Management System Handles 700 Orders A Day

Following the latest enhancement to its Optimus 2020 MIS system, customers of Paragon Group UK are placing over 700 print orders a day over the internet, cutting costs and speeding turn-around.

Following the latest enhancement to its Optimus 2020 MIS system, customers of Paragon Group UK are placing over 700 print orders a day over the internet, cutting costs and speeding turn-around.

Paragon Group UK is part of Paragon Europe, the European provider of documents, tickets, labels and print management.

Paragon's group IT director Jonathan Stuart explained: "The orders are either entered online or generated automatically by customers' systems and sent to our sites, where they automatically enter Optimus 2020 and the production process.

There's no manual intervention whatsoever until the picking note is generated in the warehouse.

We benefit from dramatically reduced administration costs and customers get faster deliveries - we despatch almost every order the day we receive it." He described the new capability as, "the latest example of the very advanced business process engineering we have introduced since we acquired the Optimus 2020 MIS system and started working with Optimus." After considering systems from a number of European suppliers, Paragon chose Optimus 2020 because of the system's scalability, its broad range of modules and Optimus's international customer support but particularly its open architecture, which enables Paragon to add its own custom features to Optimus 2020.

Added Stuart: "Optimus 2020 is a major contributor to our strategy of continuously automating internal processes, from administration through manufacturing to warehousing and distribution.

The system's openness means we can enhance the core technology by developing our own 'middleware' to really integrate Optimus into our business processes." He said that automated order entry is just the latest example of such customisation and that Paragon had also developed paperless materials tracking from manufacturing to warehousing, with staff simply enter data in to Optimus 2020 using handheld wireless barcode scanners.

The 59-user Optimus 2020 system - including Estimating Pro, Remote Data Collection, Sales Orders, Purchase Orders and Customer Service modules - is Paragon's first print-specific management information system.

Jonathan Stuart explained that before Optimus 2020, the company relied on a JD Edwards 'World' enterprise resource planning system for MIS functions.

However, as the company transformed itself from providing business forms to complete print solutions, it developed specialist needs beyond the standard capabilities of such a general system.

Paragon benefits from what Jonathan Stuart described as "multi-faceted customer support from Optimus", which is notable for the number of levels at which the two companies' cooperate said Optichrome.

"We work closely at a consultancy level, where Optimus helps us configure workflow within our operations; at the programmer level, where we develop the middleware that integrates Optimus 2020 with our business processes and at what's almost a visionary level, where Optimus's senior people share ideas for future developments with us.

For example, we're naturally watching JDF with interest and knowing how Optimus is thinking helps us shape our plans for the format." Paragon Group UK has three manufacturing sites, in Sunderland (long-run confidential and security print), Castleford (short-run stationery) and Bradford (pressure seal) and recently opened Paragon Print Services in Leeds to provide print management and supply chain management.

Annual UK sales are over GBP40 million - double what they were five years ago.

Back to top