefits of a management information system (MIS) here play an important role, as the administrative hub automating all communication and exchanges between the parties involved in its individual processes, from suppliers to customers. An open JDF-based workflow guarantees the full integration of all elements into a consistent and transparent overall process.
KBA Complete favours the leading JDF-based Hiflex MIS as a control centre for an all-encompassing process, as this system, on the basis of process sequences formulated in the CIP4 standard, mirrors the JDF workflow optimally. In addition, as further evidence of the capabilities of the Hiflex MIS, suppliers and customers can also be integrated into the overall process by making use of modern internet technologies. KBA Complete
is equally in a position to propose solutions where an MIS is already in place in the print company.
Independently of the MIS, the direct link to the printing presses can be established with LogoTronic professional, the KBA production management system for the networking of KBA sheetfed and web presses. The control tool LogoTronic professional guarantees press connectivity to any JDF-capable MIS via an open interface. This provides for significant improvements in productivity and printshop quality control, eliminating sources of error and raising the general ease of operation.
It is the declared aim of KBA Complete to maximise customer benefit. To this end, all proposals made within the framework of the consultations place the value creation potential in the fore-ground. Profitability and a fast return on investment are the crucial criteria by which to assess the impact of new technologies, and similarly measures for the sustained yield of such decisions.
The goals to be achieved with optimisation of the work processes are enhanced productivity through automation and the elimination of non-productive activity, lower operating costs through reductions in waste and ma-terials consumption, and increased revenues through expansion into new business fields and market segments.
Comprehensive process optimisation is becoming increasingly synonymous with process innovation. Early recognition of the arising trends establishes competitive advantages, as innovative products and marketing opportunities serve to open up new business fields and tap new customer potential. Roland Kastner explains: “Our process optimisation support, and similarly the offered expertise in the fields of Web2Print and e business solutions, climate-neutral printing and RFID implementation, will enable our customers to stand out prominently from their competitors.”
One essential aspect of the services provided by KBA Complete is its bundling of the know-how of leading technology and cooperation partners – among them Hiflex, Kodak, KBA, MBO, Müller Martini, IPM and ClimatePartner – in the search for an integrated overall solution achieving seamless optimisation of the customer’s company-wide business processes.
