Print MIS is shop-floor software built for printing and packaging plants. MIS stands for management information system. It handles quotes, scheduling, stock and the data from the presses in one place, which is why it combines the work of an ERP and an MES.
A printing plant is different from other factories. Every job is new. One order may be 50,000 cartons for a biscuit maker, and the next may be 2,000 wedding cards. Each job has its own size, paper, colours and delivery date. So the plant must quote a price for every job, plan the paper it needs, and decide which press prints it and when.
Say a commercial printer in Sivakasi receives a request for 3,000 wall calendars. An employee in the estimating team enters the size, the number of colours, the paper and the quantity. The software works out how many sheets are needed, including the extra sheets that are wasted while the press is being adjusted. It adds the time on the press and the cost of finishing, and it produces a quote in a few minutes. Without it, a skilled estimator would do the same sums by hand for each enquiry, and a wrong estimate would cost the printer money on the whole run.
Print MIS does this planning. It also connects to the presses. A digital press prints directly from a computer file, with no printing plates. It needs a server computer that prepares each file and feeds it to the press. This server is a separate product, and Print MIS sends jobs to it. The software then collects the count of sheets printed and the time lost in changing from one job to the next.
This differs from the MES of a car-parts plant. An ordinary MES expects the same product to be made again and again, and it tracks orders against a fixed routing. A print plant has no fixed routing, so the software must also estimate, quote and plan. The users are the estimators, the production planner and the press operators.
Packaging plants also need to receive the design of the pack, which is made in packaging design software. And because a plant of this kind is a business with its own accounts, the software links with an industry-specific ERP. The cartons are later marked with batch codes by inkjet coding printers, and checked by machine vision.