News

A good Management Information System (MIS) can provide detailed customer history, stock control, production control, customer relationship management (CRM) and manage-ment accounts information. Once implemented, an MIS could help speed up and add integrity to the jobs coming in and out of your factory. Apart from thinking solely about investments in standard hardware, such as presses and finishing equipment, more printers are starting to realise how investments in this type of software can benefit them. At this year’s Digital Print World, there was a host of MIS companies exhibiting the latest developments in the sector.

Integration with Job Definition Format (JDF) is still the hot topic in MIS, with some manufacturers declaring there is much more to be done to help printers understand the far-reaching benefits of a JDF-integrated workflow.
However, with companies moving away from being standard litho or digital printers, manufacturers are also looking at ways to implement this mixed information into the systems they provide.

In the past year, TimeHarvest managing director Geoff Stephens has noticed a trend for digital display printing equipment to be used alongside ‘volume’ digital printing equipment, as printers continue to diversify their output. It will, therefore, become increasingly important for the ­output of several different processes, such as litho, flatbed display and sheetfed digital, to be quoted quickly from the same estimating system.

Shift in focus
“Likewise, as run lengths fall and the trend towards a multitude of relatively small jobs continues, the focus of production control systems will shift from efficient utilisation of assets towards more easily accessible information of the status of individual orders,” Stephens says.

Optimus sales director Steve Richardson agrees, noting that software for litho had too much information in it, for which digital printers just didn’t have the time.

“Digital printers want the maximum amount of job information for the minimum amount of keying and often operate in an environment where the selling price is already agreed. What they need is the ability to see how they can best make a profit when the final unit price is fixed,” he says.

Firstly, customers have to be clear in their own mind about what they want to get from their MIS software, Richardson advises. “They might want to ask what work they are more profitable on, or the cost of using different machinery or procedures. Many businesses are busy but not profitable.”

MIS applications for web-to-print are also gaining in popularity, notes Shuttleworth Business Systems joint managing director Andy King. Users of this technology report an 80% reduction in administrative overhead and the complete elimination of human error at the printer side of the transaction.

It is hard to summarise the vast number of developments in MIS within the past year, but the Pira MIS 2007 show
taking place next week (7-8 November) in Solihull should hopefully give buyers a taster. 

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WHAT'S NEW IN...MIS
• Kodak has brought out the latest version of its Prinergy Business Link software. Version 3.0 offers full support for the latest CIP4 MIS to pre-press Interoperability Conformance Specification (ICS)
• MIS supplier The Optimus Group was formed following an MBO of OCSL from parent firm Optichrome Group in May. Real Digital subsequently placed a 25-user Optimus 2020 order. At Digital Print World, Optimus showed new versions of its Optimus QS MIS package and price list estimating software
• Tharstern will showcase both TharsternSQL V3 (T3) and SmallPrint at the MIS show next week. New areas include a barcode stock management module to allow printers to book stock in and out and manage stock locations. It will also show its new variable data option for its
e-commerce solution, e4print
• Printpak shipped version 4 of its eponymous MIS to its first batch of users last month. Printpak 4 features a redesigned user interface, an updated estimating engine and support for all Windows platforms