Sappi and PerfectPattern signed a global strategic alliance in an effort to roll-out AI driven dynamic print planning and ganging technology to print businesses worldwide.

The partnership aims to enable offset and digital printers the opportunity to make significant savings in paper waste, plate consumption and production time. The SaaS-based offer utilises PerfectPattern´s sPrint One technology.

OctoBoost is Sappi´s internal startup which develops innovative digital solutions for the print industry, well in-line with Sappi´s commitment to improve printers´ business and ultimately make print more efficient, attractive and sustainable.

Perfect Pattern GmbH is a Munich based company which creates industrial Artificial Intelligence solutions, using Reinforcement Learning, intelligent prediction models and other AI technologies to control and optimize industrial production processes.

Picture from left to right:

• Robert Meissner, Perfect Pattern Founder and COO
• Fabian Rüchardt, Perfect Pattern CEO
• Flavio Froehli, Sappi Europe - Director Business Strategy & Development
• Anna Oñate, Sappi Europe -  Intrapreneur, OctoBoost CEO & Co-founder

Sappi´s first digital product, OctoBoost, was launched in October 2018 in the DACH region and further rolled out to the Benelux and Nordic markets this year. Based on the e-commerce platform Magento and sPrint One it combines future-proof online print with powerful dynamic planning and ganging technology. It also provides insightful metrics through print intelligence dashboards.

For those printers who are already advanced in the online print journey and need no web-to-print solution, Sappi has launched OctoSprint: The technology will be distributed exclusively by Sappi & the OctoBoost team through a flexible SaaS model.

Significant savings, higher productivity

The technology is compatible with all digital and offset printing machinery. It has proven to reduce paper waste (by up to 50%), plate consumption (by up to 40%) and increase print capacity (by up to 22%), while automating pre-press and planning efforts. Average net savings are up to 5% of a print house´s revenue. Print businesses can find out concrete savings potentials through an OctoDiagnosis simulation on www.octoboost.com.

“Sappi and PerfectPattern´s enhanced partnership is a natural match”, says

Anna Oñate, CEO and Co-Founder of OctoBoost. “Both companies are passionate about print with the ambition of transforming the industry through further co-developing print automation and efficiency technologies.”

“Manufacturing companies in all industries need to optimize their competitiveness – and Artificial Intelligence can unlock significant potential for value creation in industrial production”, says Fabian Rüchardt, CEO of PerfectPattern. “We are very pleased to extend our partnership with Sappi OctoBoost to enable the printing industry to take advantage of the benefits of artificial intelligence for their business in an straightforward manner.”

About PerfectPattern

PerfectPattern was established in 2012 as a technology and software company based in Munich. The team creates software solutions that combine unique, powerful algorithms for process optimization with artificial intelligence. The solutions enable the fully automatic planning of virtually any production process in real time, making the “smart factory” a reality. The three key objectives are flexibility, punctuality and the reduction of production costs.

PerfectPattern has developed two revolutionary KI technologies, PYTHIA and CORTEX. PYTHIA is a platform product for pattern recognition, time series prediction and anomaly detection in real-time data streams. Through the innovative combination of methods from deep learning, stochastic and quantum field theory, it unsupervised finds even the most hidden patterns. CORTEX is a decision making technology that reaches decisions based on the global objective functions through reinforcement learning. CORTEX is the basis of sPrint One.

Further information is available at www.perfectpattern.de, where you will also find a growing glossary of artificial intelligence terms

About Sappi

Sappi is a leading global provider of sustainable woodfibre products and solutions, in the fields of Dissolving wood pulp, Printing papers, Packaging and speciality papers, Casting and release papers, Biomaterials and Bio-energy. As a company that relies on renewable natural resources, sustainability is at our core. Sappi European mills hold chain of custody certifications under the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) and/or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification™ (PEFC™) systems. Our papers are produced in mills accredited with ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 50 001 and OHSAS 18001 certification. We have EMAS registration at 8 of our 10 mills in Europe. 

Sappi Europe SA is a division of Sappi Limited (JSE), headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with 12,500 employees and 18 production facilities on three continents in nine countries, 37 sales offices globally, and customers in over 150 countries around the world.

Learn more about Sappi at www.sappi.com.