‘With its years of experience and commitment to after-sales support, partnering with Beswick Machinery will enable us to sell to and service significantly more Esko AVT customers throughout the region,’ remarks Johan Bastiaen, territory sales manager for Africa.
Riaan Hopley, Beswick Machinery’s Web Fed Division product manager, adds: ‘We’re pleased to partner with this industry leader and innovator, and believe that the Esko AVT line of automated inline inspection hardware and software has the potential to greatly enhance the accuracy, efficiency and productivity of our customers’ operations. We look forward to supplying them with the very latest technology to help boost their businesses.’
According to Riaan, a prime example of this technology is Esko’s iCenter cloud-based platform because it empowers converters to manage and control quality and production standards across jobs, printing equipment, shifts and sites via a customisable automated and connected workflow that integrates seamlessly with existing ERP, MIS and prepress solutions.
‘With iCenter, the converter’s in-house AVT inspection specialist defines all quality standards and categorises them according to brand and product family,’ he explains. ‘This is a one-time undertaking when first deploying iCenter. Additions and adjustments are only needed when on-boarding new customers or products that have different quality requirements. Once the job specific quality standards have been defined in iCenter, they are automatically attached to every job.’
Generating ready-for-inspection jobs in a central cloud-based platform significantly reduces job set-up complexity, saves an average of five to seven minutes per job and frees up operators to focus on other job set-up and production tasks.”
Image vision intelligence embedded in iCenter automatically recognises the important parts of a package, such as logos, barcodes, die-lines, nutrition facts and other special elements, and applies the sensitivity settings accordingly. The operator doesn’t need to deal with inspection set-up to manually mark elements for inspection or even know their varying sensitivity settings.
‘Generating ready-for-inspection jobs in an accessible central “source of truth” platform ensures that vital quality set-up-related knowledge is captured, organised and available automatically for every print run,’ Riaan adds. ‘This ensures that brands’ requirements for global consistency across all products are fully met, regardless of when and where they are printed or the operator’s skills. It also significantly reduces job set-up complexity and time (saving an average of five to seven minutes per job) and frees operators to focus on other job set-up and production tasks.’
Enhancing label roll clean-ups
Workflow Link (WFL) is an optional addition to AVT 100% Automatic Inspection systems that provides remote access to the PrintFlow data so that operators or their supervisors can edit the virtual inspected label roll before the finishing stage and optimise the waste removal process.
WFL consists of three main modules, each of which supports the various printing process stages and is seamlessly connected via a local network to enable efficient information flow throughout the process.
1. WFL press side module (inspection)
Generally installed on a printing press, laminator or digital finishing machine, this inspection module stores information and images of the detected defects and their location within the printed roll. For each printed roll, a digital roll report is stored in the database. The WFL press side module synchronises defects detected and stored by the inspection system with their accurate location on the printed web via a barcode, which is applied manually or automatically to the end of each printed roll. Barcodes are registered by the WFL press side module via a manual or automatic barcode scanner and assigned to the relevant digital roll report. These quality reports help operators or their supervisors identify problem areas and assist them in decision making processes to enhance production and deliver quality print jobs, Riaan asserts.
2. PrintFlow Manager (editing)
The optional PrintFlow Manager editing station in conjunction with the digital roll report data enables operators to determine which of the detected defects should be removed and at what stage, according to quality assurance standards. The editing station also ensures that the rewinder stops only for relevant defects, instead of every suspected defect, allowing it to run at faster speeds.
3. WFL rewinder side module (defect removal)
Usually installed on a rewinder, the WFL rewinder side module uses the information in the digitally edited roll report to automatically stop the rewinder only on the relevant defects, enabling the operator to replace defective labels or remove defective material, ensuring customers receive defect-free material.
