Tracking System application advice

Hi , our company, has a variety of printing books facilities and we need to track every production phase for both covers and book bodies. The departments are in different levels in the factory.
What systems or tools would you recommend?

With the size of your operation, do you have an MIS software already? Most MIS systems designed for the printing industry have a barcode tracking feature. It's usually an add-on module that may just not be activated on your MIS. See the screenshot of the description of the barcode module for our MIS below (Print Shop Pro). Basically, you have handheld barcode scanners (like you use at self-checkout in a grocery store) placed strategically throughout your operation. Whenever an operator starts working on a job, they scan it, and you instantly know where the job is at.

If you don't have an MIS already, there's a number of them out there that you'll need to see demo's on to determine which works best for your operation. Here's another that designed specifically for book production called Technique.

jwheeler said:

With the size of your operation, do you have an MIS software already? Most MIS systems designed for the printing industry have a barcode tracking feature. It's usually an add-on module that may just not be activated on your MIS. See the screenshot of the description of the barcode module for our MIS below (Print Shop Pro). Basically, you have handheld barcode scanners (like you use at self-checkout in a grocery store) placed strategically throughout your operation. Whenever an operator starts working on a job, they scan it, and you instantly know where the job is at.

If you don't have an MIS already, there's a number of them out there that you'll need to see demo's on to determine which works best for your operation. Here's another that designed specifically for book production called Technique.
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I'd love to hear more about how you use this feature in PSP. We also use PSP - but I haven't bought the module for this. Curious how effective it is for your operations, and what pitfalls you may have encountered. (And how much on average they're chargin' per year for the module if you don't mind )

We have a fairly small shop so I'm not sure if tracking the 20 steps from a digital press to a finishing station would be worth it - but I was strongly considering it to have timestamped dates regarding when my courier dropped it off at a client's address.

@ReproElectroProspero we don't use the barcode tracking here. I just know it exists...and I also have experience using barcode tracking at another shop I worked at many years ago with a different MIS. I was there when it was starting to be implemented and it took quite a while and a few staff meetings to get everyone on board that this is the next expectation that they need to scan each job when they pick it up.

What you're talking about (for tracking deliveries) is actually a different module for PSP called Delivery Tracker (see attached screenshot). However, there is already a built-in option for using delivery barcodes on the shipping labels. We don't use it, but perhaps this is already included with the base system since it shows that we can turn it on right now...? Or maybe this is just so you can turn it on if you do have the Delivery Tracker module? (see attached screenshot) I'd ask Chuck or Jordan at PSP for more info.

jwheeler said:

With the size of your operation, do you have an MIS software already? Most MIS systems designed for the printing industry have a barcode tracking feature. It's usually an add-on module that may just not be activated on your MIS. See the screenshot of the description of the barcode module for our MIS below (Print Shop Pro). Basically, you have handheld barcode scanners (like you use at self-checkout in a grocery store) placed strategically throughout your operation. Whenever an operator starts working on a job, they scan it, and you instantly know where the job is at.

If you don't have an MIS already, there's a number of them out there that you'll need to see demo's on to determine which works best for your operation. Here's another that designed specifically for book production called Technique.
View attachment 294879

Click to expand...

Hi , thank you for your answer, we have an SAP system and we use HP siteflow that has a tracking system still its for Batch purpose not individual jobs and its not so flexible.