Prepress UK, the pre-press specialists based in Cheltenham and Brighton, has announced the introduction of PressReporter, a software based solution to maximise productivity by providing a view of what is happening across all of a users Heidelberg presses in real time, without the need to stand in the print room, or keep popping in to see what is happening.

PressReporter continually shows the current press status of each machine: what job is on the press, how long it has been on the press, how many sheets have been run, how many times the press has stopped, why the press has stopped, and how much waste there has been. It also provides an easy to view timeline of press productivity and events, and this is all achieved automatically, without the need for any manual input.

The product is intended for any Heidelberg machine equipped with the Press Center console, as well as Heidelberg CP2000's that have the Management Gate option.

Prepress UK’s Andrew Aldridge explains further: “Whilst newer Heidelberg presses do come with some basic reporting, it is usually limited to the last 100 jobs and only shows full details for jobs run in the past 30 days – ours offers an unlimited history of all data. They also don’t present all the messages and events from the press in an easy to understand visual timeline.

“PressReporter can detect and group sheets and sections of the same job automatically and, where possible, calculate the working style so that we can report not just “impressions” but actual sheets of paper used, which is obviously easier to use for costing and estimating purposes.

“PressReporter’s user interface has been created with HTML and Javascript, meaning that all of this information can be available to anyone who needs to know, using a standard Web browser anywhere on a companies network, including desktop computers, tablets and mobile phones.”

All of that means PressReporter allows people within a company to respond quickly to any unforeseen changes on the press, such as a damaged plate, a paper misfeed, drying taking longer than expected, or plates not arrived from prepress.

The product enables people who are scheduling work for the press to see if jobs are falling behind – maybe needing a job to be moved to another press that is ahead of schedule. It allows management to make quick, precisely informed decisions based on up to minute information coming from all of a company’s printing presses.

For estimators PressReporter offers the ability to look back through the complete job history of the press to see exactly what the costs of a job were the last time it was printed, or similar jobs, when quoting for new work. The search facility makes it easy to find any job and know immediately how much press time and paper it took.

In the current climate where every cost needs to be understood and minimised PressReporter can help a business find and understand those unexpected non-productive periods and enable informed organisational decisions to ensure maximum productivity on press.

The company is working closely with Colt Press, Witham, Essex, to fine tune the product. Paul Haddow, MD of Colt Press comments: “Our three year old Heidelberg XL75 five-colour is now connected to PressReporter and we are delighted with the results. A business of our size needs to get the basic information on press and job performance quickly and accurately. Our sales team especially have found it useful to be able to see job details on press – whether that is comparing actual performance data to the quote, or keeping a client informed on job progress.

“The new Heidelberg is our key production tool, so it is important to know that we are maximising its capability all of the time – PressReporter can help us to do that. I can only imagine its capabilities would be even more important and beneficial in a multi-press situation.”

Nic Chapman, Sales Director for Prepress UK, added: “We believe that this is the most affordable comprehensive productivity package for Heidelberg presses available. In our initial trials of the software, production managers and business owners expressed their delight at how much information was available to them instantly, and via the full range of devices – computer, tablet and even phone. We believe this is a “must have” package for a great many printers in the UK.”

PressReporter from Prepress UK is priced from £4,500 including hardware and installation.