HAMBURG, Germany—This year, EyeC is celebrating its 15-year anniversary. Founded in 2002 in Hamburg, Germany, EyeC’s product portfolio includes file-to-file comparison for artwork revision control and prepress applications, as well as print-to-file inspection systems for press sample testing and 100 percent print quality control of products such as folding cartons, labels, leaflets, or flexible packaging. The market’s most intelligent algorithms ensure that the systems show only relevant defects.
Worldwide, there are more than 1,600 EyeC inspection systems in use by pharmaceutical companies, printers, and branded good manufacturers. The company currently has 56 employees in Hamburg and has international sales partners in more than 20 countries.
As the company celebrates its anniversary, the three founders and managing directors, Ansgar Kaupp, Dirk Lütjens, and Sören Springmann are looking back on the past years and sharing 15 facts about EyeC:
- EyeC made its start in the living room of a friend, Bodo. While he was abroad for 12 months, he offered his apartment in Ahrensburg to friends Ansgar, Dirk and Sören to use at their disposal
- Its first fixed asset was an espresso machine. Management was also trained by an Italian restaurant owner in the art of preparing coffee specialties
- Raspberry red has become its corporate color so that its comparatively small systems can be seen quickly in the huge production halls
- It developed a Proofiler protoype within six weeks after its first meeting with its first customer
- All three executives were involved in the development of its first inspection system. Dirk developed the user interface, Ansgar developed finding the picture and Sören developed the fault detection
- The year after its founding, it had already presented its inspection solutions for the first time at Labelexpo Europe 2003
- There is logic behind our company name: “EyeC? Oh, I see!“
- The development of the Braille inspection is the same age as Dirk’s son, Tobias (born 2004)
- During Drupa 2008, Dirk developed the inspection for a Lithec-Scanner within only an hour and like that, a partnership with KBA began
- Its logo features a pupil with an eyebrow
- Its developers have written more than 3 million code lines for its inspection software
- It has even developed an inspection solution for a solar eclipse
- Not only does its ProofRunner run ultra-fast, but so does its running team, which regularly participates in numerous races as well as marathons
- Its team stays overnight worldwide to install its systems at its customers’ sites—even in a yurt in Kazakhstan
- More than 1,600 EyeC inspection systems are in use in 51 countries