The Merits of MIS

Jeff Hudepohl, executive vice president at Graphic Village in Cincinnati, Ohio, found reporting issues to be a challenge for his printing operation where 85 employees do traditional offset printing, digital printing, large-format signage, mailing, and marketing.

“We didn’t know if we were making any money or not on a per job basis,” he says.

In February, the company brought in a Tharstern Management Information System (MIS).

“There is a ton of information available for us to collect on a daily, weekly and monthly basis on what we’re doing on each job per each cost center and department,” says Hudepohl.

An MIS is a software system which collects and centralizes data for the range of processes used by a manufacturing organization, notes Michael Bradley, marketing coordinator for PrintVis.

A print MIS acts as the information hub of a shop, providing real-time visibility to key pieces of customer and job information critical to business profitability, says Stephen McWilliam, executive vice president, Avanti.

“Generally, these businesses require additional third-party party software to handle financials, customer relationship management, human resources, payroll, inventory and warehouse management,” says Bradley. “This is where the larger scope of an Enterprise Resource Planning system comes into play.”

Ted Vickers, Aleyant PrintJob Manager product manager, points out the MIS is primarily used to increase internal communications, create consistency in estimating/quotations, comprehensive job ticket/work order job scheduling, track production statuses and material usage, and create variance reports to show quoted costs versus actual costs. MIS applications also can provide historical data based on past estimates and orders, by customer, sales reps and in some cases job type.

“Set-up usually is done by the user by defining workflow processes and assigning actual costs related to each department and its cost centers,” he says. “The user assigns markups – in some cases, multiple markup values may be used to create multiple levels of selling price that may depend on the type of work, customer and quantity of the estimate or order.”

That allows the user to create consistent estimates and quotations and in turn generate orders knowing their costs are covered, he adds.
Once an order is created, the MIS application will create the detailed production job ticket/work order that can be printed or viewed online by production personnel to view the planned production processes and materials needed for order completion.

Some MIS applications provide shop-floor data collection which will update job statuses and provide actual production time and material usage used to create a quoted versus actual variance file to show profit or loss, says Vickers.

While large printing operations commonly have an MIS, every print operation is a candidate for one, notes Jeff White, general manager of the small and medium business segment for the EFI software division.

Becoming proactive via MIS

An MIS system, properly set up, can “turn a reactive company into a proactive company,” says Vickers.

• Management benefits by being able to review and analyze production times, costs and material usage profitability. “It is also a good way to analyze plant, department, and equipment capacities, therefore helping the decision-making process when investing in new equipment and staff,” says Vickers. 
• Sales reps benefit by being able to review current job statuses in won versus lost reports. “In the case of value-added based commissions, this will also guide the sales rep to bring in more work based on the company’s capabilities,” he adds.
• Production personnel benefit by having a comprehensive job ticket detailing production processes time as well as materials needed for the job.
• Customers benefit by receiving quick estimates and in some cases track their job status as well as placing reorders quickly and efficiently. 

Bradley points out a return on investment (ROI) can be derived by reducing unneeded inventory or obtaining the correct material requirement planning through the analysis of relevant data captured by the MIS. It also leads to a more paperless organization, he says.

“The shops we've seen benefit the most from a Print MIS system are those that have seen a dramatic increase in the number of jobs and are trying to manage multiple lines of business such as traditional print, large format, mail, fulfillment as well as design and marketing services,” notes McWilliam.

Without a system or an older legacy MIS systems designed for only offset, CSRs are spending up to 30 percent of their time tracking down job status for their sales reps, says McWilliam.

“Meanwhile, departments maintain numerous spreadsheets, applications and databases to run their business, making it very difficult to share and consolidate information,” says McWilliam. “They've pushed their existing systems as far as they can, but with respect to being able to run an efficient, profitable shop they are closing in on their breaking point.”

Managing growth is one of the greatest challenges facing printing service providers (PSP), notes McWilliam.

“How do you handle the rise in short-run digital jobs for quoting, ticketing, tracking, costing and billing? How do you connect your front-of-the-house business processes with back-of-the-house production processes while simultaneously negotiating better rates from your suppliers, and creating and reconciling purchase orders? How can you manage the flow of information from self-serve web-to-print portals and still keep your customers satisfied?”

Controlling costs means streamlining workflow, connecting ‘islands of automation’ and having the tools to keep on top of the entire operation, from job tracking and reporting to being in front of any issues and opportunities, says McWilliam.

The integration and the automation

The marketplace offers several MIS options.

Print MIS systems like Avanti Slingshot – a Job Definition Format (JDF) certified print MIS platform – are designed to provide efficiency to a printer by streamlining tasks like estimating, job costing, job tracking and billing, while ensuring production and business workflows are connected, notes McWilliam.
Tharstern makes a fully integrated and modular MIS.

In addition to the core functionality printing operations needed from an MIS, Tharstern has endeavored to “achieve some clever things with the algorithms behind our estimating and imposition engines,” says Tharstern’s Susan Moore, vice president of sales.

“You can create estimates with versions for different quantity and sizes, for example, and then have the MIS auto-create the imposed sheets.Without an MIS, calculations like this just wouldn’t be achievable.”

Tharstern has an OpenAPI Specification “so even the smallest vendors can integrate with our software, and vice versa,” she adds.
PrintVis is an MIS developed specifically for the vertical print industry and built directly on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, an ERP platform, alleviating the need for additional third party programs such as Quickbooks, says Bradley.

Aleyant PrintJobManager is MIS/ERP simplified and can be used as a fast standalone application for pricing, estimating, order entry, inventory management, and shop floor data collection, among other functions.

It is designed to be user-friendly, enabling shop owners and production managers to manage their shops from any device, says Vickers.

“The more of an MIS system that is set up, the easier it is for sales reps, customer service and production personnel to implement and use,” notes Vickers, adding the company offers a “we will build it for you” option for PrintJobManager.

PrintJobManager can be used with the Aleyant Pressero web-to-print B2B and B2C ecommerce solution as well as other W2P solutions. PrintJobManager is also a Zapier app, designed to enable fast, easy integration with a variety of business solutions such as QuickBooks, Zoho, Xero, Salesforce, Chargify, and ShipStation for a customized end-to-end production and business workflow.

PrintJobManager also comes preloaded with libraries for equipment, materials and pricing.

“When integrated with Pressero, product pricing created in PrintJobManager can be seamlessly used within Pressero storefronts, eliminating the need to create and maintain separate pricing systems for online stores and in-shop management,” says Vickers.

The MIS also is designed to provide consistent pricing to all users. Cloud-based PrintJobManager is compatible with browsers on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices, with no fees for additional seats or locations.

EFI’s PrintSmith Vision is used by operations with three to 20 employees for estimating, costing, accounting integration, and data collection. EFI’s Midmarket Print Suite is geared for companies with more than 20 employees.

The completely integrated system has ecommerce with a digital storefront package, feeding work directly into an operation’s system and from the time someone places an order, “it can literally flow all the way out to the digital output device on the factory floor without anybody touching it,” notes White. “During that time, the job is scheduled, costed, a production plan is created, and a job ticket is created.”

Automation of tasks previously done by hand impacts the trend of shorter run lengths, White says. “It takes just as long to create a job ticket, a plan and an order for a job that is $25 as it does to produce one you’re selling for tens of thousands of dollars,” he adds.

EFI’s bigger and more robust Monarch and Technique systems are used by large commercial enterprise accounts and enables greater integration and communication with a company’s other systems, says White.

EFI’s Radius Enterprise Resource Planning system is a packaging suite used for typical packaging boxes, cartons, and flexible packaging materials.
EFI has a new corrugated packaging suite to address a rapidly-growing area of the industry where advertisers are using corrugated as another way to get a message out by printing on it, says White. EFI’s Nozomi printer “allows us to print 9,000 corrugated boards an hour, each one with a different image on it,” says White.

End-to-end workflow

MIS technology is only as good as the ability of a printing operator to leverage all of its capabilities.

In the 1980s, that meant “training the trainer,” says White.

“As the industry gets leaner, there are fewer people in the printing operation who can take on the role of trainer,” he says. “Now, we’re taking an implementation approach where we do an analysis of the workflows within their facility and implement and build the system so when we do training, they have a system that is already functional and ready to go.”

In choosing the appropriate MIS for a printing operation, McWilliam suggests PSPs examine each step in the workflow required to get a job through the shop and compare the time it currently takes in contrast to how long it will take in a new system.

One system should handle multiple lines of printing business, he adds.

PSPs also should determine if a print MIS has JDF integration supporting multiple software applications such as web-to-print and pre-press, as well as equipment for the streamlined collection and data sharing to better understand costs, says McWilliam.

Post-purchase support that includes employee training and technical support as the system changes also is critical, he says.

Moore advises printing operations looking for an MIS to create a team to produce a list of needs and wants for all business areas followed by online research to evaluate potential vendors. The company offers an online advisory guide.

The ability to access the wealth of data within the MIS should be at the top of the list, she points out, adding “if you’re not using that data to set and track Key Performance Indicators and business strategy, then you’re not getting the best return on your investment.”

A good MIS provides end-to-end visibility of a company’s production workflow, with functionality for managing estimation to job planning to shipping, invoicing and job costing and with robust reporting capabilities for each process, notes Bradley.

“Shop floor data collection is a big one for print companies to understand machine speeds and material usage and ultimately gather the business intelligence of whether a job was profitable or not,” he adds.

Cost control and cost reduction at each stage leading to an overall improvement in profitability is a key ROI expectation, says Bradley.

Factors such as system flexibility to meet current and future needs, easy set-up and a short learning curve also are important, as is an MIS company that is well-versed in printing processes and equipment set-up, says Vickers.