The University Of Colorado-Boulder's In-Plant Is Seeing The Benefits Of Combining MIS And Web-To-Print

By Chris Bauer

MIS: A Strategic Advantage

To shops not currently using a MIS system, Goranson stresses it is a very valuable tool to help demonstrate your in-plant’s viability to the parent organization. Also, it gives a manager credible information about the in-plant’s performance.

“If you are losing money, you know almost immediately what the cause is and what the impact is going to be,” Goranson says. “You don’t find out three months later, which is how things used to be. It also gives you an opportunity to see where you are at before your upstream management is aware of a problem. That gives you an opportunity to be proactive and use that information to your advantage.”

Goranson recalls several times when he generated information through EFI Pace that showed Imaging Services was having an off month. He was then able to come up with a plan to turn things around. “That has helped me immeasurably over time,” he admits. “Also when management comes out of the blue and says, ‘Hey, I need to know how you are doing,’ that information is literally at your fingertips.”

Goranson can go back to when Imaging Services first got the MIS system and show management historical trends on how the shop is functioning.

“I don’t see any other way to be economically viable without that kind of data,” he contends.

While Imaging Services, the in-plant for the University of Colorado-Boulder, has been dedicated to offering high-quality, full-service printing to its campus since 1923, the shop has never worked smarter than it does today.

This boost in intelligence can be attributed to the shop's print management information system (MIS) from EFI, contends Manager Al Goranson.