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Digital jobs can be estimated, ordered, invoiced and the throughput can be done online with software that costs up to the $20,000 range, but often thousands less than salary and benefits for employees. Newer business-management software can almost do everything but rearrange your desk and make a morning latté.
Smaller, growing businesses avoid business-management systems as long as possible, said Gerald Walsh, director of product marketing and strategy for the Advanced Professional Printing Software Groups division of EFI. But for those that are extremely successful, he said: "They'll come back to us and tell us the reason they've been successful is because we made the move early on to put in the management system and it's helped us develop processes within our business that really help us to focus on the most profitable work and to identify the work that isn't profitable."
Cost Recovery and More…
Cost-recovery and quoting software varies, but the end goal is still the same: To use a scientific method for giving job estimates, for tracking the job and for making sure all things done in the shop are on a cost-plus basis. Most have an "opt-out" manual option for volume discount changes, for example.
Ray Bradley, president of Sepialine, said software helps the shop get paid. Part of Sepialine's software tracks on-site programs. "We even took that a step farther with a new product we call FM Server and the idea with that Server is that not only can we track all this stuff in the field," Bradley said, "but we can all that tracked data and send it back to a centralized location so that no longer—as an FM provider—do you need to get in a truck and drive out to all your client sites every month to gather log files."
Such software will also help squelch customer doubt about meter readings, according to Bradley as it has a log of when and how much equipment is used placed automatically in a comprehensive database.
In addition to tracking more accurately, the architect, engineer, or other client also is supplied tracking software for plotters, copiers, or multifunction devices.
"Usually, a savvy reprographer will spin this in a positive light and say. 'Look, I'm going to spin this on-site and I'm going to bundle this cost-recovery software with it. The good news, Mr. Architect or Engineer, is that done right, cost-recovery software will allow you to pay for the FM services,'" Bradley said. "If you're the architect or engineer and you mark up all of that expense so you're getting paid by your clients more than you pay, then essentially, it becomes a profit center—so it's a technology that sells very easily, because it truly pays for itself."
Such systems can also be integrated into digital workflow. "I could easily pull up a list of how many jobs I have in the design department and so I could see if we have 10 jobs we have to crank out today in the design department and maybe it's on to the printing or lamination department," said Danny Tangredi, marketing director at Cyrious Software. "It's specific to each company. It follows their workflow and that's one of the great features about it. Every business has a different structure and our software has the ability to follow that structure, regardless whether they're a large company, small company or mid-sized."
Software programs also go beyond cost-recovery and tracking. EFI has developed software called PrintSmith which has been upgraded for wide-format use. "One of the things that we design our management system to do is to help you to grow the business without necessarily adding a staff person every time you increase your job level or increase the productivity level," said Walsh. "That's a huge payback for many businesses—especially a company that might only have four or five employees in the first place. If I'm handling more jobs, if I don't have some type of management software in place to help me work with that, my only option is to add another person. You know that incrementally, to add another person, even if a low-skilled person, you're talking $30,000-40,000."
A management system in place from workstation to workstation eases staff training or the familiarity for people multitasking and moving job to job. And for digital workflow's "drag and drop" tag-based systems, the system's software will schedule, coordinated by the "traffic cop" (manager of the output department), then send it through and track it, assisting digital workflow in multiple ways. In coordination with EFI's Fiery controllers, it takes Job-Defined Format (JDF) jobs through in a matter almost incomparable to a whiteboard or spreadsheet.
From facilities-management to cost-recovery or digital workflow, the anecdotal verdict is the same: Such programs save tens of thousands of dollars yearly.
"FM Server is a time saver," Bradley said. "How much does it save? We have one client here in the San Francisco Bay area who, without FM Server, would have to hire an extra body to do nothing but collect data and process data and get it ready for the accounting department."
Neal McChristy welcomes feedback about the articles he writes for the industry and would like to have readers suggest future topics. Contact him at nmcchristy@cox.net or via his website is www.ezsnailmail.com.
author: BY NEAL MCCHRISTY