Aicomp Group, a provider of ERP-solutions for the packaging industry with locations in Europe and the US, and Esko, a provider of integrated software and hardware for the packaging industry with headquarters in Gent, Belgium, have been working together on joint projects since 2004. Both companies have now announced that they will further strengthen their successful relationship, and have entered a certified partnership in which they will support each other proactively and focus on future developments.

“As the leading provider of complex SAP variant configurations and SAP cloud solutions, Aicomp is specialized in ERP solutions specifically developed for the packaging industry,” said  Jens Hennecke, CEO EMEA with Aicomp. “With its market leading solutions Esko covers the entire packaging production process, from prepress to the finished products. The extremely successful cooperation in the last couple of years has proven that both our companies, our products and solutions complement each other in an ideal way which brings real added value to our customers. By strengthening our partnership we will among other things be able to develop preconfigured, holistic and integrated best practice solutions which are flexible and, with a manageable, effort can be adapted to the individual customer requirements.”

“In doing so, we want to enable the industry, in particular small and medium-sized companies, to optimize their processes – from packaging design to offer preparation and production,” says Christopher Weber, regional software solutions manager for the DACH region at Esko. “The highlights of these end-to-end solutions include options for automatic price calculations, offer preparations and determination of the optimal production routing for each individual project.”

“Until now, many small and medium-sized packaging manufacturers have avoided or postponed the integration of their processes, primarily for time and cost reasons. Furthermore, they often lack the IT specialists for this,“ he said. “Even in the standard version our best practice solutions will cover the basic requirements for an efficient packaging production. That is why they can be implemented quickly and at a fixed budget – and will within a short time result in measurable benefits to our mutual customers“, adds Jens Hennecke, CEO EMEA with Aicomp.

Depending on customer requirements, Esko’s best practice solutions will include products for packaging development, such as ArtiosCAD and WebCenter with the associated data management plus the approval processes and the prepress solutions ArtPro+ and Automation Engine. Aicomp contributes with its entire software solution portfolio, i.e. the SAP-ERP Add-on VC PowerPack for real time calculation, the next generation of SAP-ERP, SAP S/4HANA as well as the SAP Sales Cloud from SAP C/4HANA portfolio for customer relationship management (CRM).

The strengthened integration of these market leading software products allows both companies to offer specialized total solutions in which, thanks to suitable interfaces, seamless data transfer works reliably. Hence, the customers can fully utilize the functionality of the integrated software products.

“Esko is a provider of total solutions for the value chain in packaging production and has a unique approach to CAD. The integration with the solutions of this company gives us a wide range of options for optimising the processes of our mutual customers,” says Hennecke.

Weber addeds, “Aicomp has extensive practical knowledge, directs it focus on the packaging industry uncompromisingly and has proven its unrestricted reliability in many jointly implemented and very demanding integration projects. Thanks to the cooperation with this company, we can extend our offers to the entire administration of our mutual customers. All of this makes Aicomp the ideal partner for Esko.”

Jens Hennecke, CEO EMEA at Aicomp, says, “Esko is a provider of total solutions for the value chain in packaging production and has a unique approach to CAD. The integration with the solutions of this company gives us a wide range of options for optimising the processes of our mutual customers.”

As part of the strengthened partnership Aicomp and Esko will, among other things, develop preconfigured, holistic and integrated ‘Best Practice’ solutions, which will enable small and medium-sized packaging manufacturers in particular to optimize their processes.