by Cassandra Balentine
Part two of two
The September issue of DPS Magazine looks at the importance of accessibility, ease of use, and reporting and analytics of modern print MIS solutions. With an aging labor force and shifts to shorter run production, it is essential that print providers are next-generation ready.
Here we highlight several print MIS options.
Aleyant
Aleyant PrintJobManager is MIS/ERP simplified. It uses a mobile, cloud-based approach to MIS that includes a fast means of generating market-driven pricing, job management, inventory tracking, real-time job tracking, and estimating.
PrintJobManager uses in-depth pricing templates to estimate and price jobs. This process allows for consistent and quick pricing on the manufacturing process and frequent material/paper increases.
When PrintJobManager is integrated with Pressero web to print (W2P), 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.
“Whether its a customer service representative, sales representative, or estimator creating a quote, they will all receive the same, consistent pricing,” explains David Graves, CEO, Aleyant.
Aleyant’s current pricing is designed to to be affordable with a basic to an unlimited plan for seat licensing to allow for any size shop to enjoy automated estimating, pricing, scheduling, and inventory control.
“Our developers are working very hard on a job profitability report that can highlight margin and break down into all facets within the job,” shares Graves.
Avanti, Ricoh USA Corporation
Avanti’s goal is to help its customers relieve the stress of managing a print shop by delivering more jobs in less time. “With the confidence in knowing that every aspect of your shop is integrated into one powerful platform, you can connect disparate systems and islands of automation, eliminate breakpoints in your workflow, and get the information you want—when you want it, and where you want it—easily, with Avanti Slingshot Print MIS. From estimating, order entry, and job management through to production, fulfillment, shipping, and billing, Avanti Slingshot enables you to work more efficiently, control your costs, and move jobs through the shop without delays, tracking every step and process through workflow automation,” shares Matt Prusa, senior director, software sales, Avanti Slingshot, RICOH Graphic Communications.
Avanit Slingshot is available as a perpetual or subscription plan. Ricoh Professional Services are measured and billed by milestones and financing options are available.
Avanti maintains a carefully and thoughtfully balanced product roadmap for Avanti Slingshot based on the needs of its customers and the print industry. New features are included in every release at a six-week frequency, ensuring that customers have timely access to updates. Some recent advancements include a new mobile application, advanced business intelligence (BI), and the “Gateway” eCommerce portal.
Dataline
Dataline MultiPress is MIS/ERP software for dynamic printing and production businesses in various related industries. Multi Press Integrates all administrative, commercial, financial, and logistic business processes together with production management in one powerful management system. The MultiPress Business Software helps to reduce administrative tasks and improve productivity thanks to numerous modules for a specific company. Customer management, calculation packaging, time registration, cost management, or cost price calculation and invoicing are only a few of the many possibilities of MultiPress.
Dataline has constructed the MultiPress software in such way that printing companies can start small with limited functionality and users then can scale up as they grow and expand. MultiPress is a standard, modular software, key functions can be purchased and deployed separately. Also the solution is scaled per number of users.
“At Dataline we invest in the development of new modules and features that respond to customer needs and trends in the industry today. Our continued focus on innovation did not go by unnoticed as Dataline received 6 EDP Awards in the past five years for a broad range of new features including CO2 calculation to precisely calculate the CO2 emission for every order,” notes Jef Stoffels, head of marketing, Dataline.
HiFlow Solutions
HiFlow provides comprehensive management of estimating, scheduling, warehouse, and production and offers deep data collection for up to the minute BI and reporting. HiFlow’s ERP/MIS system stands out with its modular architecture, allowing businesses to customize their solution by selecting the modules that precisely meet their requirements. Powered by Microsoft .NET technology, the platform adheres to the latest technological standards, ensuring robust performance and reliability. “Our experienced project managers and developers specialize in translating specific requirements into customized configuration. With a strong focus on customer satisfaction, nine out of ten clients continue to choose our services. As technology evolves, HiFlow ensures seamless system expansion to incorporate the latest advancements, supporting continuous business growth and efficiency,” says Alfonso A. Hernandez, Jr., VP of sales, HiFlow Solution.
The price of the system depends on the configuration of modules that interest the customer, the number of system users, and the number of plants that need to be accommodated.
“Currently, our development is focused on several areas, including AI functions that automate users’ work or even perform tasks for system users. However, we believe that merely using the AI buzzword is insufficient. To deliver real value to our clients, we are implementing features that address the actual challenges they are facing. For example, features such as live cost and margin monitoring throughout the entire job lifecycle, from estimation to shipment, are already embedded in the system. We are also prioritizing automation that saves resources and can significantly enhance our partners’ profitability,” shares Hernandez.
Inkcloud
Inkcloud is an end-to-end solution. “You can launch storefronts, administer orders through your dashboard, dispatch to suppliers, and fulfill through hundreds of shipping carriers. Procurement through request for quote, render variable graphics through our variable data print engine, and give your suppliers and clients their own dashboards. Every instance comes with a built-in API that you can use to connect with clients or suppliers, giving our customers ultimate power over their business processes,” says Adam Homsi, founder, InkCloud.
Inkcloud offer a SaaS model of pricing where clients pay a monthly fee for a fully managed MIS experience. The price depends on needed service levels.
“We’re excited to be working on our latest generation storefront module. The goal is to enhance developer experience and take our very flexible storefront to even higher levels of customization,” says Homsi.
PressWise by Smartsoft
Born and raised in a highly successful print shop, PressWise was designed as an alternative to purchasing, or developing tools to tie together, W2P, production workflow, print MIS, and mail preparation software. Instead, a single, SaaS-based platform is available with today’s must-have tools critical to managing and growing print shops.
Highlights include unlimited W2P storefronts, print estimating and quoting, order management, MIS, production automation, mailing software, inventory management, shipping and fulfillment, accounting connectivity, reporting, APIs, and cloud hosting by SmartSoft or on premise.
The system is accessed through a browser so it can be run from Windows, Mac, and Linux systems and once set up you can begin to explore your system from day one, with just a few hours of online training.
PressWise easily integrates with most third-party web storefront products.
printIQ
printIQ is a cloud-based print MIS designed to streamline and optimize print business operations.
Core features include end-to-end workflow, multi-print support, integration capabilities, advanced reporting, and remote accessibility.
printIQ offers price options in both perpetual licenses or SaaS.
“We are currently rolling out the latest version (v48) of our platform, which has a host of more than 50 new features. Supported by customer requests, industry feedback, and our R&D roadmap, printIQ v48 includes new features and enhanced functionality designed to create quotes faster and more accurately, streamline and simplify ordering, gain visibility into your production floor, and make better decision-making with customized data,” states Craig Powell, GM, North America, printIQ.
PrintVIS
PrintVis offers a flexible subscription-based pricing structure in which you pay per user per month. You can scale up / down the number of users according to user needs.
PrintVis is continuously evolving under the expertise of print industry specialists. It follows the roadmap of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with two major yearly releases with feature releases in between as well as weekly hotfixes.
RevShop
The Revshop marketplace technology enables complex print and related job transactions to move from offline to online using automation.
Its customers use the platform to estimate print and print-related jobs and submit orders to their internal manufacturing facilities, while managing cost and pricing data. Easy-to-use interfaces to configure jobs can be used by employees and/or customers, even if they are not print experts. Its printer clients also gain access to the Revshop buyer marketplace to receive jobs.
An outsourcing module is included, making it easy to send jobs to other Revshop marketplace printers, who will blind ship to protect your brand.
W2PShop
GOePower/W2P Cloud is our B2B system that is used to create B2B portals for corporate clients and has a workflow management system on the backend. Users can manage their production and their clients.
W2P Shop is a modular web to print technology offering. It allows users to create a website as a public facing store that utilizes technologies as modules so users can assemble the ideal online ordering experience for their customers. Our solution is very advanced because it’s modular, adaptable because it can have different types of use cases, and affordable because you can choose the technologies you want and go in at an economic level that is right.
GoSendExpress is our file transfer tool that is ideal for print clients. It utilizes high security elements that aren’t found on other platforms ensuring secure file sharing.
Read part one, Power of Integration.
Sep2024, DPS Magazine
