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From photo lab to print shop

Personalized photo books of highest quality, powerful software for image enhancement and always looking for improvements: Fujifilm Imaging Products & Solutions (Willich, Germany) has undergone an unusual transformation from photo lab to print shop. The success is based not least on a comprehensively automated finishing process with systems from Horizon.

Birgit Dornbusch, plant manager of Fujifilm in Willich, and Fred Zühlke, sales representative at Horizon, are delighted with the reliability of the BQ-480 perfect binder.

In most cases it was traditional commercial print shops that had to reinvent themselves as digitalisation progressed. Nevertheless, they remained print shops – albeit with completely different technical equipment. Fujifilm was different. In order to survive in the long term, the former industrial photo laboratory gradually had to be transformed into a print shop.

The digital change was both a curse and a blessing: On the one hand, the new camera technology quickly replaced the traditional "photo from the negative" and made the core business at Fujifilm's Willich location obsolete. On the other hand, the Japanese Fuji Group is one of the pioneers of photographic technology and has successfully transferred its accumulated know-how from the analogue to the digital world. Instead of film material, data formed the basis of the printed images from then on. At the same time, the company established itself as one of the world's leading suppliers of photo terminals for instant self-service printing.

Hardly one decade later, the next change followed in 2009. With the rapid spread of smartphones, interest in the traditional photo print declined at the same time - which directly affected the utilization of the machinery at Fujifilm's Willich location. This time, the adaptation to changed market conditions actually required a switch to a different industry: Where films used to be developed and millions of holiday photos enlarged, a completely new digital printing plant has been producing high-quality photo books ever since, for the B2B market as well as for end customers.

Rapid rise in the photo book market

When Fujifilm entered the printing industry, Horizon supplied the basic finishing equipment: a BQ-470PUR 4-clamp perfect binder, three HCB-2 hardcover binding systems and two HT-30 three-side trimmers. Criteria such as easy operation, economical production from edition 1 and maximum flexibility and speed when setting up new print jobs played an important role in the decision. But trust in the supplier was just as important: "We all knew a lot about photos, but we had no idea about book printing at the time," recalls Uwe Raderschadt, Manager Customer Support / Terminal Logistic, who experienced the changeover and now heads customer service for photo terminals at Fujifilm Imaging Products & Solutions. Nevertheless, Fujifilm photo books quickly became very popular due to their high image quality.

The success is also reflected in the continuous expansion of the machinery. Gradually, the capacities for postpress were significantly expanded with the installation of a second Horizon BQ-470PUR perfect binder and the use of a Horizon HT-1000V fully automated three-knife trimmer. And when Horizon presented the BQ-480, the fastest 4-clamp perfect binder available on the market, about two years ago, Fujifilm quickly replaced the two existing BQ470-PURs with two BQ-480.

Automated systems reduce production costs

The decision to switch to BQ-480 systems at short notice did not come out of the blue. On the one hand, Fujifilm was able to multiply the output of photo books within a few years. On the other hand, the market for photo books has recently changed significantly and is currently in a phase of stagnation. Besides, the bargain prices of countless small online printers are making life difficult for premium providers. Fujifilm is countering this with a know-how in photography that is hard to beat: a software for image enhancement that has been worked out down to the last detail and is unique worldwide. It filters out the best quality images from thousands of image files and thus saves a lot of time not only for holiday photographers.

Nevertheless: "We don't have much scope when it comes to pricing," says Birgit Dornbusch, plant manager at Fujifilm Imaging Products & Solutions in Willich. "In the long run, we can only succeed in the market if we keep production costs as low as possible while maintaining consistently high quality," says Dornbusch, "and with Horizon's comprehensively automated systems we feel we are well served."

Visible barcodes are unwanted

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

In concrete terms, this involves the clear assignment of each photo book to the respective customer, which is usually ensured by a printed barcode. However, customers do not like a visible barcode - so Birgit Dornbusch and her team had to come up with an alternative. The solution: The correct assignment of book block and cover is still done via barcode, which, however, is only printed on the end paper and is no longer visible after it has been glued to the cover. Once the book block and cover in the BQ-480 have been correctly assigned and assembled using barcodes, the product information is automatically sent to a labeller that is installed at the beginning of the cooling section to the HT-1000V. The labeller transmits the data to a self-adhesive RFID chip, which is then attached to the back of the end paper. The finished book can be tracked seamlessly from now until it reaches the recipient, without the information source being visible from the outside.

Advantage: easy operation

On the Horizon systems, Fujifilm processes photo books in various formats from A6 to A4, in portrait or landscape format and in square form up to a maximum of 30 x 30 cm. Most of the orders are between 1 and 5 copies with a volume of between 24 and 120 pages, the orders are placed B2C via the company's own web shop or B2B via partners from the retail stores. It usually takes two to three days from order to delivery, and the largest rush always takes place shortly before Christmas for the approximately 80 employees working on photo book production in Willich. Seasonal fluctuations also mean that plant manager Birgit Dornbusch often has to deal with semi-skilled workers. She herself is a graduate engineer in technology for plastics technology, later completed a degree in business administration and joined Fujifilm as a side entrant. The easy operation of the Horizon systems was an important decision criterion for everyone involved, says Birgit Dornbusch, "and as a newcomer in the printing industry, it's very much in our interest."


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