Digital Printing Press: An UpdateWritten by Marlon D. Ludovice
Way back in 1998, digital printing world refined its processes and made significant production operating cost reductions, as well as introduced various new equipment and technology in printing. This revolutionary trend is expected to accelerate as industry moves in coming years. Digital printing progress is being made in both fixed-imaging on-press plate making approach, as well as direct-to-paper technology (plateless variable imaging) alike. The popular "I can do it better, faster and cheaper than you can," was battle cry of Indigo, Xeikon, IBM, Xerox and Agfa, as variable imaging digital color printing press pioneers intensified their maneuvering for market share. A good sign of variable digital color printing's expanding reach into traditional print market is press dealerships. The association of new models and noticeable modifications on existing modern machineries opens a better and less expensive production performance which will provide a better service to general customers. All moving at direction where cost of digital variable printing has declined considerably. And a decline in cost is enlarging market. Xeikon one of leading provider of hi-tech digital printing services recently announced strategic partnership with Varis which is expected to result in sophisticated full-color digital printing software becoming available early this year. Indigo has announced two new press configurations, one at each end of cost and performance spectrum.
| | PRONTO ERP Selected by Canadian VAR OTI as Standard for ClientsWritten by Tom Verzi
OTI, Optimization Technology Inc., located in Mississauga Canada, has been developing and implementing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems since 1984. The Canadian VARs (Value Added Reseller) customer base appreciates features built into their legacy systems which focused on individual manufacturing and distribution requirements. With advent of GUI (Graphical User Interface) it became too difficult to add some of new productivity features OTI and their clients wanted.According to Dave Airey, VP of Sales and Marketing at OTI, “We started looking for a way to move our application to a GUI “look and feel,” but after two years of investigation it became obvious that it was not a practical goal. As an alternative we investigated upgrading our legacy application to a new product.” OTI’s requirements for a new system revolved around their customers. After many years of custom changes, legacy system was geared to client requirements. Airey noted, “OTI’s initial search took us to major ERP players, but none had features we required to support our loyal customers.” Finding an ERP System with Strong Functionality: The search for a new ERP system ended when OTI was introduced to PRONTO North America (www.PRONTOerp.com). According to Airey, “We were introduced to Pronto and were immediately impressed with rich functionality. One important feature was that Pronto is fully integrated. We had engineered our legacy system to be fully integrated so this was of major importance.” The Rationale for PRONTO ERP: - Fully integrated - User definable options to tune systems functionality - A support system to back up our customers - Functionality - GUI look and feel built using a 4 GL tool - Equipment rentals and tracking - Service maintenance - Both Manufacturing and Distribution in one package - Email & Fax capability - Multiple SQL platforms including MS SQL
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