Your recommendation on Management Informaiton Systems (MIS)

[hclee23]

We are a mid-sized commercial printer trying to move on to the next level - automating what we have been doing manually (yes.. lots of hand work) like estimating, creating job tickets, handling shipping and logistics, invoicing, etc...

We have been looking into products from HIFLEX and EFI (ePace) but I wanted to know if there's anything out there that is reliable for smaller companies and the price range is - acceptable. We have tried implementing products from Printer's Plan and Franklin Estimating few years ago but have failed.

Basically, the biggest need we have here is getting an automated estimating system where prices can be generated with several clicks. And everthing else (like making job tickets, invoicing, handling shipping, etc) can all start from the price quote we generated. In other words, we need a reliable MIS involving our basic workflow - Estimating - PrePress - Press - Bindery - Shipping - Invoicing.

We are currently using Prinergy in PrePress, Akiyama Presses, MBO folders and QuickBooks for Accounting.

Any recommendations? Please advise.

[Keith]

I am a small digital shop with wide format that has tried Franklin Estimating and PressGenie. Franklin was out of my budget (that's how small I am) and PressGenie was confusing, I think. Anyway, I found Morning Flight by Printfire and have been very satisfied for the past year. It is definately in anyones budget and it took me a while to learn it ('cause I'm dumb). But once I did, I found it easy and simple to use. You enter the information once and it emails quotes, prints job tickets and all kinds of stuff.

Keith

[longlimb]

We are running epace and have Prinergy as well. It works great. A bit expensive though. We are a mid-sized shop as well. Estimating is a breeze (from what I hear from the CSR's) and there is CIP4 capabilities from what I hear (we don't have any bindery equip. that could handle that now though).

Having it browser based is really handy. Can work offsite too because of that. Multiple windows help when using different features at once.

My only complaint is that the owner won't give me access rights to move jobs from one press to another so I have to go up front every time I need to move a job from one schedule to another

But that's not an ePace problem...

[Besso]

We also had the most suitable choices - HIFLEX and EFI. We decided to go with Hiflex. At the first sight the MIS seems to be almost perfect, but when we started to dig deeper a lot of unpleasant things appeared.
Some of them
- very embarrassing administration and configuration by plain text config files
- basic language is German, system is poorly translated, comments in config files are not translated
- MIS is a compilation of different scripts written for different companies in different languages
- stock module is a complete disaster with DOS like user interface.
- lack of English documentation
- no multicurrency in invoices

We regret the decision to choose Hiflex as a MIS in our company.

[andreisarbu]

If you quite small (less than 30 people) I suggest to try Printpoint. We are using since 2006 and is quite good for job tickets, some job tracking and estimates (an average estimate can be made in less than 60 seconds if you are experienced). It has no stock or job planning. Until now, i've studied some MIS and the I liked EFI Hagen (didnt tried Pace). Didnt knew that Hiflex have such problems in integration.

If you have any further questions regarding Printpoint do not hesitate to contact me.

Good luck.

Andrei

[david]

If you want to consider taking your estimating online then you might want to have a demo of our upcoming release of TribalSketch. The new version includes a new customer oriented project management approach where the online estimate and project steps are all held in easy to work with containers through a very professional looking web interface.

It is a very inexpensive solution and I would be glad to arrange a demo.

David Lewis
david at luciddream.com

[Ritter]

I'm currently in the same boat you are. My suggestion is to take a look at them all, demo them all the make a list of pros and cons of each as well as price. Most of all take the time to do serious evaluation and don't believe the sales BS. Implementing a MIS is not something you want to do every 5 years. The last question before signing the contract should be: Can I live with this thing for 10 years?

My thoughts:
Everything will be web browser based eventually. It's not a matter of if but when. Web browsers are slowly becoming the new Java.
Embrace a vendor who is already investing in becoming JDF compliant (they may not be there yet but most will get there).
Do you do digital? Digital components are very weak on almost all of the systems I've seen.
Are the phone support offices in your home country?
Ask for the phone number of users who are already using it with the features you want. If they won't do that, be very afraid.

[Predisposed]

Take it from me, you need only to look at the big players in the MIS market, and off course only the ones with a good 'Print knowledge'. They need to be a 'Big Player' as there is still such a huge amount of development going on out there, and therefore you need bodies in place to take the myriad of changes on board and make them work.
Not impressed with PRISM (not my choice), but have heard good things regarding Hiflex and Tharsten, they always seem to be on the ball. The main problem is to get everything feeding back information in every department, some providers eg Prinergy and Apogee are quite good at this in the Prepress area and Heidelberg are moving ahead quickly with their Pressroom manager soon to include all folders etc. It all depends how deeply you want to go in. You will have to hope that your account handlers are able to 'Glue' all these different manufacturers outputs together into a proper JDF workflow.
One very important point though, don't try and set dates and times, the process will take a long time, and needs to be planned very thoroughly in advance, this must include getting department heads to do the re-con on their particular areas, to create a complete picture of overall requirements.

[myshop]

I guess I'll go ahead and throw my hat in the ring as well.

MyShop - Advancing Workflow with Dynamic Contacts, Estimates & Orders

MyShop is made made print professionals...not some software company. We have struggled over the years with the same problems most people do, and decided to make a web based software solution. The main functions of MyShop are:

Contact Management
Intelligent Estimating
Production Orders
Customer Invoicing
Company Reporting

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

[tuxfre]

Hello everybody!

I'm managing Hagen OA MIS for 6 years. This is only one implementation of OA in Poland. My company is developing very fast and Hagen does not allow us to move further with automation (JDF, API, etc.) Last year after we saw Hiflex we decided to buy it. Now we are starting implemetation and going deeper and deeper into the system we are seeing that most of the "great" functionalities are "somkes and mirrors". Hiflex was supposed to replace Hagen but now it apperas that we will have even worse system that we currently have.

We are thinking seriously about stopping this. I would appreciate to talk to everybody who use this system.

Besso,
Are you live with Hiflex? How long? Are you located in US or Europe?

Thanks alot,
Karol

Dzien dobry Karol,

I've just visited Hiflex with my CEO, and we were very impressed by the "smoke' you describe, can we discuss this a little deeper, I mean wich aspect are just bluff ?