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EFI Monarch Used in Collaboration with SAP Software by the Largest Beer-coaster Manufacturer in the World

Wednesday 13. February 2013 - EFI announced that beer-coaster printing company KATZ GmbH & Co. KG, based in Weisenbach, Germany replaced its production software with EFI Monarch and integrated it with SAP software, which handles finance, accounting and materials management.

As a result, the entire production process has become faster, more flexible, and virtually error-free. The newest Monarch capabilities have also improved productivity further and reduced waste.
KATZ Weisenbach, a member of The KATZ Group, which includes two other beer-coaster printing companies in the USA, manufactures more than three billion beer mats each year, making it the largest beer-coaster producer in the world. In 2009, The KATZ Group was acquired by the August Koehler (SE) paper mill in Oberkirch, Germany. Today, it consists of three paper mills located in Oberkirch, Kehl and Greiz, and employs around 1,800 staff. The KATZ GmbH & Co. KG organised its finance and materials management using SAP software, which is why it was also keen to switch both KATZ printing companies in the USA to SAP.
Both KATZ printing companies in the USA worked with EFI Monarch, as well as advanced functions such as the electronic planning board (PrintFlow) and the Auto-Count system which provides automatic real-time paper consumption and waste monitoring as well as production monitoring of key manufacturing lines. The American management team vehemently opposed the idea of losing these valuable functions. Experts in Weisenbach and Oberkirch were also in favour of adopting these Monarch capabilities. After an EFI advisory team from Ratingen developed a solution detailing how Monarch could be combined with SAP at KATZ in Weisenbach and at Koehler in Oberkirch, the company decided to order the EFI Monarch system for Weisenbach and the system was successfully launched.
“We turned to EFI and now with Monarch, I can see the production data of our printing machines at all times. I see which jobs have already been completed and the status of all current orders,” said production manager, Dieter Wieland. Finishing manager, Markus Franz affirmed, “thanks to the automated order processing, we have become more flexible at planning and can handle customer requests much better. In particular, Auto-Count ensures the exact print run length which saves us time and cuts costs.”
Daniel Bitton, managing director of The KATZ Group and IT Manager Wolfgang Schwaab, are satisfied with the successful switch-over to Monarch. “This success is the result of our highly motivated team in Weisenbach,” explains Schwaab. “We have therefore taken a further step towards standardisation the Koehler Group and EFI Monarch has been successfully integrated into our SAP system,” he adds. Now, in 2013, the SAP systems are to be combined with EFI Monarch at the American printing companies.
“We’re very proud at EFI that we are partnering with The KATZ Group so we can demonstrate how our integrated MIS/ERP offering can bring new efficiencies to their operations,” said EFI’s manager of MIS sales, Steffen Haaga. “We are looking forward to many other companies following their example.”