Job Planning Software

[Hopkins Printing]

I am aware of and have seen products like Kodak's UpFront and LithoTechnics' Metrix (are there others?) for doing job planning and press sheet optimization.

Just curious how many companies out there are using this kind of product? I am not interested in knowing which is better or the like right now, just if you are using a job planning software like UpFront, Metrix or other product.

TIA,
Jon Morgan
Hopkins Printing

[ASchmitt]

Hi Jon,

Graphisoft software from Rhapso optimizes the production process and imposition in particular to produce estimates and quotes. It also includes a gang run calculation over multiple lay-outs. It handles the economics of the machines & systems and optimizes the process using the price as the criteria. The estimating module is the start of a complete management information system.
For more info: RHAPSO :: Graphisoft - Print MIS Management System

Anne-Sophie Schmitt
Rhapso

[michaelejahn]

I am aware of and have seen products like Kodak's UpFront and LithoTechnics' Metrix (are there others?) for doing job planning and press sheet optimization.

Just curious how many companies out there are using this kind of product? I am not interested in knowing which is better or the like right now, just if you are using a job planning software like UpFront, Metrix or other product.

Hey Jon - Compose Systems developed a set of products related to optimization that fits this catagory - one has a funny name ( Big Ice Box ) so we just call it BIB here ( wink ).

I create a PDF presentation, and it can be downloaded from this link;

http://support.composeusa.com/webfiles/BIB_preso2.pdf

The product information is available here;

Express BigIceBox (BIB)

Some customers submit the work manually, while others drive it from data collected from a Web2Print portal - we offer a DTD / Schema to enable MIS systems to 'talk' to BIB.

We use some of the same technology for the APEX 1290 digital label printing system, where we calculate best fit and report estimates of waste and a few other things.

I would be thrilled to speak to you about this, and catch up !



Michael Jahn

Application Support Specialist
Compose Systems Inc.
4740 Northgate Blvd. Suite 100
Sacramento, CA 95834

Tel: (916) 920-3838
Fax: (916) 923-6776

Email: michael@composeusa.com
Web: Welcome to Compose!

[Suzanne]

How about EFI's Monarch Planner?
Planning

[misterdavo]

Jon,

Since you're already familiar (at least by name) with Metrix, I'll only jump in to offer to answer any questions you may have as you investigate. In case you haven't found them already, we have a number of movies on our website that show how Metrix works, and how incredibly simple it is. Link: LithoTechnics - Metrix, the automatic layout calculator for commercial and gang run printing

[misterdavo]

Jon,

I thought a little more about my reply earlier today, and I realized I didn’t actually answer your question. You asked who’s using what, so allow me to take another run at it.

When I was working on the UpFront team at Kodak about 4 years ago, near the end of its active development, the Product Manager went on record to say that UpFront had about 250 customers worldwide. UpFront was at that time a unique, groundbreaking product, defining a new product class - Job Planning software.

Metrix in contrast is today approaching 400 customer sites worldwide, representing almost 1000 licensed seats - we’re about to send out a press release to this effect. Metrix is being used by companies from very small shops to large multi-plant printing companies. In a good many cases we’ve replaced UpFront, and in almost every instance we’ve displaced multiple copies of Preps, making it irrelevant to the workflow.

Ted Straus from Suttle-Straus Inc. said that they phased out their use of Preps and UpFront completely and found Metrix to be much more powerful, versatile and easy to use. Plus, he said their labor savings after moving to Metrix were between $60,000 to $80,000!

After only one and half days into their Metrix implementation the operators at Japs Olson had eliminated 50% of their imposition effort. They commented that their only regret is that they hadn’t switched to Metrix sooner.

We constantly hear from our customers that even though they were using software like UpFront and Preps before getting Metrix, the leap forward in productivity was enormous. When we sell Metrix to a customer who has been using pencil/paper/calculator for their job planning, the productivity boost is monumental.

Metrix is a robust, mature product, under very active development, continuing its very focused goal of providing a powerful, easy to use job planning solution to the print industry. We have a few competitors (not many), but most are either part of a larger MIS system, requiring you to buy into a much larger vision/solution, or they are upstarts without much of a track record.

Metrix is all we do - we’re very focused on creating a great planning solution that fits into nearly any workflow and that can have a huge impact on a planning/prepress workflow. Don't just take my word for it - ask our customers - like Worth Higgins, Ebsco, Classic Graphics, RexThree and others. We have a few customers’ stories published on our website if you have a few minutes to take a look.