Case Study   Software Solutions The Diligent Dairy: how end-to-end printing is helping Hochland Española, S. A. SUMMARY Hitachi’s endto-end solution brings better coding, marking and labelling accuracy and faster production times to Hochland’s factory operations in Spain, where it makes 30 different types of dairy product. Less reliance on skilled manual processes means fewer wasted hours and a reduced risk of errors. Hochland As a family-run German dairy that started business in 1927, Hochland is now a global business with almost 5000 employees, 11 factories and revenue of € 1.49 billion in 2018 alone. Hochland Española, S. A. is the Spanish arm of the Hochland group. Hochland Española mainly manufactures processed cheese slices and shredded cheese for pizza and pasta. The plant is situated in Viladecans near Barcelona. The Spanish subsidiary was founded in 1981 together with the Spanish sales partner Grupo TGT. After reviewing its printing operations and meeting with the Hitachi coding and marking team, the company felt its Spanish operation was a good candidate to benefit from Hitachi’s end-to-end coding and marking expertise. “We want to be factory 4.0 compliant in all parts of our businesses, and printing was one of the last pieces of the puzzle.” Xavier Puig Martínez, Hochland Española S. A. “ e used to have a legacy printing system in our factories but W talking with Hitachi helped us find a better approach. We can see this end-to-end printing system working well in our other facilities.” CUSTOMER Hochland

Case Study   Software Solutions CHALLENGE Across all of its factories, Hochland codes, marks and labels 10 dairy products each day. With work orders changing up to 15 times per day, a lot of manual effort is required to ensure the right data goes on the right unit. The company’s challenge is to code its products efficiently and accurately, to reduce the risks of human error and the costs associated with incorrect coding. In dairy, as with many other industries, the traditional model is to use a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to handle work orders in bulk, along with standalone inkjet printers...

Case Study   Software Solutions SOLUTION Hitachi’s expert engineering team met with Hochland to discuss and assess the right software solution for their factory in Barcelona. It’s common for businesses to opt for a hardware-only option of IJPs and laser devices, but the Hitachi team showed Hochland the value of implementing a complete end-to-end solution, to connect and integrate the printers with MES so that workers would no longer need to enter data manually from MES to the printers. Hitachi’s software component gave Hochland an end-to-end system that met their requirements in these key areas:...

Case Study   Software Solutions RESULTS Hochland started using Hitachi’s end-to-end solution in November 2018. Hitachi is now in discussion about rolling out the end-to-end solution across other Hochland factories. This confirms the positive early feedback about the delivery in Barcelona, and it shows Hochland’s commitment to standardisation and optimisation across the business. While it may be too soon to quantify the full range of benefits that the solution has brought to Hochland Barcelona, we can estimate the improved rates of production and reduced rates of inaccurate coding and marking...