arossetti
Well-known member
I'm in a pure digital shop with annual sales around 2.5mil. We are having trouble with creating a system to schedule our production resources. We usually have 2 people per shift over 3 shifts. We have a full bindery, 3 B&W machines and 2 color machines and use PrintersPlan for our estimating, ticketing and minor "job tracking".
We have the issue of not knowing how new jobs will affect our resources either human or mechanical. We go with our gut and keep taking jobs for a given time and date without any calculations beyond "do we think we can get it done". More times than not we are able to meet deadlines but at what cost to other projects and the overall attention we can give them.
Traditional commercial print scheduling doesn't work for us because instead of a handful of jobs we juggle around 30 a day. And instead of 3 hour runs our average print run is under 20 minutes. Tracking a qty 90 business card run would take more time than the actual printing and cutting of the project.
Anyone in a similar situation? Anyone have ideas or suggestions? How do we make sense of so many orders while not bogging a person down full time doing data input?
We have the issue of not knowing how new jobs will affect our resources either human or mechanical. We go with our gut and keep taking jobs for a given time and date without any calculations beyond "do we think we can get it done". More times than not we are able to meet deadlines but at what cost to other projects and the overall attention we can give them.
Traditional commercial print scheduling doesn't work for us because instead of a handful of jobs we juggle around 30 a day. And instead of 3 hour runs our average print run is under 20 minutes. Tracking a qty 90 business card run would take more time than the actual printing and cutting of the project.
Anyone in a similar situation? Anyone have ideas or suggestions? How do we make sense of so many orders while not bogging a person down full time doing data input?
