Poynton, Cheshire-based Galloways made a major investment in efficiency and automation when it bought a new five-colour plus coater Speedmaster CX 102 earlier this year.
Matt Galloway, who officially takes over as managing director at the family-owned firm on 1 January, described Heidelberg Assistant as “user-friendly, simple and informative”.
“The key to it is full transparency between us and Heidelberg, for example Heidelberg engineers can log into it. We have unique logins so each person can see their part and I can see all of it. It’s a two-way conversation through a hub, covering finance, production and overall management.
“Heidelberg has provided a fantastic level of support since we put the machine in, it does feel like a genuine partnership.”
The company employs 38 staff and has sales of £3.5m. It offers a full range of services from pre-press to digital, wide-format and litho printing as well as web-to-print, and has a broad spread of local and national customers.
Galloway said the firm had been pleased with the improvements gained in overall equipment efficiency (OEE) with its new setup.
“On top of the usual busy period at this time of year, from October to December, we have been extra busy. The new press has opened up new markets for us – the low waste and setup times gives us a wow factor,” he added.
“We’ve found something of a sweet spot in high pagination brochures with runs of under 10,000. Four minute changeovers between sections is phenomenal compared to what we were doing before.
As well as access to performance data, Heidelberg Assistant gives users a single point of access to Heidelberg products and services. It works on PCs, tablets and smartphones. It is available free of charge to Heidelberg customers.
Heidelberg UK managing director Ryan Miles said it introduced “a new era of digital customer communication and collaboration”.
“The Heidelberg Assistant is a key solution in the digital transformation process at Heidelberg. The innovative applications of this open digital platform offer our customers access to important performance data and” says Ryan Miles, Managing Director of Heidelberg UK.
