Cumbrian digital print house Cypher Digital likes to do things properly, which considering its diverse product offering – printing everything from business cards to large-scale exhibition stands – is quite a tall order for a company of 13 staff. Yet the £823,000-turnover firm is rather astute at making the most of what it has at its disposal.

"We have set our stall out to cover all the bases properly, so we have the right kit and the right people to do all the jobs we offer," explains managing director Paul Calland.

The company runs both large- and small-format kit, including Xerox 8002 and 700 presses and a HP Z60 100, a HP L25 500 and an Epson 9880. For 14 years, this myriad of services and presses was held together with an MIS system built by Calland himself. A former image setter at an Apple Centre at the start of the 1990s, he was well-versed in FileMaker database software and used it to good effect.

However, as the company grew and more ideas got fed into the MIS system alongside information being stored on external spreadsheets and on the company website, it all became a bit, in Calland’s words, "unwieldy".

Hence, in the middle of 2010, Cypher went on the hunt for an MIS that could pull everything into one system, that could cope with its eclectic business mix (Cypher sells exhibition stands and other non-print items as well as print products) and that could improve the business operations. What occurred next was one of the most well-researched investments ever made.

Size matters
First off, Cypher looked at all the MIS on the market. Calland says that the big guys were a no-go from the start: "We are too small and they just wouldn’t make enough money off us," he explains.

That left some of the smaller operators, but an inability to work off a Mac platform saw many of those fall away from the running too. Eventually, after more in-depth assessments, TimeHarvest and Optimus Dash were the only two contenders left. A demo of each was run and presentations were made, but TimeHarvest shone out.

"TimeHarvest is built on FileMaker and so everyone understands it here. It is also a very easy system to use – you don’t want to waste time learning a complex system. An added factor was that Optimus didn’t seem to have the experience of dealing with a company like us, where not everything is a print product. TimeHarvest seemed to understand that more," he claims.

So they bought TimeHarvest, right? Well, not yet. Around the time of these investigations, Lancaster University came to the company to offer a grant to get involved in the business as part of a Business Links scheme the university was running. Calland accepted and set them to work on the MIS hunt for their research project.

"It was probably the best researched investment ever," he reveals. "It was really useful for us to get back-up for our own findings as the MIS market is really messy. The fact they chose TimeHarvest as being best suited to us gave us a lot of confidence in our own findings."

Cypher Digital took on both TimeHarvest modules, DigiQuote and JobControl. DigiQuote is, as the name suggests, quoting software, while JobControl converts successful quotes into jobs with just one click. A colour-coded production board with linked work tickets allows jobs to be moved forward and signed off quickly and efficiently and branded delivery notes and other job documentation can be produced on completion.

"We were up and running with TimeHarvest within a week," says Calland. "It was hassle free and so much quicker than we were quoted from other vendors, who were talking up to a month for installation and training."

He adds that there were no problems following installation, but that he was, because of his knowledge of FileMaker, on the phone straight away to request what he calls "wouldn’t it be nice to haves".

"We had no problems at all with the installation, I just had some ideas about what I wanted in addition," he explains. "Luckily, TimeHarvest is very amenable to building things in. Most of the time, they would build a suggestion in for all the users, so it was free, but if they believed the addition would only benefit us, we would be charged for the work – and we were happy to pay."

Calland says one of the major advantages of the software is that the job control board has made workflow so much simpler. The company does a lot of work for exhibitions where several different print and non-print items are packaged in a single box to be dispatched to the customer. Previously, this would have been difficult to compile with either numerous separate job tickets or a single ticket that was difficult for the individual departments to see clearly what they had to produce.

With TimeHarvest, the firm can have one job sheet that populates the individual job lists of the different departments but keeps it all together centrally. This means each department can see the jobs they have to do clearly, and the software brings all those jobs together as a single job at the end ready to send out.

"The other major benefit is that we can better manage our costs," he adds. "We put in all the costs to us – including the hourly rates for the machines and the labour costs, as well as a charge for pre-press that is moveable depending on how much the client takes of your time – and we can stipulate a margin. The result of that is that we can see how much we are making on every job and we can price properly and know where the business is. It’s incredibly important to have this visibility."

Easy to host
Calland says that there is no need for flashy computers or servers to run the system; at Cypher it works perfectly off a basic server. He adds, though, that TimeHarvest can host the system offsite for you if IT infrastructure is an issue and they can also back up the system remotely as well.

As for service and support, Calland is full of praise. TimeHarvest can log in remotely to fix any issue with the system quickly and so he says downtime is never an issue.

And this ability to log on remotely is not restricted to TimeHarvest. As the MIS is built on FileMaker software, access to the MIS can be made from the FileMaker iPhone and iPad apps, available at minimal cost from the app store.

"We can log in from anywhere and see where we are at with work and how things are going, it’s an incredibly useful feature," says Calland.

He admits that TimeHarvest may not be suited to every printer. As an affordable out-of-the-box solution with minimal lead time, he says it is perfect for companies around his size, and perhaps slightly larger, but he thinks the really big boys would want something much more complex.

"The minute you are Polestar or St Ives then this is clearly not suitable, but for companies of our size it is perfect," he explains. "That said, I think there are very big companies running on it, so I guess it depends on the functionality you want."

For Cypher, the functionality is spot on for its flexible offering and, though it took some extensive research to find the right partner, the benefits since installation have proved that doing your homework properly is well worth while in the long run.

SPECIFICATIONS
Modules
DigiQuote-PRO (quoting system) and JobControl (production system)
Operating systems
Mac, Windows, iOS
(for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch)
Price
Each product is £2,995 to buy or £145 per month as a hosted (cloud-based) service. There are some additional charges for FileMaker licences, training, etc.
Contact
Geoff Stephens gs@timeharvest.com 01865 989111

COMPANY PROFILE
Cumbria based Cypher Digital originally started as an imagesetting department within a local Apple Centre in 1990. After a period of rapid expansion, the department was purchased in a management buyout by husband-and-wife-team Paul and Sue Calland in January 1995. The company serves a broad client base that stretches as far afield as the Falklands, offering products ranging from business cards to large-scale exhibition stands. It has a turnover of £823,000 and 13 staff.

Why I bought it…
The home-made MIS the company was running had become unwieldy and managing director Paul Calland wanted something that simplified the workflow and enabled the company to keep a better eye on costs.

How it has performed…
Calland says the system has enabled the company to be more efficient producing orders and more aware of its costs.