Akomex Group

With three production sites in Poland and Denmark and a growing roster of clients throughout Europe, cardboard packaging producer Akomex Group prioritizes efficiency. A customized, integrated suite of Kodak software has helped streamline their prepress workflow and strengthen customer relationships to drive the business's ongoing growth.

A fast-growing Polish packaging business, Akomex Group consists of three cardboard production sites—Akomex and Drukpak in Poland, plus the most recently added PlanoPack in Denmark—that serve a range of industries, most significantly food and pharmaceuticals. They have a high proportion of established long-term customers but are also focused on growing their client base. The workflow system they'd used for years was not supporting current priorities: they wanted better day-to-day operational efficiency and cross-site communication, plus tools to optimize their graphic resources and improve customer service. Above all, Akomex Group needed all these requirements in a flexible technology system implemented across three facilities, cost-effectively and with scalability as the business evolved. It was a big ask, but after some research, Kodak emerged as the clear answer.

Kodak worked closely with the Akomex Group team to select a package of software and custom-configure a solution for their operations. The lynchpin was KODAK PRINERGY WORKFLOW Software with its Rules-Based Automation (RBA) feature, used to automate and manage prepress processes across all three sites. Other Kodak tools, integrated under PRINERGY Workflow's automation, help streamline key tasks. For the graphic department, KODAK COLORFLOW Pro Software provides comprehensive color management, while KODAK SPOTLESS Software simplifies conversion of spot colors to process colors to meet the group's quality standards. Finally, they implemented KODAK INSITE Prepress Portal to give customers easy, anytime-anywhere access to job files and real-time online collaboration with Akomex Group staff.

Unifying all three Akomex Group sites under a single PRINERGY Workflow system with RBA allowed the company to standardize and automate a multitude of processes: imposition, job status updates internally and to customers, archiving of jobs, and much more. They immediately saw reduced production errors, faster job preparation cycles, and overall higher efficiency—translating directly to reduced costs. The INSITE Portal has improved internal and client communication and streamlined job tracking; customers also appreciate its simple browser-based access. The Kodak color management tools help the business optimize ink usage, both reducing waste and appealing to their food and pharma customers who value minimal ink packaging. The power of automation has opened Akomex Group's eyes to new ways of improving operational efficiency, and the flexibility of their Kodak solution will let them refine and evolve it as their business and customer base grows.