Mex, Switzerland, 22nd May 2025
The label market is experiencing significant shifts, affecting both brand owners and label converters. Brand owners increasingly prioritize shorter run lengths with faster delivery times, while seeking more sustainable production methods. To meet these complex challenges, converters need to turn towards new solutions to optimize their productivity and maximize the efficiency of their processes.
Today’s advanced converting machines can be digitally connected, and can therefore generate actionable data that directly improves processes, such as decreasing production waste or increasing machine uptime.
However, obtaining actionable machine data presents technical challenges: from sensor and hardware limitations to the complexity of analyzing the collected information. Despite these difficulties, two types of data prove essential:
- Live production monitoring that enables production managers to address unexpected downtime and optimize daily operations to meet weekly and monthly targets
- Detailed analytics on completed jobs, including material usage, waste production, and average production speeds, enabling better optimization of reprints and resource planning
For today’s label converters, profitability hinges on optimizing production uptime, reducing material waste, and identifying areas for improvement.
BOBST Connect: turning machine data into business insights
Helping converters to harness the power of data-led decision-making, BOBST Connect is cloud-based digital platform that enhances and improves packaging production. It brings data and digital services together in one fully connected platform, with BOBST machine insights and expertise built-in, enabling overview and orchestration of the production process.
The platform provides several significant features designed to drive value for converters, ranging from equipment monitoring and performance management to BOBST ACCUCHECK system reporting.
Equipment monitoring offers live monitoring of machine metrics such as speed, produced meters, waste, and overall utilization, all available remotely to monitor multiple production sites simultaneously.
Performance management provides detailed analytics revealing potential areas for improvement, ranging from basic production metrics to comprehensive analysis of downtime reasons with duration and frequency of stops. BOBST machines are natively integrated with BOBST Connect, eliminating the need for manual data entry from operators.
Finally, for DIGITAL MASTER series presses, BOBST ACCUCHECK system’s integration provides inspection reports, enabling converters to have a comprehensive view of production quality.
Technology in action: helping Kemna Druck Kamen meet tight delivery deadlines
Family-owned Kemna Druck Kamen, a printing company based in Kamen, Germany with nearly 50 years of experience, has successfully implemented BOBST Connect to meet today’s label production challenges. Now in its third generation of leadership under the Heckmann family, the company has diversified and evolved from a garage-based operation founded in 1971 to a technologically advanced printing business.
“One of our key differentiators is short delivery time, sometimes even same-day delivery,” said Martin Heckmann, Co-CEO of Kemna Druck Kamen. “This puts significant pressure on our production team to optimize processes and continuously improve our workflow.”
With the DIGITAL MASTER machine, we needed to understand how to optimize and maximize the productivity. Getting this data manually is challenging as we don’t want to overload the operator with additional tasks of inserting periodic information, in addition to analyzing and maintaining this data.”
Real-world benefits
BOBST Connect has delivered tangible benefits to Kemna Druck Kamen’s daily operations. “The platform shows us how effectively we are using the machine,” Martin Heckmann explains. “The equipment monitoring feature gives us a quick glance at machine status, production metrics, and utilization. This is particularly useful for intervening if we see a long downtime.”
The performance management feature has proven especially valuable for short runs, where analytics can use previous machine data to optimise setup time for reprint jobs. The converter states in fact that production has been tripled since the DIGITAL MASTER 340 label press has been installed at the site.
Integration into existing workflows was seamless. “You don’t really need training to use BOBST Connect,” notes Martin Heckmann. “The dashboard and platform are easy to understand and use. The DIGITAL MASTER 340 machine sends the required data automatically, so there’s no additional effort required from our side.”
Looking ahead
BOBST continues to develop the platform based on converter needs, working to enable seamless integration and communication between BOBST machines and other equipment on the production floor. For label converters like Kemna Druck Kamen, BOBST Connect represents a significant advancement toward the connected, data-driven future of packaging production.
By transforming machine data into actionable insights without burdening operators, BOBST is helping converters maintain their competitive edge through enhanced efficiency, reduced waste, and optimized production.
