Redacción Alabrent
"Nowadays, advertising really can’t be personal enough. In future, advertising and direct-mail products will be targeted more and more directly at individuals and their needs,” says Ferag CEO Jürg Möckli. The company, based in Switzerland’s Zürcher Oberland, responds to these market trends and requirements by releasing innovative products. The new EasySert technology is one of them. On an industrial scale, in combination with the Navigator it produces advertising that’s aimed at individual households. For example, a retailer can use data derived from its customer loyalty cards to target its customers with personalized advertising based on their purchasing preferences. In turn, Ferag customers can boost their revenues in this fast-growing and promising marketing segment.Combining individual modules aside from the EasySert module, the main components include an inkjet addressing unit, a UTR conveyor that operates with absolute precision, and the new stand-by loop to create perfectly tuned hardware within such an innovative inserting line was just part of Ferag’s challenge. The goal was to create a system that operates with extremely high reliability and stability. “A personalized process needs to run without any errors whatsoever. In the past, incomplete bundles could simply be discharged from bundling and reprocessed. But now, this is no longer possible,” Jürg Möckli explains. The reason: even a small error would rapidly spiral out of control, leading to a product series with the wrong inserts. Ferag engineers have therefore developed the new stand-by loop to guarantee 100% accuracy in the collecting process.
Which leads us to the software. Naturally, the Navigator planning and control software plays an important role in an installation that processes up to 30,000 personalized advertising products per hour. Programming the Navigator was another part of the challenge faced by Ferag. Each individual product and address must be uniquely identifiable. Fast and accurate tracking is also essential: at any given time throughout the entire process, the system must be able to track every single production unit precisely. The Navigator processes the distribution data and automatically controls the defined units and functions for personalized inserting.
Developed in-house by Ferag, the Navigator can be customized and extended to fit customer requirements. Of all the add-on modules available for the Navigator, the Optimizer really stands out. Based on production data and other predefined criteria, this tool calculates the best parameters for optimal operation of the line. Ferag customers who opt for the new, personalized EasySert technology are thus able to achieve a further increase in the logistical efficiency and capacity of their inserting process. Furthermore, with the Summarizer module, a predefined set of production data and production events can be logged and visualized in a web browser.