How Girus works

The key to the success of Girus is the unique way in which it unobtrusively monitors productivity on your machines; it does this well because both hardware and software have been designed specifically for monitoring print machines.

Girus T20 data collection terminals are the critical element in the system and it may be surprising to find out that they are essentially batch counters - but with a difference, as you will see. The T20's primary function is simply to count the amount of good product that is produced on the printing machine. Now you’re probably thinking that your machines already have a means of counting good product. Most machines do, so it’s a very simple matter to replace it with a Girus T20. From that moment on the T20 does the job of the old batch counter but with the additional benefit of collecting invaluable, accurate productivity data.

Normally, a counter on a printing machine is used to count good product in the following way:

When the pass copy is agreed and the machine is producing good product the batch counter is switched on and starts counting. If the operator notices that he is producing waste he will stop the batch counter. Once the problem is solved and the machine is producing good product again, the batch counter is once again turned on. This simple operation keeps a total count of the entire good product produced so that at the end of the job there is enough good product in the batch to complete the order.

Using the Girus T20 is a similar process except the counter is never switched off. Instead it has two counting modes, Good Product and Waste Product. The principle is simple: When the machine is producing good product the Good button is pressed and the good counter is incremented with each repeat. If the machine is producing waste, the operator presses the Waste button, in which case the T20 will increment a waste counter. Additionally, each time the Waste button is pressed a screen is displayed that asks for the reason for the waste. At this point the operator will simply have to select one of the pre- configured reasons before the system can continue counting. That is the essential element of T20.

Basically from using the Girus T20 as a batch counter it is able to accurately deduce the following …

Good product
Waste product
Reasons for waste
Make ready time
Total job time
Down time
Lost time
Reasons for down time
Machine idle time
Average running speeds
Reel change times

There is a lot of information being collected here. Information that you probably do not have at the moment, and since the T20 is connected to your company’s computer network, all this information is available without moving from your desk.