A Risk Worth Taking
Investments must give a good return. It is fairly easy to
calculate the return for a press, but it is difficult to set a
figure for the actual benefit gained for integrated workflow
solutions. Heidelberg News has recalculated investments in three
cases in relation to the benefits they bring - what is known as
return on investment (ROI). Heidelberg expert, Armin Hespeler,
Product Manager for Prinect, was there to field our questions.
Mr. Hespeler, you have been measuring the financial success of three print shops that have integrated their processes with PrinectWorkflow. What did you find out?
Armin Hespeler: Alongside qualitative improvements, such as faster throughput times or error-free print data, we were primarily interested in the way in which these improvements affected the balance sheets of the three companies. And the results here were impressive. Over a period of, on average, five years, the savings of all three printing firms amounts to several million US Dollar. Total investments in Prinect solutions of an average of 264,000 US Dollar (200,000 Euro) must be set against this. Given the specific general conditions relating to Mediahaus Biering in Munich, for instance, once you calculate in growth in productivity and increased efficiencies, this company saves around 11 million US Dollar (8.3 million Euro) with the help of our seamless color workflow system Prinect Color Solutions. For a total investment of 330,151 US Dollar (250,000 Euro) this gives a return on investment of 3,295 percent. Admittedly, to achieve this level, everything from the order structure to the training competence of the employees has to be right; but the excellent manner in which Mediahaus Biering has implemented this clearly shows what there is still to be found in the production processes.
What do the figures from the other firms look like?
Armin Hespeler: With the introduction of the Prinect Printready prepress workf low system and the Prinect Prinance industry software, the Berlin firm of druckpunkt Druckerei und Repro GmbH has achieved potential savings of 4.4 million US dollars (3.3 million Euro) for the period 2004 to 2008. In particular, this company wanted to find out which of its areas were actually making a profit and what would be better outsourced. Thanks to Prinect, not only was it possible to find this out, but via new "process transparency" any employee can now access all the information he or she needs at any time. This has allowed druckpunkt to achieve turnaround in profitability, as there are no longer any unprofitable orders being handled. Again, Druckhaus Beineke Dickmanns, which has also introduced Prinect Printready and Prinect Prinance, is profiting from savings to the tune of an average of 792,500 US Dollar (600,000 Euro) per year. Among other things, this sum is the result of enhanced data quality in prepress - in particular when it comes to the pref lighting of PDF files on the part of the customers. Thanks to automated and standardized processing of orders, productivity, based on order throughput with the same number of employees, is exactly twice what it was before. In addition,the overall procedure of order processing has been optimized at the same time as achieving closer contact with the printing company's customers.
What are the decisive criteria for such a high ROI?
Armin Hespeler: All three companies have exactly those Prinect modules that they need - and in each individual case these modules complement each other perfectly. Even if you cannot install a Prinect configuration using the "plug and play" principle, the rapid and successful introduction of the system is always the result of close cooperation between Heidelberg and our customers. In addition, the three companies have basically all made a great leap forward by taking a relatively small step, as, once installed, the solution can be adapted to new conditions without any problems. And that's the real trump card when it comes to investment reliability - a card that has in fact since been played by more than one of them. Moreover, the printing firms clearly profit from the fact that we are a one-stop shop for them. This does not just ensure that there is perfect configuration of the software and hardware more or less from order acceptance to final finishing; it also means that the customers have just one point of contact for any issue that arises throughout the entirety of this chain. And that point of contact is Heidelberg. Apart from that, most Prinect users have been very quickly able to come to terms with using the workflow software, as they already knew the user interface from other Heidelberg solutions. In the final analysis, all these aspects result in productivity increases of such an order that the company is able to achieve additional orders and therefore growth with the same levels of equipment and staffing.
Are these results typical of other Prinect customers?
Armin Hespeler: Absolutely. The three companies are very different in regards to size, business model and equipment, and as a result are representative of around 90 percent of all printing firms. Obviously the ROI level differs from company to company, but the three case studies clearly show that it is worth integrating departments and processes with the help of a seamless workflow system. And since your competitors never sleep, it will presumably become even more important in the future to manage to identify the weaknesses of your own company on a permanent basis and to adapt the workflow to more exacting requirements as they arise.
You can download the complete article on the top right-hand side.
Mr. Hespeler, you have been measuring the financial success of three print shops that have integrated their processes with PrinectWorkflow. What did you find out?
Armin Hespeler: Alongside qualitative improvements, such as faster throughput times or error-free print data, we were primarily interested in the way in which these improvements affected the balance sheets of the three companies. And the results here were impressive. Over a period of, on average, five years, the savings of all three printing firms amounts to several million US Dollar. Total investments in Prinect solutions of an average of 264,000 US Dollar (200,000 Euro) must be set against this. Given the specific general conditions relating to Mediahaus Biering in Munich, for instance, once you calculate in growth in productivity and increased efficiencies, this company saves around 11 million US Dollar (8.3 million Euro) with the help of our seamless color workflow system Prinect Color Solutions. For a total investment of 330,151 US Dollar (250,000 Euro) this gives a return on investment of 3,295 percent. Admittedly, to achieve this level, everything from the order structure to the training competence of the employees has to be right; but the excellent manner in which Mediahaus Biering has implemented this clearly shows what there is still to be found in the production processes.
What do the figures from the other firms look like?
Armin Hespeler: With the introduction of the Prinect Printready prepress workf low system and the Prinect Prinance industry software, the Berlin firm of druckpunkt Druckerei und Repro GmbH has achieved potential savings of 4.4 million US dollars (3.3 million Euro) for the period 2004 to 2008. In particular, this company wanted to find out which of its areas were actually making a profit and what would be better outsourced. Thanks to Prinect, not only was it possible to find this out, but via new "process transparency" any employee can now access all the information he or she needs at any time. This has allowed druckpunkt to achieve turnaround in profitability, as there are no longer any unprofitable orders being handled. Again, Druckhaus Beineke Dickmanns, which has also introduced Prinect Printready and Prinect Prinance, is profiting from savings to the tune of an average of 792,500 US Dollar (600,000 Euro) per year. Among other things, this sum is the result of enhanced data quality in prepress - in particular when it comes to the pref lighting of PDF files on the part of the customers. Thanks to automated and standardized processing of orders, productivity, based on order throughput with the same number of employees, is exactly twice what it was before. In addition,the overall procedure of order processing has been optimized at the same time as achieving closer contact with the printing company's customers.
What are the decisive criteria for such a high ROI?
Armin Hespeler: All three companies have exactly those Prinect modules that they need - and in each individual case these modules complement each other perfectly. Even if you cannot install a Prinect configuration using the "plug and play" principle, the rapid and successful introduction of the system is always the result of close cooperation between Heidelberg and our customers. In addition, the three companies have basically all made a great leap forward by taking a relatively small step, as, once installed, the solution can be adapted to new conditions without any problems. And that's the real trump card when it comes to investment reliability - a card that has in fact since been played by more than one of them. Moreover, the printing firms clearly profit from the fact that we are a one-stop shop for them. This does not just ensure that there is perfect configuration of the software and hardware more or less from order acceptance to final finishing; it also means that the customers have just one point of contact for any issue that arises throughout the entirety of this chain. And that point of contact is Heidelberg. Apart from that, most Prinect users have been very quickly able to come to terms with using the workflow software, as they already knew the user interface from other Heidelberg solutions. In the final analysis, all these aspects result in productivity increases of such an order that the company is able to achieve additional orders and therefore growth with the same levels of equipment and staffing.
Are these results typical of other Prinect customers?
Armin Hespeler: Absolutely. The three companies are very different in regards to size, business model and equipment, and as a result are representative of around 90 percent of all printing firms. Obviously the ROI level differs from company to company, but the three case studies clearly show that it is worth integrating departments and processes with the help of a seamless workflow system. And since your competitors never sleep, it will presumably become even more important in the future to manage to identify the weaknesses of your own company on a permanent basis and to adapt the workflow to more exacting requirements as they arise.
You can download the complete article on the top right-hand side.
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Here you may download the complete article in pdf format in English, French or Spanish.
