Amsky attaches great importance on customer demands all the time in its CTP device leasing, whole process service, the strict management on production line, continuous breakthrough in technology, etc. All the management innovation, marketing innovation and technology innovation are based on offering the perfect user experience.
From the beginning of 21st century, CTP, a wide-spread technology in the occidental countries at that time, came to the attention of China and became a hot topic in China’s printing industry. After that, domestic CTP devices emerged and attracted more attention from the industry. Just like the localization process of other industrial products in our country, CTP device has gone through the skepticism and rejection in the earlier time and now is approved and recognized by the market on account of the unremitting efforts made by domestic CTP manufacturers. They broke the market layout in which imported CTP devices play a dominant role and gradually developed competitive products that can rival well-known imported devices. In just a few years, domestic CTP manufactures rose from beginners to major promoters of CTP technology and application in China. Guangzhou Amsky Technology Co., Ltd. (Amsky for short) is one of the best.
Technological innovation leads "Created in China"
Since its inception, Amsky has been engaged in the R&D of printing technology. With the introduction of CTP technology, Amsky was keenly aware of the great development potential of CTP in future China’s printing market and took the lead to devote to the R&D of CTP technology and production of CTP device. In 2006, Amsky successfully applied its printing technology to CTP and established a CTP R&D center of the international standard and a state-of-the-art production base in Hangzhou. The same year, Amsky launched Alpha 900 series CTP with independent intellectual property rights, marking the beginning of Amsky being a high-tech company and Amsky’s official entering China’s CTP market.
As a manufacturing power, most of equipment manufacturing industry in China started from "imitating" or "copying" the international advanced products, the printing industry is no exception. Adopting foreign technology directly is seemingly a shortcut, but Amsky’ target is not a pure production-oriented company. They know deep down that a company cannot live long in the changeful market without technology. When most enterprises are still in the dilemma of "Made in China" and "Created in China", Amsky clearly defined its target of establishing an international brand with international quality under the principle of “Supreme quality, global reputation”: Chinese market has its own features, Chinese users have their own unique needs, and in the face of global competition, "Created in China" should have more meanings, rather than just catching up with the international level. China's equipment manufacturers should develop its own core technology suitable to China’s market on the basis of fully understanding, digesting and absorbing the essence of overseas products with a global perspective to create an international brand with global influence.
To seek for technical breakthrough and "create" its wholly-owned CTP device, Amsky put great efforts on develop foundational CTP technology, invested heavily to establish the most advanced R&D center and build the most professional R&D team. At present, Amsky has tens of excellent R&D staff with background of Beijing University, Zhejiang University, Wuhan University and other famous universities. They specialize in design and production of precision machinery, software engineering, electronic and circuit engineering, laser control and other fields related with printing technology industrialization, and are equipped with advanced theoretical knowledge and rich practical experience. It’s a high-quality and interdisciplinary R&D team led by CTO.
To give full play to the team work, Amsky established a full set of management and project initiation procedure. According to the procedure, the R&D director designates the project leader whose post must be senior engineer or above. The project leader should have the ability to lead the project independently and specialize in the main R&D subject. For example, if the major part of the project is hardware design, then the project leader should be from the hardware division. After the designation, the project leader builds the team. The project is divided into several time frames marked by milestones. The project progress should be checked upon every milestone and adjusted timely. If the project is urgent, the time for the next milestone should be compressed to ensure that the whole project can be completed on schedule.
In technological innovation, Amsky doesn’t act blindly. The company requires its core technical staff to keep on learning, make progress unceasingly, pay close attention to the market trend, and take the initiative to understand the industry trends and customer needs. It also creates every opportunity for R&D staff to communicate with customers face to face and have a thorough knowledge to the customer needs and reflect them in the R&D properly.
Now, let’s have a look into the major achievements made by Amsky’s R&D team.
Amsky's world’s leading 3rd generation dynamic autofocus technology can directly detect the distance change as subtle as 0.1μm with accurate ranging system. Driven by the voice coil motor, it can track the focus change at a high acceleration of 30g to guarantee an accurate focus at any time. This technology can ensure the density deviation of any two dots on the flat net of the whole plate within 0.3% and avoid the blue spot and blue halo caused by the tiny dust on the drum surface. As the only core technology of CTP with independent property rights in our country, the technology won the National Outstanding Patent Award. The internationally advanced laser beam balance system can do laser power calibration automatically before printing without compromise to the output speed, and guarantee the consistent laser power to every channel and the fullness of every line and dot of every plate. The auto switch of laser beam system can ensure continuous production in case of failure in any laser channel by using the rest longest continuous channel to output. The temperature control system in the laser box can auto adjust the temperature bi-directionally with accuracy at ±0.1℃ to provide the optimized working temperature for the laser. Undoubtedly, the R&D capacity of Amsky is outstanding at home. In the long-term R&D of printing technology industrialization, through closely following the market demands, the R&D team of Amsky has overcome many industry problems one after another, such as photon damage fiber, auto adjust of focal length, spatial light modulation technology, auto switch of laser beam, etc.
The series of technical innovations are promoted by the highly effective R&D management system. Over the past years, Amsky has won tens of patents and software copyrights. Just in 2012, more than ten national patents have been applied and passed. In other words, Amsky wins one patent every month on average. In 2012, by virtue of its strong technical innovation capacity, Amsky stood out among other competitive companies and won the title of “Innovative pilot company of Guangzhou”. From the first generation of thermal CTP to digital common CTP, from the first generation of autofocus technology to the third generation of dynamic focusing technology, every device launched by Amsky and every technological innovation achieved by Amsky is a breakthrough in Created in China and a further step to “Supreme Quality”
Perfect user experience
Create core competency
With a long experience in prepress sales and service, Amsky kept close contact with end users, and thus developed deep understanding to the real needs of China’s printing companies. They know all the details concerning the end users: quality, performance, efficiency, cost, profit, cost performance, applicability, after-sales, etc. In Amsky, all the details have been internalized as an ultimate pursuit: to create the best experience for users. Amsky firmly believes that only perfect user experience can establish everlasting reputation among users and the effect of public praise is superior to that of advertisements.
Before 2007, domestic CTP market has been dominated by American Kodak, Japanese Screen, German Heidelberg and several other foreign brands, while in China most printing companies are small and medium-sized. They lack talents and money to introduce the advanced technology. The expensive device and service costs shut the door to many Chinese users and to a large extent, hindered the development of this potential market. Under this situation, Amsky realized that what the most urgent need to Chinese users is not just the technology, the most important is the platform that gives access to the technology. As a result, Amsky made a decisive decision in 2007 and officially launched its first set of CTP product with the industry’s first service and sales concept: whole process service + CTP leasing. In this way, Amsky brought brand-new experience for China's CTP market with a new marketing model.
"Whole process service + CTP leasing" aims to help companies upgrade to digital plate-making technology with low risk and low input and enable more small and medium-sized companies to use CTP through the low threshold and prepare for a new round of market competition in advance.
Amsky also gives full freedom to customers with “exit mechanism” which allows customers to quit at any time. Everybody knows that the brought device can’t be sent back, but the leasing model of Amsky is very flexible. When a customer changed his business direction or when the output cannot meet the demands, the customer can quit the service according to “exit mechanism” without too much cost. Meanwhile, Amsky also provides lessee with all-round whole process service, including troubleshooting, process training, staff training, training of device maintenance and using, application and selection of material, consultancy and guidance in the process of production, etc. Moreover, Amsky helps customers design a series of standardized operation plan from the aspects of cost and efficiency, such as personnel wages, cost, materials cost, etc. All of these are the essence of Amsky’s accumulated experience and knowledge in the field of prepress over the years. The user experience brought by Amsky has been far beyond the users’ expectations. The new concept has won the recognition of many customers with the unique user experience upon launch.
To a device manufacturer, the product quality is always the first experience a company brings to users. In recent years, benefiting from the rapid popularization of CTP in China, Amsky’s products have always been in short supply. To meet the market supply, Amsky has greatly enhanced the production capacity in just a few years. Besides, they always follow the principle of never compromising the quality for quantity. The expansion of production capacity must be based on the guaranteed quality. In view of this quality principle, Amsky always selects the best suppliers around the globe. In manufacturing, Amsky adopts the world's most strict manufacturing standards. Before delivery, Amsky always carries out the most rigorous durability and stability test. No matter it is at home or at abroad, Amsky focuses on the quality and performance and creates the best experience for global users.
Most of Amsky’s technical innovations are originated in the quest of improving the user experience. For example, in the communication with customers, Amsky found that many customers are worried about the blue spot and blue halo caused by the dust on the CTP drum surface in plate making. To tackle this problem, Amsky’s R&D team set up a project and developed the world’s leading “dynamic auto focus” technology which solved the problem effectively. To Amsky, every technology upgrade is a pursuit of improving user experience. In their eyes, it’s an endless pursuit.
Amsky attaches great importance on customer demands all the time in its CTP device leasing, whole process service, the strict management on production line, continuous breakthrough in technology, etc. All the management innovation, marketing innovation and technology innovation are based on offering the perfect user experience. Facing the rapidly changing markets and customer needs, Amsky deeply realized that only by constantly absorbing and creating advanced management method can a company adapts to the continuous development of society. It means that the pursuit of creating "the best user experience" will be endless. Amsky is proud of this pursuit and capacity and will never be complacent.
Take root in Chinese market and seek for expansion opportunity
Similar to every technological revolution, CTP ushered in the large-scale application in the real sense after a relatively long period of slow development at home. Especially after 2010, domestic CTP manufacturers represented by companies like Amsky, have emerged and gradually achieved the mass production of CTP devices. As the industry showed an upward tendency, many domestic small and medium printing companies began to purchase CTP devices. After 2011, domestic CTP market has seen a rapid growth.
The CTP market is also thriving in the international market. Reports of VSM (Vantage Strategic Marketing) and GATF, professional consultancy company from UK, show that there were about 19,000 CTPs installed around the world in 2003, while the number reached 77,616 in 2011. From 2008 to 2011, the global CTP installations rose to 77,616 from 42,667 at a compound average growth rate of 22.07%. It is expected that the quantity of CTP will see a stable growth year on year around the world in the following years, with total number expecting to exceed 100,000. To CTP manufacturers, these data are very encouraging.
Through careful market research, Amsky is more convinced that CTP market in 2013 and in the future will maintain rapid growth momentum. Domestic printing industry is going through the transition from simple processing to digitalization and networking and CTP is an essential part in the transition. At present, customers focus more on practicality and quality service of CTP, rather than the function and value of CTP. In the dual market environment of transition and demand, the installation peak of CTP just begins. Amsky believes that they will usher in a boom season together with domestic CTP market.
The superior market performance of Amsky has proved everything. By 2012, Amsky’s customers have covered the top 100 printing companies and ordinary small printing companies. From CTcP to VLF CTP, Amsky has a CTP portfolio that can meet the demands of various printing companies. With tens of service stations across the country, Amsky provides customers all over the country with the most excellent, the timeliest and the most considerate service. Through years of steady growth in the domestic market, Amsky has emerged as a leader in the domestic CTP market.
From the very beginning of the company’s transition, it has been Amsky’s vision to establish a brand with international influence. Now, Amsky believes the opportunity comes. In 2011, Amsky started to enter the overseas markets through sales and service via agents. And Amsky obtained impressive achievements in CTP export. With excellent performance and stable quality, Amsky’s brands and services have enjoyed popular support in less than two years in South Korea. According to the research of a professional market research institute of South Korea, Amsky ranked the top in the growth rate of market share and became a dark horse in 2012. Besides, on Drupa 2012, the world’s top printing event, Amsky made a debut exhibition and showcased a UV CTP featuring the world’s only auto focus technology. With the internationalized corporate image of “Supreme Quality, Global Reputation”, Amsky has officially entered the global market. Through the Drupa exhibition, Amsky has covered its sales and service to tens of countries. It means that Amsky’s sales network and service network have been globalized.
In the upcoming 2013 China Print exhibition, Amsky will launch two new products. At the same time, the company will show Aurora U8128N (namely 128 UV CTP) which has been made the world debut in South Korea in 2012. It is reported that the output of this device has reached an astonishing speed of 70 plates per hour. The other two new releases will redefine the CTP performance and set a new standard for user experience.
This will be another self-transcendence and another opportunity of growth to Amsky! Let’s look forward to the surprise Amsky will bring to China’s CTP cause!
