Geographics, an Atlanta-based marketing services company, recently installed Prinect Business Manager MIS (Management Information System) and an entire Prinect workflow from Heidelberg. The new workflow and MIS will replace two older competitive systems and better integrate with Geographic’s existing Heidelberg equipment. A little less than a year ago, Geographics started growing unhappy with its workflow and MIS solutions, and began the search for replacements. Their current systems were becoming less effective and had very limited connectivity with their Speedmaster XL 106 and two Speedmaster SM 102s. “We initially turned to Heidelberg because, as a long-time customer, we’re comfortable with the products and the service the company provides,” said Senior Vice President & GM Bill Blair. “But after taking time to research the other available options, Heidelberg was the best fit for us.”
Due to the integration, speed and automation of the workflow, Prinect can reduce processing times throughout the production process by up to two-thirds. Paired with Prinect Business Manager (a powerful MIS system that automates commercial processes, simplifies job processing, and provides total transparency to all real-time production data), the two combined technologies will enable Geographics to increase efficiency and lower their costs company-wide. “We expect significant gains to our productivity across the board. For the prepress workflow, we believe it will be as much as 100% more productive than our existing system. With the interconnected JDF workflow and smoother estimating system of Prinect Business Manager, we’re being conservative in saying it will be 30% more productive than our former MIS,” said Blair.
In addition to the productivity gains, Geographics believes that the Prinect installation – the start of a large 18-month multi-million-dollar investment – will aid in the company’s goals for growth. Expecting to double the size of its business in the next five years, Geographics anticipates both systems playing a huge role in increasing the company’s throughput, which in turn will increase capacity and sales. “We believe that investing in new technology will help to lower our costs business-wise. As the backbone of our expansion plan, a highly automated system like Prinect will help us achieve our sales goals without increasing the number of personnel we need to hire. We expect to be able to produce more work for more customers with the same amount of people we have now,” Blair added.
The largest, privately-owned, integrated marketing solutions provider in Georgia, Geographics was founded by owner Norvin Hagan in 1976. Having built its reputation for award-winning web and sheetfed printing, Geographics helps customers’ marketing messages by developing and implementing creative and effective ways to incorporate the best of the “old” media with the advantages of the “new” – resulting in unique and more efficient marketing campaigns, said the company.
