Is Prinect really worth it?

[Slice]

We are looking at Prinect. We have 3 Heidi 40" presses running general commercial work, sales about $20MM annually. The plant runs 5.5 days x 24hrs. As usual, we are really frugal and thinly staffed. What is your experience in this system saving enough press time in two years to cover the capital outlay of about $30K?

Thanks

PK

 

[Boneck]

We have had it for the last 7 years... it performs well. What do you currently have? Are you upgrading or how are you planning on utilizing it as a tool to recover that investment? If you implement the prepress interface for passing along the ink key settings, it can certainly save you time and dollars on your make-readies. What else are you expecting it to do for you?
ss

 

[Slice]

We currently use XMF for layouts. Usually the guys can get the press on colour in 15 minutes or less, but are thinking Prinect would speed that up and pay for itself by reducing press makeready. So it needs to save press time for us in order to recoup the cash outlay.

PK

 

[WharfRat]

The Heidi workflow has many parts - which operations do you want Prinect to do?
I can't imagine what parts you are looking at for 30K.

MSD

 

[AutomaticWork]

Heidelberg says:

Heidelberg says:

Combining all of the above Prinect components can reduce overall startup paper waste by 50% to 60% and significantly shorten makeready time. See Print Shop Saves Time, Materials, Labor & Money with Heidelberg
If you even save 10% of paper waste that would save lots of money...
You are able to shorten your prepress time!

 

[c2k]

One word - YES!

We came from a Creo Brisque workflow and upgraded to the heidelberg prinect workflow in 2007. We are able to turn around proofs and jobs around much faster since it offers more automation for both pre-press and pressroom department.

I really like the signa station imposition software, it has a steep learning curve, but once you get a hand of it, it's just a breeze.

However, if your press room does not have the direct pre-press interface license which is fine, the ink profiles can be transferred onto a card.

 

[mkuik]

You need to get enough out of Prinect to get your jobs and profiles sent to your machine. Then when you are doing makereadies all you need to do is call up sheet size and profiles and you are ready to go. No more 15 minutes getting color. If your machine is set up correctly you should be on color in 30 to 40 sheets. Thats right one pull. If you were at color at the end of your last run and your profiles come in correctly you do not need 300 sheets of paper to get color. We do 8 min makereadies on a 2012 XL105 10 color. Always runs 4/4 at 14000/hr. 8 Minutes includes plate change. (we have Inpress) It does not get any better than this