New digital innovations through emergence

As an alliance of experts from the printing, packaging and converting industries, SAUERESSIG e.GEN creates digital experiences for a vibrant future. The newly created business unit of the SAUERESSIG Group combines intelligent systems and services under a common umbrella brand. “The creation of the new business unit with a focus on digital and innovative color and software solutions enables us to respond faster to the diverse needs of our customers,” comments Christian Groh, Business Unit Director e.GEN.

As a leading international supplier of services along the prepress chain as well as rotary tools for gravure and flexo printing processes, embossing rollers and cutting and creasing tools, the SAUERESSIG Group has decades of comprehensive expertise. SAUERESSIG works on forward-looking research projects and invests in the development of intelligent workflows and digital solutions. As an innovation leader for special machine construction in the field of future-oriented battery and energy storage technology, individual solutions are developed for pioneers of tomorrow.

With the new business unit e.GEN, SAUERESSIG is strengthening its developments in forward-looking technologies and advanced digital solutions. “The name e.GEN was chosen quite carefully,” explains Christian Groh. “e.GEN is derived from the word emergence and can be understood as the appearance of previously non-existent characteristics or structures of a system. An example is the swarming behavior of birds.” A bird alone does not form a swarm. However, it can trigger swarming behavior when many birds come together. New vibrant structures emerge that were neither visible nor predictable before. “We see ourselves as a collective of makers, problem solvers, visionaries and communicators to rethink what has been traditional and create a smarter future,” adds the department head.

Under the umbrella of e.GEN, c.INKTEC has been adding a new space for creative ideas and product innovations to the SAUERESSIG Group portfolio for three years now. The Innovation Center at the Vreden site helps with any kind of packaging improvement and offers a wide range of laboratory and testing facilities. By using laboratory machines, inks for gravure, flexo and offset printing can be created and tested. Well-known brands and experts from the tobacco and packaging industries have been using the services and developments for a long time. A key goal of c.INKTEC is to make the supply chain more sustainable and transparent through digital value creation and intelligent systems and services, while avoiding costs and ways that are currently one of the pain points for customers. The use of the cloud-based software solution c.CLOUD is of great importance in this context. It handles digital color communication between all stakeholders and provides complete transparency in terms of consistent color management.

However, the portfolio not only includes solutions that digitize this communication, color becomes a living reality. Christian Groh emphasizes: “We make light exciting by believing in the power of virtual technologies. Our virtual reality solution n.LIGHT takes digital color and design communication of packaging and decorative surfaces to a new dimension.” n.LIGHT provides the ability to view packaging or surfaces, as well as embossed structures and material effects, in a configurable environment. With color-calibrated virtual reality glasses, a virtual 3D mock-up can be experienced in true color and down to the smallest detail as early as the design and prepress phase.

Digitization will transform technology into novel solutions. This is also demonstrated by the flexible and intelligent software services tailored at e.GEN to the needs and processes of the packaging, printing and converting industries. Based on current market requirements, customer-specific brand guidelines and product-relevant content, the d.MATE software solution creates intelligent templates for the automatic generation of standardized artwork. The uniform management of brand products through intelligent artwork templates not only enables the automatic creation of multiple variants, but also the simplification of workflows through a central portal.

SAUERESSIG e.GEN attaches great importance to agile structures and future-oriented processes in order to flexibly manage customer projects and develop solutions for individual challenges. The common goal: to break new ground to enable a smarter future through emergent collaboration.