An Introduction to Digital Manufacturing and Workflow

Shorter lead times, greater efficiency, meeting sustainability goals – regardless of the priority, folding and corrugated converters are constantly seeking ways to respond to the growing demands of customers.
While each business must identify their goals and priorities and plan their own growth path, some will focus on efficiency through lowering costs and increasing labor productivity while others will strive to reduce lead times, and many will look for ways to vary offerings in conjunction with the need for customization and small batch orders.
Digital equipment provides converters with the means to meet some of these demands. However, when considering traditional workflows, where X customer jobs means X print makereadies and plates—and X finishing setups and dies—is this the ideal manufacturing workflow for a digital transformation? The answer is no.

Many converters already have adopted digital printing and added tremendous versatility to their operations. As such, digital manufacturing augments the traditional paradigm throughout the workflow. These improvements allow converters to combine and integrate the right tool for the right job, to optimize production runs based on an entire shift (or more), and not merely a single job.
Highcon is the world’s pioneer in Digital Finishing solutions, transforming the packaging and display industries. By helping manufacturers gain a deeper understanding of their workflows, Highcon’s Digital creasing and die cutting systems allow you to dynamically gang jobs and obtain substantial reductions in operational expenses and time.
In addition, as a result of our partnership with Tilia Labs, we can deliver an integrated workflow solution for digital manufacturing in a throughput-centric workflow, alongside conventional manufacturing for short and medium run production jobs. These capabilities can reduce the number of makereadies and operator time on every job enabling Highcon customers to produce more jobs per shift, increasing total throughput—and revenue. This approach is applicable to both digitally printed and conventionally printed jobs.
To better understand how you can benefit from Digital Finishing, below you will find a video introducing you to Digital Manufacturing and how to get started on your own digital transformation.

Stay tuned for our upcoming blog “Life of a File.”

For an opportunity to see the versatility of Highcon Systems in real-time, register today for our free online live demo on March 1st at 11am EST, 5pm CET.