Hello, I am Andreas Weber from INKISH in the DACH region and I am looking forward to a very special guest who has joined us from Belgium. Jacques Michiels. And he is the CEO of INKISH Benelux, and I will simply ask: Hello Jacques. How are you doing? Hello Andreas. We are doing well here in Belgium. At least so far. And I am happy to be on your channel. I am also very happy because you and our colleague Yves, with the elegant surname d’Aviau de Ternay. Did I pronounce it correctly? Right, right. The CEO of INKISH France. Together with you, he recently started a very comprehensive webinar series that we want to talk about today. And you guys have got a lot going on. And it’s all about Industry 4.0, under the title: Hashtag Smart Factory. And that is a very extensive program. And it’s actually about future scenarios for the print industry. How did you come up with that? What are your plans with it? Actually, dear Andreas, the topic that we have made our own is quite interesting to say that at this very moment in our industry, whether it be in Belgium or Holland or Germany or France or wherever in the world, many people are of course at the point of taking big steps in their processes. Because of course not only with Covid. But of course Covid has accelerated this. Of course there are new business models coming. Or some are already here. And that it is actually about us moving from Industry 3.0, manufacturing and fabrication and so on into the 4.0 era. And there hasn’t really been anything there until now, in our opinion, not so much information to find. So we said to ourselves, and with Yves in France, and of course with Morten from the INKISH Headquarters, we said: Yes, let’s perhaps first make detailed reports on these topics. Yeah, I think so, too. It is still relatively little discussed in the printing industry. Of course, from a German perspective, I’ve been familiar with it for almost ten years. As a topic generally in mechanical engineering. But mechanical engineering naturally has very high manufacturing standards in Germany. Everything is automated, robotized and so on. But in the printing industry itself, you’re absolutely right, the topic is not clear. What could one do, so to speak, to explain the meaning of this using an elevator pitch, in one sentence? Because Industry 4.0 is very abstract. I think that’ s the term you work with. “Smart Factory”. That’s something else. If you explain it a little bit very simply so that I can understand it, too. Okay. So, it’s a very comprehensive name “Smart Factory”. So to make a quick pitch, you should actually say: At this moment we are quite efficient. We work in our local printing shops or graphic arts companies. And the 4.0 is actually about being more open, about networked communication and connections, with partners. In other words, from the delivery side to the customer side. And that’s the big difference between 3.0 and 4.0. Being networked. And everything is much faster, of course. And you should have the right channels to communicate and produce. That is actually the biggest difference between 3.0 and 4.0. 3.0 is more likely to be networked into your own company and so on and so efficient. But now you have to involve partners, the others, to be able to work in the big Big Data intranet environment, because the customer is of course present there as well. I understood that and maybe I can summarize it again. In the past, you had to pay very close attention to your own value chain, to your own process steps. Automate them. I think that many people have already come a long way. And the technologies available today make it possible for all of them, regardless of which supplier something comes from. And the new step is that this connectivity that you have in your own manufacturing environment is now being transferred to supply chain partners, to customers, to logistics and so on. That would then become the smart element, so to speak. By the way, I have, if I may say so. Before the rise of Twitter and Facebook, I wrote a white paper. It was called Smart Communication. And because I thought: When the world becomes so digital, our communication behavior must change, of course. I think that is also important for Smart Factory. I looked up back then : What does Smart actually mean? And the Oxford Dictionary has a really nice explanation. It has different meanings. One is “clean and neat”. The second is “intelligent”. The fourth is “fashionable”. The fifth is “quick”. And the sixth is “computer controlled to appear intelligent”. And I think that’s great. And hence the question: How much technical knowledge is needed as a prerequisite for even dealing with the topic? I’m afraid that many people think the bar is extremely high and they will never reach it because they are not Big Data specialists and so on. What can you do to reduce this fear? I believe in the first place, fear is always a bad advisor. That for the first. Secondly – you believe, and this is not the question, whether we have to deal with it or not. Maybe not today at this moment, but you should prepare yourself. But I think it is a “must”, everyone is driven to it. So to answer your question. I think so. There should be people in a company who maybe have a little more knowledge in the IT area. One is, I think, already instructed. It’s about finding the right partners and working together. And then, of course, you should be able to implement the new technology in your own business. In my opinion, what I have heard there and what I see there is already necessary, also internationally. It is not always the whole solution that you have to implement at once. But you should start with the first steps if you are not there yet. In my opinion, this is actually a good ERP or MRS system. Where actually the front and the other side can be networked. But in my opinion it is really very important to have the first system. ERP or MRS. Where you can build on it and what you can fill. And from this you can then continue to link or network. So to answer your question: Yes, I think so, there is a minimum level, a minimum level. We need that to be able to participate. The whole thing, if I understand it correctly. First of all, the decision simply has to be made: We want to get into the subject. And the best approach is to get to know the management of the company and the corresponding platforms and to have a look, so to speak. And then it is actually always a switch between “I have to change something” and “But I have to manage this change well”. A classic change management process that goes hand in hand with this. Can we assume that the technical solutions that are now being offered by the supplier side will actually work? Because that is always the greatest distrust. A lot is promised, especially when it comes to software. In German one says: Well, and in the end we get banana product that has to ripen in our company. What is the current state of affairs regarding Smart Factory? This is a very important question you are asking. What we saw there 2 weeks ago, in our webinar. That was a whole week with different companies that took part. And different opinions that were expressed. I have to say that a lot of designers are dealing with it. Many already have solutions. The question is, of course, whether this fits into everyone’s own operations, which they have today. There will be a lot of advertisements. In the coming weeks. We will have large companies, Heidelberg and the others will also have their Virtual Webinars to announce this. But I must say that there are enough solutions at the moment to make the first step. I’m not saying that you will have automated the whole production. But that is probably not necessary either. Everyone should be able to see in their own company and know to what extent and for which products they should automate. In the end, of course, it is the Competitive Advantage. You have to be relevant for the market. And in my opinion that is the most important thing. That you don’t actually stand on the sidelines. And which solution, which solution is needed for this, you have to analyze from your own situation first. And that’s something that has come out of it, for example. That it is very important to take the right steps and to make the analysis. Where should I be Smart Factory? For which products? For the first. And then with which machines or solutions? And from there, that’s where the webinar that we had was very much to the fore. In the past, you had a great machine, everything you needed, and then we build our customers around the machines. In our opinion, this is no longer quite the right mindset in the Smart Factory. Now you have to look at what kind of product, what product gives me a competitive advantage and what solution did I need for this? And who will I work with? If this is clear, then you should actually buy the right solution. And from then on you go on to the end of what I have read, to be able to continue building, to hang up a system, to go on, to perhaps take the next step. But you should always start with the beginning. Yes, very important. The first analysis should be good. Maybe we’ll come up with it later. But of course business models and strategies also change a lot. But that’s interesting because the idea that you have to make a tabula rasa, so to speak, and start all over again. That is actually only important in the head. But what I have learned is that you can, so to speak, take areas from your own manufacturing activities and you can work with existing investments and add something. The important thing is that you develop a plan together with the partners you need, so to speak. And I would rather call that an agile process. Man, this agility, for example, how you do it today with cloud programming, is completely different from how you used to program in the past by always thinking up certain modules and bringing them to life. And when that works, you create the next one and the next one. That means it’s a more or less interactive process. You could also say a modular one. A modular and interativ means that you always do something, capture the reaction or the effects and then you can make improvements. But first of all, things start to happen, and then it happens relatively quickly. And what I’ve also learned is that you don’t have to be concerned that the technologies you need are not only available, but also work. You’ve had quite a few technology partners, and can you perhaps give us some insight? Who is already working on these topics on the developer side, the technology side of the manufacturer side? I can imagine that there are certainly companies among them that you don’t even know that well yet. Yeah, right. For example a big name that everyone knows of course is HP. There was a great contribution from HP. When you see what is possible there. Of course it is an ideal configuration. Everything runs automatically: from the stove, from the paper supplier to a whole, a whole system from paper supplier to own production to expeditions, customer contacts and so on. Captured in a cloud system. These are of course possibilities. But as you said Andreas: Many of our print shops in Germany, Belgium and so on, in France. Actually, at the moment, they’re very well organized. The only thing is that maybe the software they have today. That maybe not all of them are open to new technology and new automation. And I can already see that, because I’m going there too, in many print shops. And sometimes I can see that they have a solution. But it may not be open or not yet open to be able to talk to the new technologies that are being adopted by others. Like HP. There are quite a few. And Enfocus is one of them. And so on. CHILI Publish, there are a lot of solutions that can be used to link and network the one and the other. And coming back to this, we think it’s very important that you do the analysis: what do I actually need? Am I open? My system, is it open enough for others to relate to it? And that is what you should check. As you say, you should ask your partner or ask what the new possibilities are. Or consultants. And so on. And in our opinion, this is the first step that you absolutely have to take to see clearly. What works and what doesn’t work. And then the software that you might have to buy, for example. But also personnel or employees. And third, very, very important: The Big Data. Everything is parameterized in the system. Should we continue to parameterize and so on to build the system in such a way that communication can also take place? In my opinion, this is one of the most important things in the first step. To find out whether you are ready for this. That means there are basically these two ways. Probably the first one. I think it is always the same in the German speaking countries, in Switzerland, in Austria and in Germany. Preferably, you only have to deal with one supplier. Someone, if you do digital printing, like HP, but also Heidelberg, König and Bauer and all those companies who are already making efforts to provide end-to-end solutions. I believe that this is already working very, very well in the direction of Industry 3.0. Really, from the pre-media processes to post-press and sometimes also logistics tasks. But what you’re talking about now is that as a print shop, so to speak, you have to look closely at what you can do: How open is this supplier? Because I know how it is – in the last few weeks I have looked at an extremely large number of print shops that are successful despite Corona. And these are people who are incredibly flexible, who can create new products on an ad hoc basis. Offering Covid products, protective masks and labeling systems and so on, even in online stores. Flyerline in Switzerland makes it perfect. I had a conversation with Steffen Tomasi about this. And when you take a look behind the scenes, you realize that they actually work with mixed systems. That means you have to have a plotter, you have to have an offset machine, you have to have a digital printing machine or several digital printing machines, toner, INKJET, whatever. And then it is all about supporting exactly this momentum. And you mean by openness that you can really seamlessly incorporate all kinds of things that are important for the business purpose? Do I see it that way? Yes, that’s right. Because you know, Bernd Sipper, he also said that once. Well, we in the print shop industry are actually “not very fast” by nature. They are always one-of-products. And we take our time – theoretically. But the Internet audience, they want everything right now, fast. Now now now. And if you haven’t built all systems on top of each other, whether they’re masks or other things, it takes too long. Time-to-market has become very important. Even more so with the COVID 19 situation, of course. And the very big difference between 3.0 and 4.0 is Mass Customization, i.e. personalization. The personalization of things, maybe not all things tomorrow. Of course it is not easy to personalize everything. But it’s very, very quickly moving towards mass personalization. Because the customer asks for it and technology can support it. And at least that’s what you should see for your own business. Do I have offset? Do I have digital? Do I have plotters? Do I have INKJET? And so on. Which is actually the right combination for the company. And here I come back to the fact that you should look at the competitive advantage for your own business. And where is that? And how can I actually play it off? And what is needed for that? And that’s where the new technologies come in, of course, and the new software and so on. In order to be able to deliver the product to the customer quickly. And of course there’s a lot of competition, including in Germany. Germany is, of course, one of the first countries that has actually adopted these smart factories industries. There are different business models there. Own production or not own production? And only as a sales agency and so on. But these are all questions that many people ask themselves today. How am I supposed to deal with the future or the future that lies ahead of us now, what is the best way to approach it? And I think that the integration, the sales people, the supplier side, is developing very quickly. With new solutions. So you have to ask yourself, and actually decide for yourself, whether this will benefit you? And I think you need to increase efficiency, act quickly and sell the product to the customer at the best price. Also just the relevant product. And what I now take away from the conversation. And by the way, thank you very much for speaking German with us. Yes I try. I admire you for your good German. I wish I could speak French or Flemish and other languages so well. Thank you very much at this point. But what I’m taking with me now is the Smart Factory concept, so to speak, how you designed and laid it out. It helps a lot and is actually indispensable for adjusting to volatile market conditions and for anticipating new market developments. I believe that many print shops have lost that in the past. You have always had to deal with many pages. You have the software products from Adobe, from Enfocus, and so on. You had to spend a lot of time keeping your existing production up to date. You have had less and less time to take an entrepreneurial view of the go-to-market. In other words, what is happening in my markets, or can I react quickly and flexibly to new customer requirements? Do you see on the print shops’ side? We always talk about the printing industry, but there are a lot of submarkets that are active there. Do you see certain market segments that are getting along faster? Is there a difference when it comes to smart factory thinking, for example between packaging and commercial printing? With packaging printing and commercial printing, for example? Or do you perhaps see completely different areas, like Latronic Printing, which are already much more advanced? How do you assess that? In Germany, for example, you can have commercial printing there. I see two very big differences. For example, that the business model of e.g. SAXOPRINT, which produces its own products, does it? Yes. Well, and on the other hand, Print24, for example, does not produce itself. It has it produced. Has partners. Partners yes, permanent partners and so on. These are already two very interesting different approaches in the commercial sector. And these are of course two larger competitors. Some print shops in Germany and also in Europe. These are European players. And there I can see that the effect and I should perhaps be a bit careful. But I definitely see the effect, in any case, in these typical factories and not only in Germany. In France we had a conversation with DupliPrint. For example, we bought Juve Enprimeur in France. That is a commercial printer, a very large commercial printer. They didn’t really have an answer to the new requirements. And the DupliPrint was already very much in this field. So they integrated it. But if they did, you can see that SAXOPRINT, for example, has the cost leadership model. Because they want to make a product as efficiently as possible, which they can then sell. Not always at the lowest price but very cost-benefit oriented. Maximum efficiency. And this can only be achieved through automation and increased efficiency by operating smart factories, robots and so on, and a great deal of automation. So to follow the example of Print24. The partner print shops that have them, they are naturally also looking for partners who work in this model. Because otherwise no margin can be made there. Then I think it is very important that the print shop that wants to be relevant is able to do this very efficiently with its product. Otherwise, the prices in the Internet area, where the prices are all known. And for the more or less same product. You will never be able to sell it for more, only for the same price. Because the others have a lower price there. So the same efficiency should be able to be made for the own product. And there I come to the second part of your question. For example in packaging. These are not always non-standard products. Some are. But as you can see in SAXOPRINT, for example, they already have a packaging area. And that’s where you come in, there are actually only two models, and then you make differentiation and specialization, which not everyone can do. And then you have to try to be the best at it. Or you really go for cost reduction and efficiency. And of course that can only work with all this technology and the Smart Factory. In our opinion, in any case, it’s a medium-length process that the big players and efficient printers can offer price levels. They will survive. The others should not be accepted anymore to pay a price for the same. And he has a lot of choice and it will be very clear. That is a challenge for our printers. You have to say so. This means that you don’t even see it as a small plant, but as a full-grown tree landscape, not to say forest. You see some with very different business models, which are already very far away. And with them you have to, you can, even if you don’t have the size, stay at eye level. In other words, the Smart Factory is interesting for small, medium and large companies. I think it is very important to make it understandable at all. And actually? The Smart Factory starts with a machine that is operated fully automatically, and with exactly this connectivity that you mentioned. On the other hand, the market segment in which I am active is not really that important, because. On the contrary, when you say SAXOPRINT, they not only do commercial printing, they also do packaging, probably many other areas as well. That you can get exactly to the point where you can, so to speak, use a mixture of the most diverse technologies in order to be able to run as diverse, highly efficient and also value-adding business as possible. Exactly. I think this is a very important point, which people don’t realize. In general, because in Germany, Austria, Switzerland it will be like in other countries. The majority of the companies, at least 80 percent of the companies have 20 employees or less. Only they can get into Smart Factory scenarios in the same way as the big ones. I think that’s very good news. I have one more point that came as feedback on one of your posts on LinkedIn from my friend Rainer Wagner in Costa Rica. He is an experienced advisor to print shops throughout Latin America. And he said, “Well, isn’t the topic of artificial intelligence a little too much for you? What can you tell us about it? Because I think he also means that only Artificial Intelligence can ensure that it is very easy to deal with all these new system landscapes. And you basically create self-learning systems that have to support the print shop owner. How do you see the state of things there? He was quite right. And Rainer has a very long experience. And actually we had a slide with the 9 elements, which is what Smart Factory is all about. And of course that was a model that we took over. And he had 9 elements, each of them in our seminars we added the tenth one. Not only because he did it or because of AI. It’s just that the designers and so on, they are now relying much more on AI. It’s true that this is perhaps some of the most interesting new technologies, and that it also makes its entry into IT solutions for classic companies. It’s still a bit early to see how all this will be automated. You’ve probably already seen that the implementation of AI is of course to do human work, routine work. The experience of employees will make a difference. Of course you can’t solve everything. We have tried this, tried to write an article with INKISH News about Digital Mindset. Morten wrote an article and we had an AI Engine do it. And there were still a lot of errors in it. But it’s already there but how it will solve tasks that don’t have to be done by employees anymore. These are not yet very complex things. But it is the automation and mostly also the communication, the automatic communication with partners or with end customers, that will see AI solutions. One example is in the marketing area, where communication is automatic and automatic responses are made to chats and so on, which have been introduced into the system, into the whole comprehensive automatic system. I don’t know if SAXO or the others have that. But you can see, there is already AI in there. To communicate and to bring standard solutions. And if that is something special, okay, then the employee comes in again. So it’s a very broad market where AI will come in and that will continue to refine and in the end, I think, it will be very important for the automatic expiration of contacts for a printing company. That is for sure. Very nice, then I take from that you have this in view. But at the moment it is not quite so in the forefront because it is not an easy topic. I had a meeting in February with Tom Oelsner from Heidelberg, who is also the Chief Innovation Officer within the Heidelberg Digital Unit. And he had added artificial intelligence and functionality to his Heidelberg platform. And it was very interesting that he said that such a system can run until it actually does, because it is a self-learning system. They relate that to the production environment. And that’s where people learn how to use it in the print shop? What happens there? What problem areas are there? And then he recorded, that is actually a cycle, which then starts to rotate faster and faster, so that simply that – I would say the knowledge of vast amounts of data in artificial intelligence – can actually have a very comprehensive effect. In other words, like a domino effect, you trigger something, and then you simply have to be patient and learn with the system, learn from the system, and the system learns from me as a human being. And he also said, very importantly, that it’s not just a matter of substituting people now, but of giving the entrepreneurs more freedom, not necessarily, but of giving the entrepreneurs more freedom so that they can actually work better strategically. Simply having more time to think is, I think, very important. I think it will replace more the robotics routine activities in the companies. You can see that in offset printing alone. Modern offset presses can no longer be operated without automatic plate changing. And all this must be automated and controlled by artificial intelligence. Because if a KBA Rapida takes a minute to change eight plates, the operator has not even brought the plates to the press that quickly. That is the case. But these are small things. But I can see it’s building up, and I’m very happy that Yves and you and Morten together have made the start. And I think the subject will accompany us for many, many years to come. But I have learned: There is no reason not to deal with the topic now. On the contrary, it is a must, it is a “must-have” and not a “nice-to-have”. And above all, it offers a lot of opportunities to strengthen competitiveness and to be very close to market developments. Which is also very important. You can already trust in a variety of technological solutions, which you have to take a good look at. And in this respect it is recommended that you replay your webinars, that you watch it. We will post the link to the interview again. All those great articles that you put on INKISH News before the webinar. That is a real must read. And now the question: How will you pursue the topic? Just like Smart Factory is not something you buy, install, and it’s done. After all, it is a process. Everything flows panta rhei. And it will be the same with you. What are the next steps you want to take? So the concept Smart Factory 3.0 and 4.0 we made two weeks ago here in Europe. Now in November, but we will still communicate. Will this also be successful in the USA, because they have the same problems and challenges there. And that’s also where we are doing the awareness sessions in the USA and also here in Europe. That was the first beginning to think about it and so on. We at INKISH of course also follow new evolutions. We will report about them. And very important, we will think about it. And then we will also contribute there again, write about it, how it goes on. And maybe we will also talk again and document the evolution with real cases. We had fantastic discussions with companies, for example in Belgium there was a guy who did all the offset work. I will say it again. That was important for his case, because everyone has different products, different customers. You can’t make it the same for everyone. No, you really should do it for your own company, your own production, your own customers and products. Should one think about that? What do I get out of it and what should I do? But maybe we’ll talk about it another time. That was fantastic to hear, he threw out all the offset, has everything digital, now from conception to the print shop, to post-processing and logistics. And that’s a Smart Factory, they make books in short runs. But still, that’s a nice example of someone who was actually scared. Five or six years ago. This is the printing company Peters in Leuven, Belgium. I think it is one of the only ones in Europe that are already so far advanced in IT, and also in production for their products. He also says quite clearly that this is not for everyone. You should look at your own products and see how they can ensure that. We will probably continue to report on this. In any case. I am very happy about that. We’re gonna stay on top of it. And I also think this dialogue between Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France and the USA. I think it is a special feature that we have here at INKISH that we can rely on exactly these different expertises and experiences. And that’s great, because among the print shops themselves it is rather unusual to talk to colleagues. And I think it is very important for us at INKISH to be more open in this communication and to learn from others. You don’t have to be ashamed of this, and I don’t think you have to hold anything back. Ultimately, I see Smart Factory as a great opportunity for the print media industry as a whole to show how far ahead they are. It has a little bit of work to do, almost comparable to the demands of space travel, where every spaceship is actually a Smart Spaceship. There’s no other way to do it. Simply because the requirements are so extreme. And from my point of view we have a relatively similar situation in the printing industry. The requirements are enormously high. There are countless sources of error that can occur. To show the world and print shops’ customers that you’re up to date, and you’re actually more digital than the online world, if you like, simply because the demands in the print business are much greater than those in online media and online communication. In this respect, I am very pleased and thank you very, very much for taking the time. And I always say so nicely. I’m afraid we’ll keep talking. Absolutely. I did it with pleasure Andreas. Yes, then have a good time and stay healthy. We will. Best regards to Yves. You can tell him that we had a great conversation. And if he wants to improve his German, he can just listen to it. Okay. I will tell him. So ciao ciao. Thanks. Bye.