Prepress

Printing companies in Austria and the UK rely on Keyline print management software

Wednesday 23. September 2020 - Keyline, the print management software developed by Zaikio, has now also won over printers in Austria and the UK. Key arguments in favour of Keyline were its holistic approach, innovative technology and ease of operation.

Innsbruck, Tyrol: This is where the Hernegger Druck team produces sophisticated print products in short runs Due to the fierce competition, they deliberately did not get involved in industrial production, the online printing of standard products. In general, things are very grounded in the classic family printing business – in addition to the five family members, the company employs 10 people, most of whom have been with the company for 30 years.
In the offset sector, ten printing units are operated on small-format presses from Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, in the digital segment on two Indigo presses, each with conventional finishing. The production workflow is efficiently controlled via Kodak Prinergy.
Streamlining costing and job management
The team recognised early on that the areas of costing and order management must also be tightly organised. According to Alexandra Hernegger, they initially opted for a proprietary development based on a standard commercial database: “That was a nice solution up to a certain point. But over the years, the demands simply increased”.
Three MIS systems on the shortlist
Alexandra Hernegger continues: “Of course we too had suffered a drop in orders as a result of the Corona crisis. We used the time to look for a professional MIS solution”. Three systems competed against each other – in addition to Keyline, two other well-known products on the market.
Keyline was able to score points, among other things, with its simple operation despite its wide range of functions. A further aspect was the immediate provision of the entire functionality at all workstations. Sebastian Krüger, sales manager at Keyline developer Zaikio: “Keyline is cloud-based, so that work can be carried out in the test phase as well as during operation”.
From the pilot project directly into live operation
To be on the safe side, Hernegger Druck initially conducted a two-month pilot project. During this project the team familiarised itself so quickly with Keyline that the configuration was largely completed very quickly – the switch to live operation took place in the second month. This makes Hernegger Druck the first user of Keyline in Austria.
Alexandra Hernegger looks back: “The implementation of Keyline in our daily work routine ran surprisingly smoothly for such a crucial application. Keyline is really easy to understand. But because of Corona, not even a personal introduction was possible: everything was done via video conferencing”.
More time for advice and service again
Hernegger sums up initial experiences: “We see ourselves as old-school craftsmen – customer advice and service are very important to us. That’s why we wanted to streamline the time-consuming administration. Today, the effort involved is much less, and we have more time for our customers again. In short: Everything is centralised, nothing is lost and the error rate is minimised”.
Making the leap across the channel
Keyline has also recently made the leap across the channel and won over its first UK customer. Crescent Press, based in Solihull, was looking for management software that could be integrated with its e-commerce platform on the one hand and its pre-press systems on the other. After testing several systems, the choice fell on Keyline.
Andy Matthews, managing director of Crescent Press, says: “As a digital print provider, we handle hundreds of small jobs every day. We therefore needed a system that would streamline our processes significantly”.
Working with Resolve Business Management, a UK implementation partner for Keyline, Crescent Press is currently developing a system that will accept orders received via the e-commerce platform and check the relevant files via a connection to Enfocus Switch. The orders will then be automatically scheduled in the Keyline production planning board.