Your press hall log says 312,400 copies. Your mailroom says something lower, and the palletiser count is lower again. Which number do you invoice, and how long does it take you to find out where the difference went?
When both halls report into the same system:
CopyTrack collects production data from your machinery regardless of who built it, processes it as it happens, and turns it into one timeline.
Mittelbayerisches Druckzentrum in Germany is a useful example of the scale involved. They used 26 sensors that were already installed, plus two MWM Data Collection Units: one in the press hall, one in the mailroom. The Manroland Colorman XXL web press and the mailroom equipment, inserting drum, layer palletiser and compensating stackers, all report into the same picture. A large monitor above the plate delivery control desk shows it to the crew. Traffic lights on the office displays show it to management. After twenty minutes of downtime, the technical director gets an email.
Managing Director Evelyn Köhler described the starting position honestly: "Postpress was previously a 'blackbox' for us; but with CopyTrack we can probe it more deeply."
Borås Tidning Tryckeri in Sweden has run CopyTrack for years. Tommy Johnsson, CEO: "Today we only print about 50 extra copies per production and since we installed Copytrack, we've reduced overprinting by 80-90 percent. It saves us money and we boast that we're among the best in the country at reducing overprinting."
Fifty copies a run. Put your own figure next to it, then do the arithmetic: extra copies on an average run, times runs per year, times your loaded cost per copy. That is what the gap between your two halls costs you, and you can produce the number this afternoon without any help from us.
Overprinting is where the gap shows up first. You print extra because you are not confident the mailroom will deliver the net copies the order calls for. Remove the uncertainty and the buffer goes with it. This is also where a Print MIS/ERP earns its place over a general purpose system: unlike a general ERP, Print365 treats a copy as the unit of account, from plate to pallet, because that is how your customers buy and how your waste accumulates.
Does CopyTrack cover the mailroom, or only the press?
Both. At Mittelbayerisches Druckzentrum in Germany, one Data Collection Unit sits in the press hall and one in the mailroom, tracking the web press alongside the inserting drum, layer palletiser and compensating stackers.
Do we need new sensors on our machines?
Usually not many. MDZ integrated 26 sensors that were already in place. CopyTrack reads what your lines already produce rather than replacing your instrumentation.
Is CopyTrack part of Print365?
Yes. CopyTrack is included from Print365 GO upwards and shares its data with the rest of the platform, including post calculation and Data 365 dashboards.
Put two numbers side by side: the press hall count, and the net saleable copies that left the mailroom. If they do not come from the same source, that is your gap, and it has a price per issue.
Send us that run. We will show you where CopyTrack would have caught the difference, what it cost you over the period you are looking at, and which of your existing sensors we can read on day one. Thirty minutes, your data, no slide deck.