Printing Innovation Asia Issue 3 2021
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KP-Connect Pro raises more than 50 percent In 2015 Futaba Printing and Kyowa Printing companies were consolidated into one group. The resulting synergy improved technical capacity, strengthened sales capabilities, and helped the group secure a firm management base. In order to unite the two companies, the first thing that the group did was merge their production management and process management systems so they could efficiently manage the six printing presses across the two plants. After extensive research, Futaba installed Komori's KP-Connect Pro to aid in this high-level integration of the two plants. Enhanced production management with KP-Connect Pro When Futaba Printing, founded in 1949, and Kyowa Printing, founded in 1964, were consolidated into one group, President Kikuchi promoted
changes to increase efficiency and productivity. He looked to the pressroom and focused on maximizing press productivity, which in turn would greatly improve overall profitability. Efforts were devoted to unifying and improving production management to achieve these goals. "Even if you've installed the latest printing press, it's important to schedule it according to the type of work in order to get the best performance. For example, if you plan your schedule by going from large sheets to small sheets, you only need to wash the impression cylinders once a day."
However, it wasn't easy for the shop floor to understand the importance of this type of scheduling and to actually implement it. President Kikuchi installed KP-Connect Pro, which unified the workflow of the two companies and migrated all production management tasks that had been done in Excel and on paper to KP-Connect Pro. Streamlining the workflow meant zero status calls and the reduction of office work to one-third "Before the introduction of KPConnect Pro, we created multiple documents and schedules for each
