Production 3.0 – Premiere

Premiere of the new version! Designed for and in partnership with printers! With the latest update in the system there is an improved version of the module that we have been developing in IwarePrint since 2011 and whose main task is to efficiently manage production processes in the printing house. The Production 3.0 module was released in the IwarePrint system on May 15, 2022. Already the first iteration of Production 3.0 involves the introduction of new key functionalities that will significantly optimize work in any printing house or advertising agency with extensive production. Production Manager, Inventory, Gantt Chart, Post Production Calculation. Welcome to our short guide to Production 3.0

Production 2.0 

The older version of the module allows you to manage employees, create employee accounts with different rights and responsibilities. Automates order flow (handling statuses and sub-statuses). However, it does so in a rather simple way. 

The module in the older version allows you to manage the production process by creating detailed sub-statuses for specific Processes, as well as creating employee accounts and delegating individual people to handle sub-statuses (automatically). 

What we have prepared in version 3.0 meets all standards of MIS type software or large ERP systems, and the tool itself extends the Module in such a way that we are prepared to handle most printing processes occurring in medium and large printing houses or advertising agencies.   

IwarePrint 3.0 – MIS and ERP for the Printing Industry

We announced that we are proceeding with work to improve the Production module in late 2021. At the very beginning of work on Production 3.0, a tight group was formed in which, in addition to representatives of IwarePrint, a number of printing houses regularly participated, such as: Drukexpress, Kserkop, Drukuj Taniej, Mprint, E-druk, and KB Druk. Production 3.0 was being forged at weekly Wednesday meetings. On our part, the whole process was supervised by Marek Czubak, a person with over 13 years of experience working in the printing house. 

The fact that we were able to consult ideas with industry experts in the working group made the collaboration go smoothly. We can conclude that the Production 3.0 module was designed for, and with people from the printing industry. We weren’t without small delays in relation to the planned deadlines, but this is rather due to the enormity of the changes. It is safe to say that Production 3.0 compared to the older version is an entirely new tool. 

Premiere May 15, 2022 

In the evening hours, the Production 3.0 version was released, available to everyone. Moments before the global update, the Module went into the hands of the aforementioned printers who participated in the creation of Production. Now everyone can test Production 3.0   

Main functionalities of the new Production 3.0 

We can divide the changes into three main areas. 1. Stocks. 2. A Gantt Chart so we can plan production, 3. Additional production staff roles including two primary positions: Production Manager to manage Production in the printing house and a warehouse operative.  

Stocks

And in them, among other things:

• View of stock levels including actuals and reservations
• Ordering materials through a form in which fields are automatically completed based on the materials that are becoming unavailable and assigned to a particular supplier;
• Each order has information about the consumption of each material, which can be edited at any time;
• Material Supplier Database. To each order of material, you can add invoice;
• Estimating the amount of material needed directly from the product calculator (excel);
• Once an order is placed, the materials needed for its reservation are reserved in the warehouse;
• Ability to take stock into account for product price and lead time calculations in real time;
• Values such as the price of the oldest order of the material in stock, average and many others;
• The actual state is reduced by the reservation of a given order at the moment of transfer to realization;
• Warehouse post-calculation calculating the actual cost of materials and employees used in a given order, calculating the profit from a given order;
• Ability to quickly pick up ordered materials using a barcode scanner;
• Stock constants – the ability to set fixed values that can be used for product calculations in many products at the same time;
• Provide employees with the ability to manually pull from the warehouse for selected materials;
• Set the required reporting of actual material usage to employees at each production step;
• In case of material shortage or delivery delays, substitutes are available;
• If the ordered material is in a larger format than the one used in production, we can easily make such an exchange (example: ordered B1 sheets cut to B2 format);
• Continuous access to order history and material usage;
• Automatic email notifications when material warning states are exceeded.

Gantt Chart

Including:

• Ability to move orders „horizontally” which may affect the execution of other orders;
• Automatic adjustment of the execution of subsequent orders in the event of changes;
• Consideration of additional time before the process begins or after it finishes (other orders may be in process at the same time);
• Division of a block of an order into 2 parts in the event of a pause/holding of execution order, the second block of which is postponed;
• Daily progress bar;
• Colored information on new, delayed, started and completed orders;
• The printer’s occupancy status affects real-time turnaround times;
• List of all orders; 
• Setting machine hours and breaks;
• New view of the production worker panel;
• Combine processes horizontally as well as vertically to a selected status;
• Technological card of connected processes with possibility of adding own note;
• Advanced filtering with the ability to save created filters and share them with other employees;
• Comments to the order with a possibility to choose for whom they should be visible;
• Automatic refreshing;
• Display the chart in full-screen mode;
• Universal QR Code – Pass it on;
• Scan the code with your phone without having to go to your computer.

Production Manager

With rights such as:

• Creation of production workstations;
• Layout of production plan – editing Gantt chart;
• Adding production breaks e.g. for maintenance;
• Defining working time of positions, machines.

Baselinker

Also at the launch was the integration of IwarePrint 3.0 with Baselinker, which in Production 3.0 allows orders to be sent from IwarePrint to Baselinker.

All of this is already present in the system. 

What will be the next features? 

We have a queue of planned changes that will see the light of day in future system updates. 

In a Gantt chart we want to introduce, among other things 

• Employee Rights Management;
• Comment icons on the chart;
• Shipping to multiple addresses;
• Automated process linking;
• Distribution of processes to the selected status;
• Breaking down the order into different sub-processes;
• Execution of combined processes.

In stock, among others:

• Pagination for order list;
• Downloading stock levels in the form of a csv document;
• Optional locking of material at the time of offer creation.

Individual meetings concerning Production 3.0

Of course, with the upgrade to Production 3.0, there will be expanded technical manuals on our technical blog, but right now everyone interested in an individual meeting on the topic of Production 3.0 is invited to book meetings online. Reservation of dates HERE  

Regards,

#IwarePrint Team