[Smart Printing] Does the printing Industry need smart Factories?

Seeing that the environmental policy will change the current industrial situation of oversupply, the layout of printing business will also shift, so printing enterprises began to worry about establishing a more efficient business management system to cope with the new situation, smart factory or a goal of printing enterprises.

The wishful thinking of printing enterprises

Today, printing companies are under pressure mostly because of oversupply, and printing companies of different sizes feel the pressure differently. Although the total output value of national printing is very high, more than half of the share is concentrated in the hands of enterprises above scale, which only account for 3% of the number of enterprises and the turnover of more than 50 million yuan. Therefore, small and medium-sized printing enterprises suffer from the embarrassment of large orders and small orders but competitors.

In fact, the pressure of oversupply has been so long that many in the industry are complaining, as if the shrinking printing market has become the best excuse for failing to improve business. However, according to statistics, the total output value of domestic printing did not shrink, and some printing enterprises are still expanding equipment. Ask suppliers such as Heidelberg and Komori whether most of the presses they are selling these days are fully automated "smart" new models. Ask a full-process ERP supplier like Oryx whether all their customers have installed C2M intelligent processes when they import ERP. The answer is probably yes. This raises the question of what printing companies investing in new technologies are planning to do if the printing market shrinks.

Oversupply is a long-standing problem that cannot be solved by individual enterprises in a short period of time. And those who care about the trend know that the next thing that will affect the whole industry most is the industrial earthquake caused by environmental policies.

Recently, the government has elevated environmental inspection to a certain level as a national policy. If printing enterprises want to pass environmental protection inspection, they are bound to invest in environmental protection facilities that have nothing to do with business benefits. This pressure is far greater than the pressure brought by oversupply. There is no business but to spend money, which is inevitably too heavy for many small and medium-sized printing enterprises to bear. So the authors reckon that the intense environmental pressure will push a significant proportion of companies out of the printing business. Then, the original orders produced in these printing companies will be free, if the proportion is large enough, the environmental policy will become the epicenter of the earthquake in the printing industry, is likely to be the long-standing oversupply of this problem will be shattered. Once the oversupply disappears, the map of the business will have to be rearranged. If a printing company has to hire more staff to fill the extra orders, can it possibly cope with future changes? This is how printing companies are now investing in "smart" hardware and software.

Definition of smart factory

When it comes to artificial intelligence, Ma said he prefers the term "machine intelligence," not to turn machines into human beings, but to let machines do what they can do more efficiently than humans. Indeed, Alphago was created not to beat human experts, but Google's project to implement and improve machine learning techniques, which proved that, given the rules and rules, a machine can learn in 24 hours than a go genius in 10 years. The rules are as complex as Weiqi, and the changes that can be caused by each move are countless. Machines can do better than humans. Then, how complex is the printing technology or production process compared to Weiqi?

Imagine a printing press automatically printing or inking; The order management system converts the customer's demand for printed matter into the specifications of the printing process and then into the price; ERP management system to convert the paper construction single into glue or horse riding set large version of the command, command the computer according to the command to plate... These original by senior salesman or workshop master to do the work, is there a rule to follow? Would machines do a better job than people? If the answer is yes, we can define a "smart factory" -- what can be handled by machines, as much as possible, and what can be managed by computers, as much as possible.

The digitalization of printing technology since 2000 mostly uses computers to solve repeated processes, but as for determining which digital process can meet the needs of customers, it still depends on people to decide. Once the order increases, people have to follow. Now that printing has been digitized for 20 years, the rules for determining "order requirements" and "print specifications" are not too complicated for computers to handle. If the computer can be taught to judge which process to use, let the computer command the automation process execution, is this "intelligent"? Today, ERP has been able to use order information to command production, so that the construction order is "paperless", and each production process will not be chaotic, and only in this way, it is possible to deal with tens of thousands of orders a day.

In addition to production, printing companies have many departments dealing with a variety of work, the daily list of work or can be from the database of other departments of the number changes, intelligent ERP even "subpoenas" are paperless. For example, there is no need to subpoena the warehouse manager for today's work in the warehouse, or for the printed matter stored in the workshop yesterday, or for the new consumables purchased by the purchasing department yesterday. Relevant personnel can also see their work to be completed from the ERP work list. The most important thing is that the summons is paperless, which means that all departments have standards for the way they operate. Employees no longer need long-term experience because of the SOP standard operating procedure.

Smart factories are not unmanned factories, nor are robots operating printing presses, but printing companies can use "information" to drive the work procedures of various departments or production processes. Many people think that smart printing plant is a thing of the future, but today many printing companies are using such a management system to deal with the daily printing business, this is not a smart printing plant? The author believes that the difference between intelligent factory and traditional printing factory is that no one knows when the order comes in, and no one knows when the printed matter is sent away by express delivery. As long as the computer knows, it is good.