One of the MIS crowd stoppers at Drupa was the ability to access your system via an iPhone, but back home the real interest is in how the systems can drive day-to-day operational efficiency. The two areas proving the most interesting are how to most effectively link web-to-print, online estimating and any other customer-preferred procurement process into MIS, and how to reduce waste and improve productivity on the shopfloor.

The first job for the printer is to make it easier for the customer to deal with them, says Shuttleworth joint managing director Paul Deane. Historically, because print is a manufacturing industry, the focus has been on trying to squeeze efficiency from production, but it’s as important in administration.

He adds that not only should printers consider their own internal costs, but also how their way of working could
affect customers’ internal procurement costs. Everyone is trying to squeeze as much cost out of their administration
as possible.

Order of the day
The goal in administration is to reduce cost through process automation and data exchange. One development on the horizon is a specification called PrintTalk, which takes a flavour of JDF to the process of submitting orders, says Deane. In the meantime, there are other ways to automate getting an order into your MIS, some of which, like JDF, are based on XML, and others which use the more humble CSV spreadsheet format.

Spreadsheet-based pricing isn’t new. It’s proved popular in sectors such as digital production or printing, books, greetings cards and journals – where products are standardised, there’s a need for quick turnarounds and jobs are likely
to be part of a contract, rather than a one-off. As more firms move to secure work on contract, it’s an approach that is becoming more common. This development, as well as web-to-print storefronts and online expert estimating systems such as Brightblue, are causing a fundamental change in the way MIS are being used.

The common factor is you know the price already, says Optimus director of research and development Nigel Tyler. Optimus managing director Nicola Bisset adds: We have three front-end connections to cover all bases, spreadsheets, web-to-print template systems and commercial estimating/print management sites.

The firm launched two tools at the Pira MIS show to enable its clients to work in these new ways, Optimus iW and iX. Tyler explains: If you’re set up for ordering online, you don’t need an estimate; the prices are all agreed. But you do need to automate as much as possible – iW is the glue that sticks Optimus to the internet.

Optimus iX is a plug-in for Excel. It’s the same idea as for iW but for situations where it is a spreadsheet price list. And it’s two-way – if you change any details that affect pricing in Optimus, it can update the relevant fields in the spreadsheet, too.

In production, an increased interest in how an MIS can be used to improve efficiency and reduce waste has been triggered by several factors. The state of the print market and the bleak economic outlook are forcing firms to cut costs. JDF, with its promises of automation and integration, offers a route to these necessary savings.

If you’ve had manual data collection, JDF shows how inaccurate it’s been, says Prism Europe sales manager Robin Cook. It’s opened up a whole debate. People want accurate job costing because of JDF. He says that, as a result, the firm has seen renewed interest in its QTMS tools for collecting information both from machines and operators. QTMS fills in the pieces of the jigsaw for shopfloor data collection and direct machine interfaces for those without JDF and JMF. And 95%-plus of kit hasn’t got those capabilities.

JDF backlash?
That view is echoed by Jonathan Richards, chairman of MIS supplier Imprint. We’ve all been pushing JDF, but the feedback is that it’s hugely expensive and not all kit is ever going to have it. We thought Sentinel [Imprint’s data collection system] would be declining, instead it’s been on the increase over the past few months.

Journal and book printer Cambrian has used its MIS to drive production efficiences. Operations director Doug Gray, who has a background in newspaper and web offset, has applied what he picked up in those sectors to the Aberystwyth-based sheetfed firm.

You need the kit to tell you what’s happening without the operator’s intervention, he says. This goes back 20 years in newspapers and web offset. Web thinking is migrating to sheetfed.

Gray adds: You have to measure how long it actually takes to do a job and not rely on what it says on the docket. People forget that when they were on the shopfloor, they used to make the docket say what they thought it was supposed to say, and not what actually happened.

The firm operates Shuttleworth MIS and uses the DataFlow tool to handle machine feedback and the Digital Dashboard to display production status and KPIs. Data is collected from machines that aren’t JDF and JMF compatible using equipment from Core Control. JDF and JMF are fine if you’re putting brand new kit in; the problem is that most kit is old – you need ways to get information off old kit, says Gray. The tools to track productivity have enabled the firm to improve its efficiency, and have thrown up some surprises along the way.

Measurement showed us that our makereadies weren’t as good as they could have been, says Gray. We split makeready into two steps, first prepping and second running into good copy. We found it was the first step that was letting us down, but we had been focusing on improving the second step. Now we’ve focused on getting pallets to the kit and the plates on press.

Considered approach
Feeding the data back into the MIS has provided better cost rates and, therefore, more accurate estimates. In some cases, jobs have been found to take longer than planned, and hence cost more to produce. Armed with that information, the firm has been able to go to customers to negotiate the price or the production method to find a mutually satisfactory outcome.

Gray highlights the need to be careful not to get bogged down by all the available data and to limit what you look at. It can take over your life, he says. We limit it to six daily KPIs: makeready, running speed, waste, downtime, maintenance and overall equipment effectiveness. Since we’ve had it, we’ve performed better. You can see a little improvement in running speeds but it is makeready that has made the big differences.

With data rather than just a gut feeling, the firm recently invested in a new 10-unit KBA Rapida 106, selected on the strength of its rapid makeready. The high-spec investment highlights just how useful an MIS can be if it has the right information and is used in the correct way.

Data managment: What’s new in MIS
Accurate data collection and analysis
The desire to improve profitability is driving the demand for accurate data to understand what areas to focus on for the biggest gains at the lowest cost. Firms are seeing a renewed interest in direct machine interfaces (DMI) as a lower-cost route than investing in new JDF-enabled kit

Dashboards
This software enables real-time data analysis and KPI reporting throughout the business in finance, customer service and production to reduce waste and to improve efficiency, performance and profitability. The next step is to make the data available on any device, anywhere at any time, as shown by some firms at Drupa

Equipment modelling
Estimating packages that allow you to plug in details of kit you’re considering buying to see how it stacks up commercially before committing to an investment, or to see how your production costs compare in new sectors or against your rivals

Flexible interfaces
Front ends for MIS that can take in estimates, prices and production instructions from third-party systems including web-to-print tools, online estimating tools, spreadsheets and customers’ own systems

Print management tools
Both Iteba SP in the latest version of Solprint and Tharstern in T4 have added functions to support printers providing print management services

Support for sustainable paper sources
Imprint and Tharstern are highlighting the ability of their MIS to handle all the elements necessary from purchasing, through production to delivery to ensure the necessary procedures are in place to meet FSC and PEFC chain-of-custody compliance