Xeikon has announced the availability of a new component as part of its popular aXelerate Services Program. Xeikon Performance Services (XPS) is a new premium service that facilitates the ongoing need for a production manager to manage print production with a focus on continuous improvement. Once enabling tools have been installed by Xeikon personnel, data from presses and peripheral equipment are collected automatically, augmented by additional print room data collected by the operator from an easy-to-use touch screen. Xeikon XPS employs well-established continuous improvement best practices from the manufacturing industry in the print production environment to help operations improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

With its balanced portfolio of dry toner and UV inkjet presses and its cadre of third-party partners, Xeikon is in a unique position in the industry to help customers start, manage and optimize their printing and converting businesses, offering a different kind of support from installation to getting machines up and running, through to optimizing existing operations. Xeikon’s aXelerate program, a key element of its customer service approach, is application-driven and designed to help customers develop new applications and grow their volumes on Xeikon presses.

“When we established the aXelerate Program, our goal was to assemble a set of tools and services that would make our customers more efficient and profitable, and ensure they are able to get more out of their digital investments,” said Filip Weymans, Vice President of Marketing for Xeikon. “The initial offering has been very positively received, but we also wanted to continue to develop the program to add even more value based on customer feedback. The latest addition, Xeikon Performance Services, brings manufacturing best practices to the rapidly evolving and often challenging print production environment and is a direct result of what customers told us they needed. We are excited to share this new offering with Labelexpo Americas attendees, where it will be shown for the first time.”

Xeikon Performance Services offer a wide range of benefits for a print production operation, including:

• An on-site manufacturing audit,
• Intelligent monitoring of any Xeikon presses to capture operational trends.
• Monitoring operator tasks to identify opportunities for improving press uptime, reducing waste, etc.
• Improving productivity and reducing cost by collecting and analyzing real print-room data.
• Providing actionable information with root-cause analytics.
• Tracking Overall Equipment Effectiveness in real-time.
• Supporting Lean, Six Sigma and other Continuous Improvement methodologies.

“This is not a one-time effort,” Patrick Brouns, Xeikon’s Services & Solutions Business Manager, added. “After an initial assessment, Xeikon and the customer conduct periodic reviews to obtain a true real-time picture of how long each activity takes in the print room, looking for opportunities to eliminate wasted time and workflow bottlenecks. The end result is a more efficient and profitable production print operation that provides the ability to compare workflow periods and shifts, individual presses, press groups, and other benchmarks. It encourages a culture of continuous improvement backed by data that makes it easy for operators and management to quickly identify and correct inefficiencies and see immediate improvement in the OEE metric. And by operating more efficiently, printing businesses can free up production capacity that allows the business to grow without the need to invest in additional equipment or staff.”