Challenge “I am a strong believer in the need for printing companies to have an eff ective MIS solution,” says Brian Baarman, vice president of fi nance and administration at Holland Litho. “We’ve had MIS in place for more than a decade, but in 2011, we determined that our existing solution was not positioning us well for growth.”
Baarman took a couple of days to develop a list of all of the characteristics he wanted in a print MIS solution, resulting in a spreadsheet with 160 parameters. “I sent this off to all of the major MIS players as a Request for Information,” he says. “Their responses allowed me to narrow my selection down to two players.”
Holland Litho has a strong portfolio of off set and digital presses; a key requirement was the need to support both with the company’s MIS for a single point of entry to the workfl ow. EFI’s Pace™ MIS best addressed Holland Litho’s off set and digital workfl ow needs, along with many other essential requirements for growth.
Solution“We found EFI’s business practices and policies to be reasonable, and the level of integration with Pace is phenomenal,” Baarman says. “We also liked the fact that it is browser-based. Our implementation has included integration with EFI’s Digital StoreFront and PrintFlow Dynamic Scheduling. There is still work to be done, but we are extremely pleased with what we have been able to accomplish to date.”
Holland Litho is Primed for Effi cient Productivity Using EFI Pace with PrintFlow Software
Productivity Software SolutionsCase Study
Challenge:
“Our fi rst MIS installation helped us
grow from $3.5 million to $7.5 million in
revenues over 7 years, but the time was
ripe to update our infrastructure to support
the next stage of growth.”
BRIAN BAARMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCE & ADMINISTRATIONHOLLAND LITHO PRINTING SERVICES
2
Adding PrintFlow® to the company’s configuration has taken the Pace installation to new levels. “You can’t make good decisions without good information,” says Baarman. “EFI Pace with PrintFlow Dynamic Scheduling provides the detailed business and production information we need and has allowed us to significantly streamline our work processes. “PrintFlow has taken the pain out of scheduling,” he adds. “Plus, we have been able to completely restructure the way we do our production meetings.” Ten people typically attend Holland Litho’s production meetings, and PrintFlow has cut down a significant amount of meeting time, with tangible results. “Reducing production meetings by an hour has resulted in a time savings of about 2,600 hours per year,” Baarman notes. “Add to that the time we save on scheduling, and the total comes to 3,200 hours saved in one year. That’s almost two man years and translates to about $200,000 in annual savings!” Baarman also reports that the company has grown 43% since it installed Pace and has only added two people, stating, “It isn’t hard to rack up the savings when you automate things.” Holland Litho also plans to implement a paperless job jacket. “There are many great reasons for doing this,” Baarman says, “none of which involve the conservation of paper. The primary benefit is that it makes all of the data about a job available in one place, accessible to everyone who needs it.”
Founded in 1957, Holland Litho
Printing Service is a leading provider
of superior print products and
marketing materials. The company
prides itself on staying current with
the latest trends and technologies
to better serve ever-changing client
needs. Holland Litho and its 83 full-
and part-time employees generate
about $11.4 million in annual
revenues across a wide variety of
printing technologies, services and
applications, ranging from direct
mail to marketing collateral, identity
material, catalogs, magazines,
booklets, point of purchase,
packaging and fulfillment offerings.
Holland Litho Printing Service
10972 Chicago Drive
Zeeland, MI 49464
+1 800.652.6567
www.HollandLithio.com
Solution:
“EFI PrintFlow has allowed us to trim scheduling time
from 3 or 4 hours per day down to 1 hour.”
BRIAN BAARMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION HOLLAND LITHO PRINTING SERVICES
3
Results
The company has also set up Digital StoreFront® (DSF) web-to-print and eCommerce software for several of its fulfillment customers. “A customer will go to a Digital StoreFront site that is branded just for them, place an order, and the jobs get created automatically,” says Baarman. “DSF notifies Pace, where the order is created. The event handler in Pace sees the order, emails a ‘Pick’n’Pack’ list to our warehouse, and the job gets done in one touch.” Baarman describes a customer demostration he conducted without prepping the warehouse staff. “I placed and order for one of our own calendars during the demo,” he says, “and three or four minutes later, someone from the warehouse walked into my office with it. The customer was blown away.”
Baarman is also thrilled with the capability Pace’s Business Analysis and Reporting module offers. “It’s a beautiful feature,” according to Baarman. “From the browser, I can quickly see field listings and table relationships. Information can be interactively browsed and modified in user defined lists. I can also quickly and easily create and publish custom reports as simple or complex as desired. I have a degree in programming and I understand databases, but it sure is nice when it is easier.”
In the past, if the scheduler wanted to move a 15-hour job off of a press in order to accommodate 12 two-hour jobs, that required manually changing 13 records, as well as everything scheduled for the following days. “Now,” he says, “if you want to move a job up with PrintFlow, just move it up. PrintFlow does it for you, and you say to yourself, ‘yeah, that is what I would have done if I could have done it that quickly!’
Results:
“Even a complicated decision
about which press to buy
was easier with Pace. I
simply checked to see how
many of our jobs were
perfected and what the
effect would be moving
those to work-and-turn.
Those numbers can be hard
to get. With Pace it just takes
a few minutes.”
BRIAN BAARMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION HOLLAND LITHO PRINTING SERVICES
Nothing herein should be construed as a warranty in addition to the express warranty statement provided with EFI products and services.
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The advantages Holland Litho has with its EFI™ MIS workflow are especially important in making smarter, data-driven decisions on potential equipment purchases. “We were considering investing in a new piece of equipment and I simply did a Pace query to see how much time we actually spend on those tasks – an average of 616 hours per year over three years,” says Baarman. “As soon as you have that number, you can do the math on the ROI and determine if the investment is a good idea. Pace with PrintFlow is the ‘Easy Button’ when it comes to data mining.”
EPS.LR.20150422.US