Solutions for every industry and workflow
ZenSmart has achieved big efficiency gains at sites ranging from 100 orders a day to 50,000 plus, in applications from apparel to giftware, photo to books, wall display to corporate.
Apparel Case Study
At this site apparel from t-shirts to pyjama pants, hoodies to polos, aprons, bags, dresses, boxers and baby-wear are manufactured using DTG print.
ZenSmart processes all orders into the facility, correcting orders and right sizing artwork. It streams the orders into logical queues and applies smart batching logic to balance optimal product groupings and SLA to optimize for least cost printing.
Staff simply pull work from a Work List which automatically generates a barcode populated pick list with verification scanning built into the picklist. A barcode scan on the garment to be printed, instructs pre-treat and pulls the correct artwork when the item is ready for print.
Further down workflow another barcode scan instructs any accessories to be added to the garment before a reverse auction is conducted to find the lowest bidder for the item to be shipped to the recipient.
Enterprise scale photo and photo products case study
In this large site we installed the ZenSmart platform to provide a silver halide replacement solution for enterprise scale photo production and a surrounding group of products.
ZenSmart automated workflow which consisted of a Canon Prostream web press (which supports speeds of up to 450 feet per minute) with 3 different finishing solutions of varying levels of automation, 2 lamination choices and 2 shipping workflows.
With scale peaking at 125 images per second and over 50,000 orders per day, ZenSmart provided highly flexible dynamic queuing, batching and imposition with just in time imposition enabling Press Room supervisors to choose batch length at the last minute to optimise to paper or lamination media lengths enabling peak efficiency of rolls in downstream workflow.
Scan stations mounted over laminators and slitters together with integrations with smart cutter and collators meant that a comprehensive tracking and monitoring solution was implemented that also provided insight into staff productivity, performance and fail rates.
Giftware and die sublimation solutions case study
At this site orders are pulled from 3 different editor and order source platforms. ZenSmart runs the site according to queue rules with optimized smart batching which are driven by the batching rules the Production Supervisor has defined in ZenSmart.
Dashboards mounted on large LCD screen provide staff WIP, production speed, fail rate and units to target. Printing is submitted to a mix of Epson and Inca Onset presses which are available to print all product/finishing workflow combination via the Just in Time imposition
System. Finishing workflow supports Zund cutters alongside more manual workflow depending on product code. Products are manufactured and then combined in the Pre-Dispatch matching system with barcode scan validation of transaction membership and item quantity.
Products are dispatched via a combination of ship methods ranging from Dropship to global direct couriers such as DHL Express. Drop shipped product is dispatched with destination carrier barcodes and labels applied enabling the dropship location to simply unpack the products and scan the label to consign into the local freight or postal carrier network.
Big product range diversified photo manufacturer case study
This site with a very large product code list and lots of product options requires pulling orders from 4 different editor and order source platforms – Taopix, Printbox, a proprietary internally built editor and a corporate Order Management System.
ZenSmart pulls all orders into a coherent manufacturing stream, maps all orders to common product codes, corrects artwork and product meta data and queues work according to site rules. Work is then batched according to site specific rules that balance least cost manufacturing and SLA compliance. Work is just in time imposed enabling press and finishing type flexibility. All work is produced with Batch Sheets, Job Sheets and Text Blocks (DTG, die sublimation, digital and wide format press work) bar coded and color coded to create a plant wide SLA performance method. Scanning at every single process stage provides precise command and control with equally precise fail management accountable to the individual person and machine that triggers any fails.
Shipping is integrated with a corporate shipping platform with full integrated manifesting. Finally WIP dashboards, productivity dashboards and SLA reporting provides fine grain but simple management control to ensure the plant stays totally on track.
