Tharstern showed a number of new features for wide-format and commercial printers at Fespa Digital this week.

The MIS specialist has more than 7,000 users of its MIS and workflow systems worldwide. It has now added CAD integration, which can support nested impositions of non-rectangular shapes. Also new is versioning support within estimating.

“Users can create different quotes for different versions,” said global sales director Lee Ward. “Our estimating system will plan up the different versions and optimise the sheet yield. It’s a pretty cool feature for these guys, especially if they’re producing different versions of the same product, on expensive material.”

Also new is Tharstern’s Business Intelligence module, which allows users to create their own dashboards to show a visual representation of company performance.

“It’s true data mining and we’re giving the power to the customer,” Ward explained. “Every business has common KPIs, but customers often have additional requirements that are specific to their own business. They can now set this up themselves.”

The Business Intelligence module will be available over the summer, and will be charged on an annual licence fee.

Ward said Tharstern’s XML ordering process was also “particularly pertinent” for POP printers. “It’s taking data from other systems to automate the ordering process. If you have orders for multiple items from multiple stores, it can do away with days of order processing.”

The UK developer has worked closely with large-format printers to develop its range of solutions.

Tharstern’s CRM Module is now integrated with marketing platforms such as Hubspot. “This is a real hot topic across our customer base. They can dissect the data and instigate marketing campaigns to encourage business growth,” Ward added.