At Printpack09, Esko Artwork showed its Suite 7 software which looks at packaging prepress all-sidedly. Suite 7 does this by refining the design tools with an industrial strength workflow for the entire supply chain that links all the players in the collaborative process compromising the precision, high-resolution feedback and security. Esko’s stand was integrated with DuPonts to show the CDI digital imager which has thus far dominated digital flexo output in India. Esko in South Asia has also become very active in driving its Kongsberg samplemaker as a POP display cutting and creasing machine for corrugated and plastic substrates. It has achieved good success for this solution not only with several customers in India but also recently at Step-Media in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, EskoArtwork’s Global Resource Centre based in Bangalore has successfully completed the integration of SAP’s ERP (enterprise resource planning) application with EskoArtwork’s ArtiosCAD software at the Swiss based Model Group. Global Resource is instrumental in the integration, which will streamline Model Group’s multi-site operations into a unified database. CENIT AG, one of the leading global system integrators and official SAP development partner and specialist in PLM (product lifecycle management), and Dr. Lauterbach & Partner GmbH, the well known SAP business partner and supplier of ERP solutions for the packaging industry also brought their expertise to this installation.
“Coordination of the existing multiple hardware and software capabilities in our production departments within a single database has been a challenge for us,” said Edoardo Finotti, leader of the Model Innovation and Competence Center (ICC). “We have been a satisfied customer of EskoArtwork for several years, and it became essential to invest in a solution which streamlined our complex operation,” adds Edoardo Finotti. “Since we offer packaging-design, print consultancy – related to packaging – and co-packing services, our new integrated software will be a hugely exciting development,” he added. “It makes sense to pool the resources of our supplying companies so that we have the best possible combination of packages. This complements our design and production operations as well as the needs of our client portfolio.”
For the first time, the involved parties set up a bidirectional online interface between SAP’s ERP solutions and EskoArtwork’s ArtiosCAD. As a result, SAP will directly manage all data — including meta data as well as ARD and MFG data ArtiosCAD’s native file format. Cad-X, the Active-X component of ArtiosCAD, is used in WEB and COM services which build the interface. This can help a company in achieving productivity. SAP remains the central controlling unit for general data structure and processes. (See a longer version of this article on www.packagingsouthasia.com which describes the activities of the Model Group.)
