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IT-SPECIALIST QITS
FUELS FUTURE
GROWTH WITH
INTELLIGENT
PRODUCTION
CONCEPT
IT and business services
QITS, an ADCO group company
Company Name: QITS, an ADCO group
company
Industry: IT and business services
Founded: 1998, as a spin-off from parent
company ADCO Holding
Location: Ratingen, Germany
Services: Transactional and omni-channel
communication
Relationship with Canon: 1994
Objective
Meet increasingly complex customer
requests for high quality individualised
communication by expanding production
capability, optimising efficiency and
increasing flexibility.
Challenges
• Growing volume of individual shortrun jobs with high level of emphasis on
accuracy and security
• Demand for highest quality and colour
precision, regardless of production
technology
• Need for process optimisation from file
to print to mailing, at high speed and
with no errors
Approach
Complementing its existing inkjet solution,
QITS integrated a new ColorStream 6500
Chroma continuous feed inkjet system
and three imagePRESS C10000VP toner
presses, linked by a PRISMAproduction
workflow with a secure data feed from the
QITS DataSafe®. Transition to virtualised
PRISMAproduction environment.
Benefits
• Seamless, efficient, high-speed
production with exceptional uptime
• Optimal flexibility to meet growing
volumes of ultra-short runs
• Highest quality digital output of
increasingly complex customer jobs
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Intelligent integration:
data, production and
individualisation
From state-of-the-art premises in
Ratingen, QITS offers IT services,
transactional document production and
processing, and managed omni-channel
communications. Clients are mediumsized enterprises including banks,
property companies, insurance and
energy providers, who choose QITS to
support their digital transformation.
Over 20 years the company has
earned an excellent market reputation
as a leader in output management,
production intelligence, business
process outsourcing and handling
highly sensitive and business-critical
customer data.
Looking to the future, QITS philosophy
is to integrate that data intelligently with
production and individualisation to meet
changing customer expectations.
The road to full digital
colour
QITS already identified a shift in
customer demands ten years ago.
With communication moving to
digital platforms, customers wanted
print to deliver more impact, and
to link analogue and digital
communications channels. The
logical step was to transition to
high quality full colour production.
In 2010 QITS was about to invest in a
new colour toner press to add to its
mono line-up when revolutionary colour
inkjet technologies started to hit the
headlines. “Until this point we’d ruled
inkjet out because of the investment
level required and the quality of the
printed output” explains Managing
Director Oliver Winkelmann.
A preview of the ColorStream 3500
continuous inkjet press with pigmented
inks changed that pre-conception.
“We really valued the collaboration with the Canon
product team and how they took note of our specific
requirements. The trust we developed was a strong
foundation for our decision to invest with Canon.”
Philipp Schneider
Project Manager
Won over by the print quality and the productivity implications, QITS
analysed the potential of moving to white paper production. The
decision was made to install its first ColorStream press in late 2011, a
progressive move that gave QITS a clear competitive advantage.
“We always said we needed to offer digital quality that came very
close to offset,” reflects Oliver Winkelmann, “otherwise we would
never make the switch successfully. It took time to tackle those
reservations, but we believed in the technology, built additional
expertise and worked hard to promote the benefits. Gradually we
moved most work to full colour digital production.”
“At some point, the debate was over. Quality stopped being an
issue and our customers saw how they could optimise processes
and eliminate offset pre-prints. By 2018, inkjet had become a quality
standard, even for our large direct mail clients.”
“
1000 individual jobs a
day, and growing
At the same time, QITS saw the need to
optimise production in the face of the
sustained trend to shorter runs.
“We’re not about mass
”
production, we specialise in
managing a high volume of
smaller jobs. In a typical day
we process more than 1000
individual orders from receipt
of file, to production, to
dispatch, and that number
is increasing.”
Oliver Winkelmann
Managing Director
Time to make the full switch to digital
colour production, and to rethink the
press line-up to add capacity and
production flexibility. The decision was
made to add a second continuous
inkjet system, along with three new
cutsheet digital colour presses to
replace legacy systems.
Having considered various options,
QITS came down in favour of Canon’s
single supplier solution. This centres
on a new ColorStream 6500 Chroma
continuous inkjet press with Chromera
inkset (to run alongside the original
ColorStream 3500), together with
three imagePRESS C10000VP toner
presses with PRISMAsync controllers.
All four presses are linked using
Canon’s PRISMAproduction workflow
management software. Five end-of-life
VarioPrint 5160 mono systems were
taken out of service, along with two
digital presses from other suppliers.
“The systems are extremely stable and working very
well. We expected it from the ColorStream based on
our experience with the first system, but we’ve been
very impressed by the reliability of the imagePRESS
technology, particularly considering the high volumes
we’re putting through these presses”
Daniel Wyen
Production Manager
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Seamless, flexible,
dependable
Expanding print production was
part of a comprehensive investment
programme including a new fully
automated high speed mail inserting
line, following an Industry 4.0
philosophy of end-to-end
process optimisation.
The ColorStream and imagePRESS
systems were up and running by June
2019, just 14 weeks after QITS confirmed
its decision. “It was a very quick
installation, with virtually no teething
problems, and the entire line-up has
been running superbly ever since,” says
Philipp Schneider.
Throughput of 40 million documents
a year, equating to around 150 million
pages, means that production uptime is
mission-critical for QITS.
“Being able to link all our output with
one software solution was decisive,”
Philipp Schneider continues. “Now
we have just one data feed from our
QITS DataSafe® to PRISMAproduction
regardless of which press is being used.
That would have been impossible with
equipment from multiple vendors,
using different spool systems and data
formats. PRISMAproduction simplifies
everything and eliminates the variables
that complicate daily production.”
Jobs can also be moved between
presses without any colour management
adjustments. The entire production
workflow across all devices is certified
to FOGRA Process Standard Digital,
giving QITS absolute certainty of
cross-device calibration, colour accuracy
and consistency. “It’s effectively a
technical assurance for us and our
customers that our blended inkjet and
toner production concept really works,
with no colour compromises.”
“In Canon we’ve found a partner who totally
understands our needs and can translate our needs
into solutions. We’ve made a lot of changes and
sustained investments to increase our capacity to meet
increasingly complex customer demands. Now it’s time
to go and win new clients who can benefit from our
best-in-class capabilities.”
Oliver Winkelmann
Managing Director
“Our major challenge is to produce each individual job exactly
according to the customer’s instructions, at consistent quality, fast,
and with absolute control over production and mailing,” summarises
Daniel Wyen. “The seamless production workflow we have now
addresses all these demands and ramps up our productivity,
because we have optimal flexibility and can process incoming
data more quickly.”
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