Onyx Hub launched for wide-format print business management

US-headquartered software developer Onyx Graphics has released a new “business intelligence” product, the newest addition to the Onyx SiteSolutions family.

Onyx Hub software is aimed at small to medium-sized businesses with multiple sites and/or multiple fleets and enables business owners and production managers to gather detailed information about how their businesses are working.

The product, which can be installed on any mobile, laptop or desktop device can access historic, real-time and trend data from all sites, jobs, stations and printers within a business.

Featuring a browser-based dashboard, Onyx Hub also delivers data on ink usage and media wastage to help print businesses analyse costs and consider areas for improved efficiency. 

"This gives a level of visibility that we haven’t see at small and medium-sized business level in this market," said UK Onyx distributor ArtSystems' marketing manager John Draycott.

"Someone can log on anywhere in the world and interrogate a single printer within a fleet and find out what it's printing. They could export and extract all the data so it gives total visibility of cost, which printers are performing, which sites are performing and where there are any fundamental imbalances of resources in various locations," he explained. 

"You can have complex workflows involving multiple fleets and sites and this provides a way of managing all of those remotely. The concept isn't new but what Onyx have done is streamline a number of existing components and functionality into a single piece of software," he added.

The product works in conjuction with Onyx Thive workflow software so users need Thrive to be able to use Hub. Pricing is dependent on what package of software each user has. Hub is available immediately. 

Earlier this month the software developer released the latest version to its wide-format print workflow and RIP product. Onyx 12.2, an update to version 12.1 that was released in January, features a new multi-roll user interface with an interactive workflow, enhanced media and page-size handling and improved cutting workflow updates and is said to reduced production times.