{"id":31557,"date":"2022-02-24T09:34:32","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T08:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/testimonial\/connecting-data-improves-operations-at-amherst-label\/"},"modified":"2025-03-11T14:59:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T13:59:34","slug":"connecting-data-improves-operations-at-amherst-label","status":"publish","type":"testimonial","link":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/testimonial\/connecting-data-improves-operations-at-amherst-label\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting data improves operations at Amherst Label"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Integrating systems<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Hybrid Software and Label Traxx suggested that integrating their systems would be helpful for the Milford, NH-based converter.

Streamlining a business can be complex when you have islands of data stored in different software solutions. Data should be in one source and used throughout. Connecting and sharing data between MIS and production systems can gain efficiencies and improve quality for any label printer.

A single, company-wide software solution that consolidates the information from all departments, integrated with the MIS, will optimize production management \u2013 and offer more information for informed business decisions \u2013 accounting, estimating and more. CSRs can respond in real time to customer queries, and jobs are visible across all business departments. Prepress tasks can be completely driven by job ticket information located from an MIS\/ERP. This is particularly helpful with fast-paced, short-run digital jobs. It also eliminates redundancy, like scheduling jobs or creating quotations manually, or creating handwritten job tickets. It also assures consistency in the way companies work internally and with customers.

Milford, NH-based Amherst Label, one of the most respected custom label printers in the Northeast, has helped customers create custom labels, tags, and decals on-time, on-budget and to specifications for over 40 years. The family-owned business continues to put its extensive custom label printing experience to work for customers. The company specializes in digital, flexographic, and screen printing for a wide variety of industries, including bottle\/beverage, direct mail, flexible packaging, healthcare, industrial, nutraceutical, and specialty foods.

Amherst installed Label Traxx MIS software in 2013 to replace a system that wasn\u2019t built by people knowledgeable about labels. Meanwhile, in the prepress department, graphic artists did everything manually, utilizing apps like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for tasks like step and repeat. Katie Putnam, prepress\/digital print supervisor, recalls, \u201cWith 10 sales reps\/CSRs, our three graphic artists were getting buried every day.<\/em>\u201d They installed Hybrid PACKZ and Hybrid CLOUDFLOW to streamline tasks.
Hybrid Software and Label Traxx suggested that integrating their systems would be helpful. \u201cWe talked with another label company who had done the same thing and reported how well it improved their ability to process orders,<\/em>\u201d says Jim Cutler, operations manager.

When integrating MIS and production systems together, there are considerations. \u201cWe needed help from Label Traxx and Hybrid Software because we don\u2019t have an on-site IT staff. Another issue is setting up the servers with the right file paths. You have to ensure you have solid help who understands what you\u2019re doing,<\/em>\u201d suggests Cutler.

\u201cIt was great to have help onsite to see what we could do on a day-to-day basis\u2014and contemplate how to automate the process,<\/em>\u201d adds Putnam.

Cutler also recommends anyone to understand what their customer service department will have to do in advance, because the process will change. \u201cOur biggest challenge has been helping CSRs become comfortable with the new process.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Replacing manual tasks with automation<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Since the integration began in 2019, Amherst Label has saved considerable time because it has eliminated many manual tasks. For example, before they took all order information from Label Traxx and wrote it on a piece of paper that was passed to prepress. Then, prepress would retype that data into a proof slug. \u201cObviously there was a lot of room for transposing numbers incorrectly or forgetting to change something,<\/em>\u201d says Putnam. \u201cNow, we just import the metadata. That not only saved time but also eliminated errors.<\/em>\u201d

Working during COVID, Amherst Label tried to limit the walking its people did around it building. Eliminating the paper workflow really helped.

The greatest opportunity for accurate repeatability was step and repeat for their fast-paced digital work. Automating proofing, and different across step and repeat files, have saved a lot of time. \u201cManually, sometimes you don\u2019t grab a small piece somewhere, and lose it. You\u2019ll have it on the original, but miss it on all the repeats. Now, we create our label repeat file plan in Label Traxx and perform it automatically in Hybrid PACKZ. They\u2019re always correct,<\/em>\u201d comments Putnam. \u201cIt\u2019s very helpful for jobs that hold a large number of lots on the actual ticket. With 50 lots, we hit a button and automate the different \u2018across files\u2019 in two or three minutes \u2013 versus 10 minutes to create each file manually.<\/em>\u201d

Over the past couple years, Amherst Label has grown exponentially. Putnam has taken on digital management responsibilities in addition to prepress. “So instead of operating with three dedicated people, we\u2019ve cut back to two and a half, and they\u2019re still handling the increased workload,<\/em>\u201d marvels Cutler. \u201cWith the integration of our MIS and production systems, our customer satisfaction rate has been 99%, which means there was only 1% rejected work \u2013 with the same staff.<\/em>\u201d

\u201cIn the future, we\u2019ll be utilizing information that flows back to Label Traxx, so CSRs can review job status without walking on the print floor,<\/em>\u201d says Putnam. \u201cWe\u2019d also like to feed die line drawings back into Label Traxx and populate them into the die tooling information. The CSRs have seen bits and pieces of automation, and they\u2019re pretty excited.<\/em>\u201d

Amherst Label links this entire innovative system to its pledge to a three-year visioning process called its Painted Picture. That commitment to improvement, progress, and being the very best they can be is often the driver for these kinds of investments.

Visit the Amherst website here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Courtesy of Label and Narrow Web<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Integrating systems Hybrid Software and Label Traxx suggested that integrating their systems would be helpful for the Milford, NH-based converter. Streamlining a business can be complex when you have islands of data stored in different software solutions. Data should be in one source and used throughout. Connecting and sharing data between MIS and production systems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":33688,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"challenge":[],"hybrid-product":[124,125],"market":[123,119],"class_list":["post-31557","testimonial","type-testimonial","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","hybrid-product-cloudflow","hybrid-product-packz","market-flexible-packaging-printers","market-tag-and-label-printers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/testimonial\/31557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/testimonial"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/testimonial"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/testimonial\/31557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"challenge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/challenge?post=31557"},{"taxonomy":"hybrid-product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hybrid-product?post=31557"},{"taxonomy":"market","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hybridsoftware.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/market?post=31557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}