It is human nature to inhabit a mere corner of our potential. Just ask the SLR camera owner who shells out thousands only to use the device in auto mode like a cheap compact.
These odd choices we make in ‘real life’ get magnified in our day jobs. Chances are your business has a finely featured management information system (MIS). It almost certainly has features that you have paid for, but don’t use. The MIS plugs into all corners of a business, but in terms of connectivity, many printers are only skating across the surface of the pond.
Some enterprises have delved deeper. At New Creation Print, Mulgrave, in Melbourne’s south east, managing director Bruce Mayes, estimator Ralph de la Rosa and sales manager Chris Roche are pleased with the quality of key integration points between their Printer’s Choice MIS and other IT infrastructure in the business.
They talked to ProPrint about the latest upgrades to their MIS. New Creation has been a Printer’s Choice client for seven years. Initially, it solely used the tool for estimating. Online ordering now accounts for 60% of jobs at the 22-year-old family-owned business, an exponential leap from five years ago. Much of this work is for the hospitality industry. The typically output is short-run A3 work, mostly CMYK and some PMS, typically around 2,000 impressions, run on single-, two- and four-colour Heidelberg Speedmasters and a four-colour Komori Lithrone, supported by forme cutting, creasing and folding .
Printer’s Choice is the main system, from requests for quotes to invoicing, incorporating an online ordering module. Online orders are part of the inventory system, they are received, processed, dispatched and invoiced automatically. Jobs can be tracked across various production phases: art room, proof-ready, approved, all the way to invoice. And although it is not JDF, production times are recorded and stored in the MIS. “Everything’s centralised for next time, which makes it quicker,” says Roche.
New Creation has resisted a proprietary workflow around its Heidelberg Prosetter CTP device, preferring to develop its own highly customised version, integrated with the MIS via job instruction sets.
De la Rosa describes a useful CRM link between Printer’s Choice and Microsoft Outlook. “Our contacts sit in Printer’s Choice and when we set up meetings and respond to quotes, we can make notes and they will automatically drive our Outlook, logging our appointments and schedules.”
Touches like that make a difference. Bruce Mayes says the Printer’s Choice team spends time listening to New Creation’s needs, then developing solutions within the MIS.
Put it together
Many businesses have their reasons for maintaining their level of MIS connectivity exactly where it is now, but some already have blueprints anywhere for six months to five years from now.
At 62-staff, 49-year-old Lithocraft, Prism’s WIN MIS has pride of place. The growing company, which four years ago relocated to a custom facility at Truganina on Melbourne’s western fringe, runs e-commerce, production scheduling and estimating wizards as part of the system. But Lithocraft co-director Nick O’Sullivan says it’s still early days
“We’ve got all the pieces of the puzzle, we’re just not using all of them yet. We’re not getting the best use out of our wizards for estimating. We’re looking at developing that, and we’re looking at further developing the production scheduling module. We also need to get more effective integration into pre-press,” says O’Sullivan.
Ask again in six months, he says, and it will be a very different picture. For example, O’Sullivan wants to glean the full potential of Prism WIN’s handshake with Lithocraft’s Metrix imposition software, which optimises print practices to a database of presses, finishing equipment and stocks.
He also wants to implement CIP4 and JDF. “Not just from estimates to order to pre-press; we want all those duct settings and so forth with the plates right through to the press. So the information goes back again to be used next time.”
Trenear Printing is a Sydney A3 printer founded 88 years ago by the grandfather of current managing director James Trenear. A sign of the times is its Quote & Print MIS. The tool has an additional Q&P online ordering module that generates PDFs, a discrete web-to-print system, and its Heidelberg Prinect workflow.
“But none of them work with each other, and it’s massively frustrating,” laments managing director James Trenear.
There is a degree of connectivity between the Q&P products, the MIS and the online order desk, but a software upgrade would advance that link so quotes could automatically convert into invoices, which would be more in sync with clients’ expectations of speed, he says.
At present, online ordering information doesn’t flow back into the MIS. Informa-tion has to be manually converted to create invoices. In production, it does not feed into the firm’s three-year-old Heidelberg Prinect workflow, even though one of its Speedmaster 52s is fitted with CP 2000, which reads Prinect data on pre-flighting and ink settings. But Trenear says his Kingsgrove company plans to close the circuit, and the starting point is its online ordering. “It’s fairly new and up-to-date and something we can build on. There are programs we can plug into that, but we have to change to one of the others [MIS offerings], which would mean a major restructure of our office.
“Downstream from that, the Heidelberg Prinect works really well. It’s more of a ‘drop-and-run’ system, but how we would get our ordering to work alongside that needs to be looked at.”
Trenear would like to see MIS functionality built into proprietary workflows. “It would be great if Prinect was able to do our quotes, was able to pull the information from our online ordering system. If Prinect was able to handle quotes, take in information from the press – average printing times, and so forth. It would be a fantastic, beautiful product.”
Consultant Mark Campbell, who has tracked the revolution in web-to-print, believes MIS software is among the most under-utilised tools in any print company’s workshop. Now the managing director of AgentInk, Campbell has held executive positions with McPhersons Printing, PMP and Blue Star. He identifies a stack of ‘sleeping’ features in a typical MIS. Quote automation is high on the list, with many printers seemingly unaware of their product’s ability to automate the quoting process and complete quotes in an effective time – less than 15 minutes.
“This would free up estimator resources to win the work that is important and concentrate on profitable work. This situation exists mainly because of a complicated workflow, perceived customer need, and the lack of skills internally to make this initiative work.”
Automated scheduling is a feature often left to languish, notes Campbell, mainly because it is difficult for production staff to understand how it could work. There is also a perceived lack of control, staff resistance based on job security, and a fragmented workflow from quote to proof sign-off encouraging wasteful micro-management in production.
“Automation between MIS and pre-press workflow is also seriously under-utilised, particularly in the area of status updates between the systems and the ability to take ‘human’ touch points out of the process.”
Suppliers speak
Distributor Ideal Solution recently took over the agency for the Accura MIS. The system has the ability to analyse jobs and automatically display a selection of presses the job could be produced on, whether offset, digital, flexo or wide-format. According to Ideal Solution sales manager David Fittler, it shows information like times and costs for each press.
So why is this kind of functionality not used? “Partly because press specifications have not been fully set up, but mostly because the MIS user has not fully understood the power of the feature, or the company protocol has not been changed to take advantage of it. We continue to educate our users on features such as this via online help and user forums.”
Accura also automates sending the proof image and proof sign-off document to the client by email and web. This places the job on hold and the client can accept or reject the proof by return email or via the AccuraOnline e-commerce module. This resets the job’s status to active, and emails the studio automatically to notify them of job acceptance or rejection.
“Also, a lot depends on whether the studio or pre-press room is set up to raise or update the proof status. When systems are first installed, all these features are explained, but if not implemented straight away, they are forgotten. When conducting periodical reviews and courtesy visits with clients, we highlight the benefits of this tool, and the uptake is then quite high.”
John Durkin, managing director of Printcost, believes the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy is hindering print businesses from realising the full potential of JDF files created by the Printcost MIS.
Printcost produces JDF files for work-flow systems such as Screen’s Trueflow and Equios products. The MIS can also receive JMF messages back from the workflow system to update the job status and actual time and cost information in Printcost. “Some companies consider JDF to be a bit of a fad, as opposed to recognising the potential time saving benefit and efficiency improvement.”
Nicola Bisset, managing director of Optimus, says inventory is under-utilised. “We are often alarmed at the number of spreadsheets used by individuals rather than shared, which may be the only record of customer-owned stock.”
Ancillary benefits of an integrated workflow
• Consumable information (mainly paper) direct to merchant
• Systems and machinery integration with JDF/JMF
• Automatic status updates
• Status email to staff/customer
• Auto reporting via dashboard
• Speed-to-market improvements
• Improve quote conversion
• Automated scheduling
• Manage inventory demand
• Reduced “touch points” in both the offset and digital workflow
Mark Campbell, AgentInk
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