With almost 1000 installations around the world Tharstern can clearly claim to be meeting the needs of printers for management control and ecommerce solutions
According to Napil Abdel, sales director at Tharstern Australia, Tharstern is both market leader and technology leader when it comes to MIS. He says, “Tharstern has proven capabilities going back a quarter of a century, and is now in the vanguard of the digital evolution.”Abdel points to JDF as a shining example of Thastern’s pioneering progress, he says, “There are a lot of stories about JDF, a lot of information and a lot of misinformation. Tharstern has proven integrated JDF with most of the major vendors, worldwide we now have more than 50 fully functioning MIS JDF printers. I can announce that the first JDF enabled printer with Tharstern MIS is just up and running in Australia.”
Abdel isn’t saying who or where the printer is, beyond that it has several B1 presses and digital printing output capability, but he clearly sees it as the shape of things to come, and points out that it took just weeks to complete the integration.. Abdel says, “The integrated solution increases the level of automation and eliminates many manual tasks and processes. The JMF data coming back into the MIS enables instant automatic feedback of production data.”
However Abdel does not see an MIS JDF solution as the panacea to all printers, he says, “For the medium to bigger printers it will be a great boon; however for the smaller printers JDF may not always be appropriate.
Tharstern’s client base is made up of the full rage of printers from large to small, and in fact for the smaller printers the company has a purpose designed, and competitively priced MIS, known as Smallprint, which the company says is a cost effective and innovative, all-in-one, user-friendly package ideal for small sized printing organisations interested in the advantages of a print MIS.
Aside from all the traditional uses for an MIS, quoting, job creation and so on, Tharstern gives printers the tools to forecast accurately, to set KPI’s and monitor them in real time. “Printers should know how much each piece of equipment is making, on any type of product, over any period, for any customer. When you have access to this kind of information, in real time, you then have the opportunity to make sound business decisions” says Abdel.
In web to print Tharstern is similarly at the forefront of development, and in fact has had its own web-to-print solution since 2004. Abdel says, “There is no doubt web-to-print is currently one of the hottest topics in print, as it enable printers to get closer to their existing customers, it takes out a significant amount of back office activity, as the customer effectively provides much of the admin, and of course it opens up the world to the printer.”
Tharstern also has the ability to integrate to some of the more popular third party web-to-print solutions directly into its MIS.
Often referred to as the silent sales rep the Tharstern e4print module can quickly become a valuable source of income, helping to bring e-commerce to the business.
With Tharstern e4print printers can create multiple custom sites to personalise and reflect either their own or their customers’ corporate branding. It is fully integrated with the TharsternSQL suite and can be used by their customers and own internal staff to drive the printer’s MIS and provide real time access to stock balances, estimates, soft proofs and production information.
Users can also request quotes and even place orders on-line, which are then fed directly into the MIS. Furthermore, as the information comes direct from the customer, both communication and accuracy is improved and of course it removes the need to re-key information.
Tharstern’s primary MIS package is TharsternSQL. Since the early 1980’s. Tharstern has offered arguably the most comprehensive and easy-to-use print MIS available. Designed specifically for print environments including sheet fed, reel fed, label, screen, digital print and the pre-press environment, TharsternSQL is experiencing accelerated acceptance in the global marketplace after years of innovative product development.
TharsternSQL offers an entry-level Suite License as the base platform including estimating, job costing, purchase order processing and raw materials stock control. Licenses are purchased on a per-user basis, to make the solution easier for companies of smaller number and tighter budgets.
The system sells with additional modules allowing printer to tailor a solution to specific needs and integrating with packages from other supply companies to build an overall best-of-breed solution.
TharsternSQL is built with Microsoft technology, giving the system a level of openness that enables it to integrate with other commonly used Microsoft packages. Adding to this, proven JDF, CiP3, CiP4 and ODBC capabilities mean TharsternSQL is possibly the most open, supplier-cooperative print MIS available.
