Folding carton converter/printer improves job cost accuracy and customer responsiveness with Job Tracking Software.

Problem: In this competitive, commodity business, printers need an accurate handle on productivity and costs to remain profitable. Because so many jobs are short run and have tight delivery commitments, printers need an accurate estimate of job completion time. But there's no economical way for small to mid-sized shops to dynamically track a job through the production process, neither is there a simple way to assess the impact of entering a rush job into the schedule.

Solution: ProductionACE with MDT-150 has a Job Queue which shows estimated completion time and date of all jobs scheduled, based on actual machine performance, setup time, shop work schedule and job or machine-specific productivity factors. Rush jobs can be inserted into the schedule and their impact on schedule assessed immediately. Additionally, the previous manual requirement of saving and weighing and reconciling scrap is eliminated; any time a machine is in Setup Mode, the MDT-150 automatically counts pieces made as waste.

Bottom Line Results: Coupling excellent customer responsiveness with accurate job costs enabled this midsize printer to stay competitive and profitable.