Packaging printers are continually in search of productive processes that use less labor to meet the needs of their customers. The hands-on methods required by package printing press operators in the past have become troublesome in this growing business environment. Removing the operator’s tweaking of the controls and allowing the machines to optimize process control and automation technology in the way they were intended improves efficiency.  

Press automation is comprehensive enough to allow the entire print process, from makeready to run to washup, to move automatically through all the scheduled jobs with limited human interaction. This has proven so beneficial that it is natural to imagine the benefits of automation extending to all machines in the package print production process. This is the concept of a “Smart Factory”— which can be described as machines talking to machines and moving job information automatically between them as the print job progresses through the shop.