Behind the scenes

In business, there is nothing better than feeling that you are part of a well-oiled machine. From start to finish, order to completion, everybody knows their role, the processing runs smoothly, and bottlenecks are quickly unclogged, if they occur at all. Yet such cohesion does not exist by accident. Underneath the surface and behind the scenes of all thriving companies are systems hard at work to maintain this veneer of effortless control.
 
As soon as your business begins to pick up pace, a management information software (MIS) can become a lifeline, streamlining the entire workflow with more precision and control than the most adept project manager could hope for. Of course, different types of business have different needs and in this feature I will look at the management information software that specifically caters to sign and wide-format print companies.

Tailored trouble-shooting

The Midmarket Print Suite built around the EFI Pace MIS is EFI’s offering for the wide-format print industry. It is designed to encompass complete end-to-end solutions from order acquisition through shipping that specifically address the requirements of sign-makers.

Renee Hesseling, product marketing manager at EFI, explains: “The wide-format printing market has unique needs and characteristics. The Midmarket Print Suite addresses many of these needs to provide printers with a streamlined workflow that enables faster throughput and ultimately a faster order to cash cycle.



“The wide-format industry requires a solution to deal with complex estimate requests that traditionally require multiple points of manual data entry. The estimating capabilities within Pace and the Midmarket Print Suite offer automation and reduced clicks to keep order request information, customer information and shipping information clean, accurate and easily updated.”

 
In addition to these tailored solutions, the EFI Pace MIS has a feature that can empower a sales user to provide accurate estimates for standard requests, as Hesseling explains: “The estimator is freed up to focus on more complex requests that require a lot of time. This feature allows the company to set up a series of questions for these standard requests. These standard estimate requests become as easy as 1, 2, 3.

“Estimators are no longer bogged down with standard requests, sales users are empowered to provide an added level of customer service and customers can be given fast and accurate estimates.”

Sweeping statements

Of course, even within the fairly niche market of wide-format print, there are many variations on the sort of products and services companies offer. No two companies are the same, so business owners need to be sure they are investing in a system geared up specifically for the type of work their company carries out.

Just take a look at Bubble World. The firm started as a sign company in 2000, specialising in vehicle graphics, but in recent years has expanded into specialist commercial sticker printing. As this expansion continued, founder and managing director Natasha Thomas decided it was time to re-evaluate the firm’s MIS programme.

She explains: “We’d used another industry specific quoting program since the business was formed in 2000. It was ok, but as the business grew, I didn’t feel as though the program was able to grow with us—it felt a bit small and there were elements of it that weren’t accurate enough.

O Factoid: Management information systems as an academic discipline studies people, technology, organisations, and the relationships among them, and is a course of study in business schools, which often have an MIS department. O

“I was visiting a friend’s business in Reading—we’ve been mutual clients of each other’s for years and job management software came up in conversation. He gave me a quick demo of Accura and explained how it worked—instantly I could tell it was much better than our current system so decided to look at it a bit closer and arrange a demo.”

Accura offers an MIS that it claims is the complete solution for your printing company, whether you specialise in digital, wide-format, litho, or labels. The firm suggest that this complete ‘end-to-end’ solution is one of the few systems to offer fully integrated CRM, MIS, and web to print in one solution, and will be exhibiting it at the upcoming Sign and Digital UK.

Bubble World’s Thomas continues to say that since installing the Accura system, the firm’s gross profit for the period has increased by 11.4 percent, proving, if nothing else, the importance of keeping up-to-date with your MIS.



This assertion is something EFI’s Hesseling testifies to, adding: “MIS platforms become outdated and need to be replaced. Upgrading to the most current platform allows the MIS to run faster and ensures that you are taking full advantage of all features and security measures the MIS offers. As technology continues to progress, new aspects of the MIS may not be supported. Continuing to use these old platforms becomes cumbersome and ultimately degrades workflow automation.”

She continues to say that vehicle wrapping is an area the Midmarket Print Suite is also able to accommodate, explaining: “These order requests have multiple pieces of information attached such as vehicle description and photos. The Midmarket Print Suite provides one location for the storage of all these various pieces associated with each job, making it easy to keep track and ensure the correct information is available at your fingertips.

“Other components such as shop floor data collection, scheduling, and shipping solutions provide additional areas for workflow improvement and the ability to reduce touch-points, getting printers much closer to the coveted ‘lights out’ automation.”

Clarify your approach

Further proof of how updating your MIS can improve efficiencies and maximise profits is Birmingham-based Hollywood Monster. In 2009, Hollywood Signs and Monster Digital merged to create Hollywood Monster. Hollywood Signs had been using inefficient manual systems based largely on spreadsheets and Word documents, whilst Monster Digital were using a system built by a digital print company, which was unable to cater for the sign-making functionality requirements of the merged business.

Driven by the changing needs of the newly-formed company, the firm turned to Clarity Software. Tim Andrews, chairman of Hollywood Monster, explains: “We needed a business-wide solution that would work for everyone in the new company, one that our employees could adopt and use effortlessly to perform their digital print or sign making tasks.



“Clarity was by far the best option and gave us the chance to centralise our processes from marketing through to Sage 50 accounts integration. The combined ROI is huge; particularly in time and cost savings, but also in clear visibility for confident decision making.”

Another firm putting its faith in Clarity is trade supplier of signage, lighting, and display Applelec, whose managing director, Ian Drinkwater, recently held the presidency for the British Sign and Graphics Association. In 2002, Applelec needed to find an easy to use CRM and estimating solution that could handle an increasing volume of business quotations and streamline their manual processes.

After turning to Clarity Professional, the solution they provided is now used in every department of Applelec to streamline, integrate, and coordinate business activity. Keri Stephenson, PR and marketing officer at Applelec explains: “The easy-to-use Clarity CRM functionality ensures critical information is gathered in a straightforward, logical and structured way. We now have an integrated workflow solution for our sales, production and accounts departments, which has delivered streamlined manufacturing and financial processes.”

She continues: “The system’s ease of use, with instant access to customer details and consecutive records of all past quotations, is something we have come to rely upon implicitly. In over nine years of use, Clarity has contributed significantly to the time management of Applelec’s staff, aiding an increase in productivity whilst creating a detailed financial record of our company activity.”

Fast track to the future

An additional consideration when choosing a new MIS is how it will fit within your existing technology portfolio. Hesseling from EFI claims that the EFI Pace MIS integrates seamlessly with Fiery XF and Vutek wide-format printers in a bi-directional manner.

She continues: “Through this integration printers can not only achieve information being passed to the printer, but also receive consumption information back to the MIS. Once printers know the true cost of a job through ink consumption, actual run time, and substrate use they can quickly manage the job, make adjustments and provide more accurate estimates to their customers. Both the printer and the customer are able to make better business decisions based on facts, not guesstimates.”



Looking to the future, Hesseling only sees the importance and take-up of MIS software growing in the signage sector, as product and service offerings become increasingly complex and varied.

She says: “The wide and superwide format printing market is one of innovation. Printers are typically asked to create a product that has never been created before. An area of growth for wide and super wide-format printing is personalisation and customisation. This area will be limited only by the imagination of the customers; printers will continually be pushed to find solutions to meet those needs. We will likely continue to see textiles become a large sector in wide-format printing with variable images and customisation being required to meet the consumers needs.”

No matter which direction you see your company moving in over the next few years, a helping hand in the management of your workflow will never go amiss. So, if you think there is room to streamline systems or there are bumps in the production road that could be ironed out, it might be worth taking a look at the MIS solutions designed specifically for businesses like you.


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