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Historically, 'workflow' in printing of any kind has been primarily concerned with putting ink on paper and related physical production processes but in today's digital world, the distinction between management and production processes is much less clear. Specifying, quoting, order entry, job tracking, inventory management, invoicing, financial status monitoring and profitability analysis are all aspects of running a wide-format print business where missing, inaccurate or late information can lead to wastage of materials, duplication of effort and poor utilisation of resources. Although some of these are internal issues that affect profitability rather than service, some will directly affect customers' perceptions. Incorrect deliveries, missed deadlines, invoices that don't match quotes or just a lack of timely and reliable progress information will all erode customer relationships. In an increasingly competitive market, it is at least as important to retain customers and build loyalty as it is to win new ones. Equally, it's valuable for large format print service providers to know which of their customers are profitable, submitting fit-for-purpose files on time and which of them persistently supply artwork that requires extensive correction or preparation, change specifications, quantities or delivery deadlines after a job is scheduled or simply expect to pay unrealistically low rates. In small companies serving relatively few customers it may be feasible for one person to keep all this information in his or her head. But as the number of jobs, customers, and sales or production staff grows, it becomes very difficult to maintain a high-level view of the company's position or to perform meaningful analysis to help steer sales, marketing, technology and finance decisions without a solution designed to collect, organise and present pertinent information in a timely and usable manner. Management information systems (MIS) have existed for decades to meet these needs in the offset print market, but many of these do not suit the wide-format print sector with its much shorter print runs, very high degree of customisation, wider range of substrates and diversity of finishing processes and frequent requirement for skilled installation. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a slightly newer variant that covers the functionality of MIS but also includes the financial analysis and control tools too. Recent years have seen the introduction of dedicated large-format modules or options for existing MIS offerings and the arrival of new MIS/ERP products tailored specifically to the requirements of the wide-format sector. An MIS or ERP for a wide-format print service provider should be able to directly support several key customer-facing business processes: • Specification, estimating and quoting: Job estimating based on simple per-square-metre costs can be quite inaccurate for work where a high level of custom finishing or complex installation is required. A detailed description or specification of the work to be performed is critical for accurate estimating, quoting and correctly-scheduled production. An MIS or ERP suite designed for large-format work should be able to allow for all the various factors involved in costing a job, from pre-flighting and artwork preparation to finishing, dispatch, shipping and installation, generating both a bill of materials and a schedule for production and ideally for installation too, including installers' time and travel costs, if necessary. Defining all these factors in a detailed and validated specification makes it possible to spot early on where a job is diverging from the original plan, allowing for re-quoting and re-planning if necessary. • Order entry and invoicing: Many wide-format printers take orders manually, sometimes by sales staff at the customer's site, and may produce quotes and order confirmations on systems that are not connected to production, inventory or accounting. As well as the duplication of effort required to re-enter basic job specifications into multiple systems, this approach introduces the possibility of error, which could potentially result in a failure to meet either specification or schedule (or both), and usually requiring the printer to bear the costs of rectifying the mistake. This can reduce or eliminate the print service provider's profit margin as well as endanger the prospect of winning repeat work. The inability to link quotes with invoices makes it more difficult to gauge how accurate the quoting process is and to identify where errors or oversights are occurring, at either end of the job. • Progress tracking and customer notification: It's of benefit to both print service provider and customer to know exactly what stage each job has reached at any given moment. While production-focused workflows can track work through the prepress, printing and sometimes finishing stages, the bigger picture from specification to invoice would generally only be available through MIS or ERP. While many customers will be happy to phone or email for a progress update, the ability to notify them automatically via email or SMS when certain production phases are complete is an added-value service, which may be further extended through web-to-print portals, which are discussed in a separate article in this series. This article is an extract from 'Why integration matters in large-format printing', a free white paper from EFI that explains the benefits in productivity, quality and profitability that wide-format print providers can achieve through full integration of their print, production and business systems.
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