Metrix Workflow Speeds Turnaround, Eliminates Bottlenecks at Southwest Precision Printers

HOUSTON—June 6, 2012—Metrix Software, developer of Metrix, the intelligent, automated job planning and imposition system, reports that the prepress team at Southwest Precision Printers (SWP) in Houston has been able to, in the words of Gene Green, systems manager, “forget about imposition and focus on the prepress tasks they were hired to deal with.” The improved efficiency afforded by Metrix has allowed SWP to reassign 10-15 percent of prepress resources elsewhere in the company.

Southwest, now in business for 37 years, has developed into the largest independent, family-owned commercial printing company in Houston.

Prior to implementing Metrix, job tickets were hand written, planning was all calculated with pencil and paper, imposition was input by hand in prepress, and “just about everything” was manual. Because they handle thousands of short-run jobs a year, Green knew he had to find a way eliminate the labor intensive work so they could keep up.

Green said, “When I attended an online demonstration of Metrix, I was really impressed. I realized that we could resolve the planning bottleneck and the prepress imposition bottleneck with one, simple-to-use application. I knew we had to have it!”

“We got up and running incredibly fast,” he continued, “and the savings were immediate.”

The time-consuming task of entering layouts into imposition software from hand-drawn diagrams was gone. The planner’s burden of manually calculating production plans and drawing imposition diagrams also disappeared. Turnaround time in planning has been reduced significantly, benefitting both the company and SWP’s customers.

Green explained that one of the biggest areas of improvement was the increased speed of getting jobs into production and on press. Prepress is no longer required to recreate layouts —a huge benefit.

The support provided by the Metrix team has been “tremendous,” he added, “I couldn’t ask for better support than I get from Metrix Software. When you call, you actually get a real person on the other end, who is eager to help! We see Metrix as a key part of our strategy moving forward, and Metrix Software as a key technology partner.”