New Solutions Provider With Integrated Workflows For Greater Efficiency And Automation

KBA Complete – We make your business more profitable!

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As a team of independent consultants, KBA Complete offers a diversity of solutions geared to sustained strengthening of the future prospects for businesses in the graphic arts industry.
The tasks to be handled by print and media service providers are becoming more and more complex. Ever greater volumes of print are being produced to ever shorter deadlines. 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: “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, however, 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 GmbH, 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.”

Leading MIS to control and optimise print production

KBA Complete analyses 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 unique capabilities of the Hiflex MIS, suppliers and customers can also be integrated into the overall process by making use of modern Internet technologies. Nevertheless, 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.

Sights set on customer benefits

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 foreground. 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 materials consumption, and increased revenues through expansion into new business fields and market segments.

Expertise drives competitive advantages

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.

Success is the goal

“The success of our customers is our goal, says Thomas Göcke, head of marketing for KBA Complete. “We are convinced that future success for a print and media service provider is dependent on effective professionalisation and optimisation of all the involved processes.” The process analyses performed by KBA Complete pinpoint those individual areas in which savings could be made and in which cost-intensive activities are concentrated – as the basis for innovative solutions enabling the customer to emerge from the crowd. Practical implementation true to the KBA Complete motto: “We make your business more profitable!”