On June 20, 2019, over 100 customers visited Heidelberg’s North American headquarters in Kennesaw, Georgia for its “Productivity through Connectivity” event. The day-long event focused on the digital transformation within the print industry and its impacts on printers’ productivity. The event kicked off with an insightful presentation on the impacts digitalization has on print shops with an overview of Heidelberg’s “Push to Stop” technology, Lifecycle Solutions, Heidelberg Subscription, and Prinect Production Manager.

“Here at Print Media Center Atlanta, we strive to show our customers how they can make their own print shops more productive and efficient,” says Errol Moebius, director of Print Media Center Atlanta at Heidelberg. “Digitalization gives our customers the ability to connect their shop via Prinect workflow, which gives them the data needed to turn their company into a Smart Print Shop.”

Throughout the day, customers participated in a complete “Push to Stop” demonstration, listened to presentations on Heidelberg’s newest digital technologies and business models, and had the opportunity to see demonstrations of all equipment at Print Media Center Atlanta, which includes a Speedmaster XL 106, CX 75, Versafire EV and EP, full Prinect prepress, and postpress and packaging products.

“Heidelberg did a great job putting together this open house. Whether at a breakout session or at the ‘Push to Stop’ demonstration, we were able to see how digitalization really ties our company together and how we can benefit from these solutions,” said Matt Leach, General Manager at World Arts Inc. located in Spencer, Indiana.

“Push to Stop” Controls Entire Production Flow
One of the highlights of the event was a walk-through of the entire commercial production flow, starting with the Prinect workflow, followed by the Speedmaster XL 106-8P+L with LED, and the Stahlfolder TH 82-P, all driven by “Push to Stop” technology.

With “Push to Stop” technology, jobs are autonomously changed over without operator intervention and will continue to print or fold until the operator interrupts it on their Speedmaster or Stahlfolder.

“We recently installed a Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106, and we’ve had an incredible experience with ‘Push to Stop’ in our building,” says David Dey, Vice President of Manufacturing at ColorDynamics in Allen, Texas. “However, seeing the ‘Push to Stop’ demonstration today really showed how beneficial it is to use it throughout the entire workflow rather than just with the press.”

To conclude the demonstration, customers received a full production data report from Prinect Analyze Point. Processing operating data from Prinect, Analyze Point provides a comprehensive overview of current job production and long-term production in easy to decipher graphics and numbers.

“The Prinect Analyze Point uses data that is automatically generated from the set-up of jobs from Prinect to the completion of production on our Heidelberg equipment. Production Managers and Owners are both able to use this data to evaluate their productivity to ensure that their business is optimized to help maximize their efficiency and output,” said Moebius.

Heidelberg’s New Digital Technologies and Business Models
Deep-dive sessions were held to discuss Heidelberg’s newest digital technologies and business models including Heidelberg Lifecycle Solutions, Prinect Production Manager, and Heidelberg Subscription.

“While learning about Heidelberg Subscription today, we realized how logical this step would be for a company like ourselves,” said Dey. “It allows us to bring the newest technology into the company without a tremendous amount of capital investment in the beginning.”