Optimus Dash

According to Optimus, traditional management information systems haven’t kept up with the advances in printers’ businesses, which have diversified and broadened to offer more than just printing, adding aspects such as consultation and design services as well.

Print now has faster turnarounds and estimating may struggle to turn around lots of quotes quickly. There are also the specific challenges of digital print, such as the click charge, square metre pricing for large-format and a streamlined and automated way of pricing any outworked elements. In addition, the whole system may struggle to account for processes unrelated to production, such as design and consulting hours.

Step in Optimus, which claims that Dash, its new MIS product, can solve these problems.

“Dash is the MIS for digital and creative media companies,” says managing director Nicola Bisset. “We’ve done an awful lot of research over the past couple of years on the digital sector. Printers offering digital print are also offering a lot of other services, they tend to be very brand savvy and, in some cases, the print is almost incidental.

“When we started to develop Dash, we wanted to make sure it covered both litho and digital printing. But we found we also had to cater to all these [non-production] services. We’ve even got a client who doesn’t even do any print.”

Jim Street, Optimus’ Australia-based business manager, adds: “We are currently in negotiation with four customers in Australia wanting a digital MIS solution and Dash uniquely suits their business requirements.”

New look
To cater for the changes in who orders and how they order print, Dash has got
a completely new front-end.

“Our customers don’t talk about estimates and estimators any more, they talk about enquiries and jobs,” says Bisset.

One response to those changes is a new module, which the firm calls the sales enquiry and quotation manager. Another, and perhaps the biggest, change is the way the system has been opened up to integrate with third-party web-to-print (W2P) systems.

“We’ve made it easy to work with W2P,” says director of research and development Nigel Tyler. “At Ipex, we showed Dash linked to RedTie’s RTT W2P system in a way that is completely seamless.”

He adds that dealing with other W2P packages should also be simple, with the option of using web services (as it does with RedTie), cXML or APIs.

Its own estimating tool has also been revamped. “It takes a slightly different approach; it’s now product-based and can handle lots of different product options,” says Tyler. “The idea is to enable much faster processing of jobs; it’s now possible to create an order in less than 12 seconds.”

This need for speed is echoed by Bisset: “Digital printers using traditional MIS could find that by the time they’d entered a job into the system it was already out
of the door.”

Underlying the product-based approach is a new take on estimating which breaks everything down into tasks.

“We put a lot of work into making it formula-based, so you can use it to estimate anything,” says Bisset.

The company claims this new approach makes it easier to work on a campaign basis, with the multiple different tasks and components that involves, rather than a job basis.

Design elements are easy to incorporate, as are other non-print services and any outwork that has to be purchased. To give an example of the system’s flexibility, Bisset adds that the firm uses the system to manage its own development projects.

A new outwork manager module makes dealing with third-party suppliers quicker and easier, with the ability to set up preferred supplier lists.

Other tools also simplify estimating, including templates for different types of work, so you don’t have to start from scratch when creating every estimate, and the inclusion of a ‘helper’ button to guide you when something needs additional explanation.

Lean manufacturing
Lean manufacturing is at the heart of the Optimus approach to the market. In its homeland, the vendor has worked closely with the peak trade association, the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF). Optimus has been a vociferous supporter of the BPIF’s lean initiative, Vision in Print, and its MIS Best Practice project.

Here in Australia, Optimus is working with the Federal government’s Enterprise Connect initiative and GASAA to encourage an awareness of lean manufac­turing. Enterprise Connect is a $251m program to help local manufacturers become more productive and profitable. Individual businesses may be eligible for up to $20,000 to part-fund programs costing up to a total of $40,000.

“One of the main aims of Vision in Print – to make printers more competitive – is the same goal that we have for our customers operating Optimus 2020,” says Bisset.

“The function of a management information system is to reduce errors and wastage, increase productivity and improve communications, both within the printing plant and with clients.”

Optimus’ Vision product uses data collection and business intelligence to monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Essential to that is the amount of underlying data that the system collects and that remains in Dash. Basic KPI indicators are included, while for a more advanced system, as before, users can buy Optimus Vision.

Optimus has substantially rewritten the Vision KPIs to reflect the latest recommendations published by Vision in Print back in January. In Australia, Optimus sees the same relationship regarding KPIs and lean manufacturing with Enterprise Connect.

Striking a balance
Bisset believes that it’s a challenge to strike a balance in an MIS between offering automation and efficiency and being fast and fluid, while still retaining the consistency and accuracy that is essential to ensure profitability.

“I’d love to be able to say Dash will save you X-thousands of  dollars, but it’s difficult to give an accurate figure as it depends so much on the state of a printer’s processes and systems before they install the system,” she says.

“But we  gained customers already committed to it ahead of Ipex because they saw it offers such a leap in productivity,” adds Bisset.

Optimus claims to have a leap on the competition with Dash. However, it wasn’t alone in refreshing its product for Ipex. Tharstern launched a new system called Primo, which was a significant advance on the previous T4 platform.

Optimus also faces a renewed challenge from global giant EFI which, following its recent acquisition of Radius, promises to redouble its efforts, with beta programs currently running in Australia.

All of this renewed competition bodes well for printers looking to drive their businesses forward with improvements to their administration processes and MIS. 

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