Founded in 1992, Léonce Deprez focuses primarily on magazine printing for independent publishers, but also produces brochures, catalogs, guides and tenders. The company employs 70 people and generates sales of around 20 million euros. Its facilities at Wancourt, near Arras, house two web offset presses, including a 16-page Rotoman and a 32-page Komori, as well as a Heidelberg sheetfed press dedicated to four-color printing with acrylic varnish.
Since 2016, the company had been looking to modernize its old ERP system from the 1990s. After an in-depth market study, the choice fell on ePS Technique. The integration of this system has made it possible to automate numerous steps in the production flow, with a direct impact on the organization.
We used to have ten people dedicated to quotations and invoicing, but now we're down to three," explains Léonce-Antoine Deprez, general manager of the printing plant.
Automate your prepress workflow with Apogee
Following the successful integration of ePS Technique, Léonce Deprez wanted to extend this automation to the prepress area, where many of their customers were already using Apogee, ECO3's workflow. Apogee was chosen for its online collaborative platform and cloud hosting, facilitating remote working. This solution now enables 80% of prepress jobs to be automated, saving considerable time.
This streamlines the production process: once the files have been submitted, customers receive a proof within the hour, then, after validation, the data is sent directly to the press and the CTP (Computer-to-Plate) system. This automation has enabled the company to produce around 80,000 plates a year with just 1.5 prepress operators.
The integration of Apogee and ePS Technique has had a considerable impact on reducing manual intervention and has enabled the print shop to respond more rapidly to customer requests. The flexibility offered by these solutions has enabled Léonce Deprez to optimize order management while reducing costs and preparation time.
Léonce Deprez plans to pursue this optimization dynamic by further automating its versioning orders, which could cut preparation time by a further 5-10%. The success of this technological integration demonstrates that, despite the initial complexity of implementation, process automation enables considerable gains in efficiency and competitiveness.
