High press and postpress system availability is particularly important in digital production in view of short delivery times. Service and maintenance have a correspondingly high priority. CPI Druckdienstleistungen GmbH in Erfurt, Germany, which specializes in print on demand, has therefore signed a support and maintenance contract with Muller Martini for its two Vareo and Vareo PRO perfect binders and two InfiniTrim cutting robots – and uses the MPOWER service customer portal.
"Sometimes only two hours pass between the time an order is received and the finished end products are handed over to the customer," says Technical Manager Steve Gemeinhard. "It is therefore essential that our equipment is running at all times. Ensuring production and high machine availability are essential in our business field. All workflows and production steps must mesh – including, of course, the perfect binders and cutting robots as the final links in the chain."
For CPI, the service and maintenance aspect has gained additional importance following the acquisition last year of the Erfurt plant of Customized Business Services, which specializes in digital production. "With regular maintenance intervals, we ensure high productivity of the equipment," says Steve Gemeinhard. "Thanks to the lively exchange with the service specialists of the machine manufacturers, we can optimize the performance of our systems. We achieve this by means of both software and mechanical upgrades."
"We have been using MPOWER for a number of years"
CPI has therefore signed a support and maintenance/flexo service contract with Muller Martini for its Erfurt production facility. In addition, CPI and Muller Martini meet on the MPOWER service customer portal. "We have been using MPOWER for several years. The documentation available on it, the web store for ordering spare parts and the e-Call for emergencies make for simpler and faster (problem) solutions."
On special training days, CPI Druckdienstleistungen GmbH in Erfurt, which has also concluded service contracts with other press manufacturers and, according to Steve Gemeinhard, has also had good experience with them, also trains its own personnel in each case. This means that maintenance work and small repairs can be carried out by the company itself.
The Technical Manager is convinced "that networking between the machines and their manufacturers will become increasingly important in the future. This is because we need to receive fast and selective support for troubleshooting and product optimization in order to enormously reduce or, ideally, even avoid downtimes for our tightly scheduled production."
Two perfect binders and two three-knife trimmers each
The maintenance contract between CPI and Muller Martini includes two perfect binders – a Vareo and a Vareo PRO – as well as two InfiniTrim trimming robots. CPI uses these to produce a wide range of softcover books for customers around the world in Erfurt with 13 employees working in two shifts. Their average print run is 2.7.
"Especially in the current climate, digital production is enormously important to guarantee short delivery times," says Steve Gemeinhard. "We need to make products available immediately at any time, in any run size, without incurring storage costs for customers. They want to retrieve titles and quantities based on current demand."
On the subject of Smart Services, also read this blog on the Muller Martini website.