Unpredictable weather

Well, November seems to be here with a vengeance.

Here in London we've had rain, frost and cold. The weather forecast was predicting fog recently, but so far we seem to have been spared. On the other hand we've actually had a few really warm days.

This time of year is traditionally a pick-up time for printers, who get increasingly busy in the run-up to Christmas. It seems to have been a funny year so far, with print buyers hesitating till the last minute before committing themselves, and with shorter but more frequent runs.

Most printers I've spoken too say that business is actually quite good - it's just that the short notice they've been getting means they can't plan ahead, and the shopfloor is either working round the clock or strangely idle.

I suppose the reason is that the work's still out there - it just arrives in different patterns, and we're going to have to get used to it. Just like the weather - except that unlike the weather, I think that as usual the industry will 'hot up' in December.

On a different note (blowing our own trumpet) I'm pleased to say that former users have recently been flocking back to Printpak - we signed up 10 in a single week recently. We're obviously doing something right!

It's been good to catch up with them all.

warm regards

Richard Fergusson

There are a lot of dossers out there!

I was chatting on the phone the other day to one of our users who was still using our very first edition, which was written in MS-DOS. He seemed quite happy on it... except that he has to run 3 Windows 98 PCs and is terrified of them breaking down. After all we're talking about 20 year-old programs on a 12 year-old operating system, in the computer industry when even 5 years seems a very long time.

The problem is that life moves on. Believe it or not, if somebody asks me to look at even Version 3 copies of Printpak I have to power up an old PC to do it, as mine is a 64 bit Windows 7 PC. But this user was on Version 2. It's a bit problematic especially when you learn that Microsoft no longer supports MS-DOS at all.

I suppose I should take it as a compliment - after all I wrote the DOS version myself. Anyway the long and the short of it is that I was able to tell him that we can update him very simply to the latest Version 5, and retain all his data in the process. He seemed a bit surprised.

So if you're running an MSDOS version of Printpak, why not get in touch. We'll be pleased to advise you.

Enjoy what's left of the Summer.

warm regards

Richard Fergusson

Summer holidays

Summer seems to be here at last. I'm back from my holiday in the France to find a heatwave in full progress - maybe we should have gone to Brighton instead!

We're talking to all the new customers who joined us at IPEX, and helping them get set up, and as usual we are learning more about our own software in the process: new ways of looking at it, and new approaches to using it.

I was interested in the huge interest from overseas customers we saw, and I am reinforced in my belief that printers all over the world seem to think the same way - almost like members of an enormous family.  We really enjoyed meeting you all.

Anyway we're over half way through the Spanish and Catalan versions now (thanks to Jaume and Ricard Casals) and we've just signed up our first African agency, under the capable hands of Ada Babajide in Lagos. I think we've got a bit of set-up work to do now.

On that rather international note, I'll sign off - I have an on-line training session to do to a new customer in U.A.E!


Richard Fergusson
The PrintSum Partnership

The final runup for IPEX

It's the final approach to IPEX now.  Got your tickets yet? (apply on line at http://www.ipex.org/ and they should be free).
We're having the usual in-house arguments about how to make best use of our stand space, what posters for the walls, where to stay, etc, etc.  But we'll be there - Stand F323 in Hall 9, and very much look forward to meeting you there. We'll be showing of a load of new stuff, too (some of which is still under wraps).  Our new version 5 is bedding in very well and really makes our competitors seem outdated now, so we're excited about demonstrating it to you and showing you just how different it is from the rest.

Talking about that difference last night, a friend said 'but you need to encapsulate WHY you are different in a single memorable phrase'.  I've been thinking about that, and it's surprisingly difficult.  I suppose one difference is that, despite the fact that we've been going for 20 years now, we are as enthusiastic as ever.  The original creators are still hands-on on a daily basis, and we do have a tendency to worry about about getting things right, even if it takes a bit longer.  And we are concerned and have passionate arguments about 'usability' versus 'instant appeal'.  How do you put that in a single memorable phrase? I really haven't a clue!

See you at IPEX!

Richard Fergusson
The PrintSum Partnership

A rose by any other name...

Well, my American cousins are in the final countdown to Thanksgiving, and we're about to enter beta testing phase for the USA edition.  I've been waiting for about 20 years for America to go metric, but I guess it will never happen.  As a Los Angeles printer told me back then "Yes, we're going metric .... but by inches!"

So finally we are getting our act into gear and I've been trying to put realistic U.S. prices and tasks into our non-metric distribution model.

One thing that did come out of our studies, though, is that the name Printpak seems to already have too many uses that side of the Atlantic. There's American Printpak, a packaging materials manufacturer in Wisconsin, Goldrich Printpak Inc, a packaging company in Toronto, Print Pak Inc, in Texas and Printpak Inc in Missouri. In fact there are a whole load of them. Looking further afield, there are Printpaks in South Africa, Nairobi, Australia - everywhere in fact! So... (and this is what I'm getting round to) we've taken the rather difficult decision to re-brand the non-UK versions of Printpak Version 4 as PrintSum.  In the UK, Printpak remains just Printpak.

So the Printpak Partnership which owns the product now becomes the PrintSum Partnership, and we even have a new logo:

Now that means there I'm going to have a bit of a problem with what to call this Blog. Does it become the Printsum blog?  Maybe, but I think that's a problem for the future - let's get the PrintSum website up and the first non-metric version 4 out of the door first.

Best wishes from

Richard Fergusson
The Printpak PrintSum Partnership

Job costing in a free print MIS?

Well, we always promised it to ourselves, and it really seems to be here. Next week (with luck) we'll be adding job costing to our free Community edition. Everybody says "why?" so I've been trying to work out why it's so important to us.

I think it's that that we've always said - for the last 20 years or so - that any print MIS without some method of comparing real against theoretical costs is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Actually, thinking about it, its probably a damn sight more dangerous than the chocolate teapot could ever be, in that you might get a bit scalded when the chocolate melted, but the MIS could actually lose you your company.

The point is that you can do all the theoretical calculations in the world but the only real way you can find out if you're getting enough to survive on is to cost a few jobs to see how accurate your estimates are.

In practice you don't even have to cost every job. One company I know costs a random ten percent sample. They simply mark every job sheet which has a job number ending in zero with a yellow highlighter. As those job sheets go through the shop floor everyone knows that you have to fill in your times and stock usage, and at the end they get collected and entered. Then you can start to analyze task by task whether you are getting it right or not.

It's analyzing the figures that is so important. For instance it's all very well knowing your cutter costs may be out by ten percent, but you need to find out whether there was one job that skewed the sample, or whether you are consistently out and need to revise the way you estimate cutting.

So that's why we place so much importance on job costing, and why we're bundling it in the free community edition. I reckon that's a world first!

Best wishes from Printpak

Richard Fergusson

Version 4.2 and the vendor-client relationship

Well, 4.2 is finally out there. A few teething glitches but settling down. I'm currently trying to get my head round American units. They're the same as the UK used up until around 30(?) years ago. i.e. inches and pounds weight. I remember in L.A. around 15 years ago talking to a printer about the USA going metric - after all weren't they trying out A4 paper in the White House? He said 'sure - but it's its an imperial A4 (11.69" x 8.27")'. He then added the immortal line "Yes we're slowly going metric - by inches!".

And now for all you hard-pressed printers out there - I thought you might appreciate this clip somebody sent me. It may not actually help your negotiations with print buyers, but it might bring a wry smile to your face. Been there? Often? Comment and let me know if you have ever experienced business like this.




kind regards
Richard Fergusson