Flexibility in a digital age

Since April 2011, a German company called Heberndorfer Leistenfabrik GmbH has been producing digitally printed profile bars using a single pass mode (roll to roll) on a Hymmen Jupiter Digital Printing Line.

Hymmen says it offered an innovative technology, together with a reliable and partnership-based cooperation, to Heberndorfer, so that the company can positively differentiate itself from its competition.

Since that time, a second digital printing line, much larger than the first, has been installed at Heberndorfer, whose managing directors, Christian and Sascha Horn, are enthusiastically talking about the possibilities this gives them to meet new customer needs. In recent years, Heberndorfer

Leistenfabrik's customers have become more demanding and it was increasingly important to them that the quality of the flooring decor - and that of the profiles - should be exactly the same.

The number of decors demanded is growing, therefore the customers' interest in a few decors in mass production is falling. However, it still has a 70% share of production. The remaining 30% makes approximately 70% of all the different decors.

This situation has caused considerable costs for Heberndorfer.

"Due to the minimum purchase volume, our stock of decor paper was between 1,000 and 2,000m2 and thus always rather high," said Christian and Sascha Horn.

Furthermore, they were facing much higher paper prices compared to the flooring industry because their decor paper is printed on the laboratory machines of the printers and further processed into finish foils, in contrast to laminate flooring manufacturers.

Every year, decor papers worth several thousand euro had to be destroyed, either because of the changing product programme of the customer, or because the paper became too old and therefore useless.

A further problem was that special décor requests could no longer be fulfilled. On the one hand, the rotational printers have ceased production of small lot sizes due to economic reasons; on the other, it was not always possible to realise these with the rotational printing method, since the customer itself had produced the decors with a digital printing machine.

The Jupiter Digital Printing Line
As a service provider, Heberndorfer Leistenfabrik GmbH always wants to fulfill its customers' requirements. Therefore it is necessary to offer to the flooring customer those profiles which fit exactly to the decor of the special flooring programme -and this with a volume of less than 1,000m2 per decor within the whole product life cycle.

In order to secure market acceptance, a great product variety of individual decors became necessary. Even if the lot sizes of some decors exceeded 20,000m2/year, it was still the case that a commercial customer of Heberndorfer ordered just 30 profiles for flooring.

Despite more product variety, delivery times have either not changed, or could even be reduced. The shortened product development cycles of its customers had to be adopted by the supplier.

"Such a fast and flexible reaction does not only require a good internal process management," explained Sascha Horn.

"Additionally, we followed an extensive investment strategy, together with many new developments and expansions."

Very soon the management of Heberndorfer realised that implementing a digital printing machine in the process of decor production is the answer to these new customer requirements: The required quantity of paper - even the smallest lot sizes - can be printed with the desired decor, just in time.

Thus the storage can be significantly reduced for many decors, the destruction of decor paper is reduced, and the desired decor is available at the right time.

The management was dealing with the issue of digital printing for quite a long time, as numerous discussions with various manufacturers of industrial digital printing machines failed.

Finally, the brothers Horn met Hymmen Industrieanlagen GmbH from Bielefeld, via a well-known customer from the flooring industry. At that time, Hymmen says it had already proved to be a strong partner to its customers in plant engineering and in supporting the development of new process technologies.

Hymmen was recommended by the customer for the development, installation and start-up of an industrial digital printing machine in single-pass mode from roll to roll.

Hymmen could not only offer the machine, but an integrated concept, including highly professional colour management, support and training of the personnel, and support with the decor development and reproduction. That turned out to be the success factor, says Hymmen.

"Everyone can print coloured fantasy decors digitally. But thanks to the outstanding know-how of Hymmen, it is possible to reproduce exactly the decor of our flooring customers. A clean colour management ensures the highest quality of print image and colour-matching," said Christian Horn.

Hymmen says that it, and its strong system partners such as Cruse (scanner) and K-Flow (software), have enabled Heberndorfer to master the highly sophisticated technology of digital printing.

"We were in good hands with Hymmen since they have given us the necessary process stability," said Christian Horn, summarising the partnership-based cooperation.

Hymmen had done a lot of development work in advance. Following numerous trials, the digital printing machine was precisely adjusted to the needs of Heberndorfer Leistenfabrik in the technology centre in Rödinghausen.

During installation and start-up of the line at Heberndorfer, Hymmen says it has supported its customer in overcoming bottlenecks. Complete batches were produced for Heberndorfer on the Hymmen laboratory machine in Rödinghausen up to April 2011. That was when the Hymmen Jupiter Digital Printing Line was finally put into operation in Wurzbach.

Evaluation of the investment
The necessary quantities which make the investment profitable are produced with the Hymmen Jupiter Digital Printing line in a single-pass mode.

Heberndorfer could expand its service portfolio and thus hold on to its customers. Furthermore, the company was successful in winning new customers within the short period since April 2011: Since then, 350 decors, and rising, have been printed on the digital printing machine.

In the near future, Heberndorfer expects 6-800 decors.

Feedback from customers is considered to be very good by Christian and Sascha Horn. On the one hand there was no feedback. "That is good, since the customers obviously have not noticed the change from the rotation method to digital printing," explained Christian Horn. "On the other hand, customers reacted positively to the new product development cycles, which are 10 times faster now."

In cooperation with the customer it is possible to sort out 10 decors, or even more, per day on site in Wurzbach. Thus Heberndorfer has a significant advantage compared to its competitors.

Outlook
The investment at Heberndorfer was done in a forward-looking way: Due to its modular system, Hymmen says capacity can be extended to a 600mm printing width by adding further print heads.

To be well-prepared for the increasing demand, Heberndorfer plans to extend the decor data base. Technically it is thinking about adding the colours white and light cyan, or light magenta, to make even more brilliant decors.

Furthermore, it is developing structured surfaces and compressible inks. "Throughout the development process, Christian and Sascha Horn have been continuing their fruitful dialogue with us," says Hymmen.

In the meantime, Heberndorfer has already ordered and installed the second Digital Printing Line, which is much larger than the first machine.

This digital printing line, of impressive size, was the one that welcomed visitors to Hymmen's booth at the Ligna Fair in Germany in May 2013. It showed the industrial dimension of digital printing.

During live demonstrations, visitors could regularly see the pre-impregnated paper racing through in single-pass from roll to roll underneath the print-heads at high speed (50m/min).

So the customers could see for themselves the optical resolution of 1,000dpi. The exhibited digital printing line was the model JPT-W 840, with a printing width of up to more than 800mm.