Aluscreen

Does MIS software make an engraving, milling and printing company even more effective?

Aluscreen is a niche company, specialised in sustainable printing, engraving, and milling of aluminium, plastic, and stainless steel. The company was founded in 1981 and specialised in printing control panels in plastic and aluminium for industrial applications. 

In 2012, Aluscreen was taken over by its current managers, which created a new dynamism. They invested in a new high-speed milling machine and a printer for digital printing in open pores of aluminium. Today, it is possible to create front foil prototypes in a very short time. Aluscreen’s 6-strong team gives its clients the possibility to offer personalised end products to their end customers. This is a substantial added value in the sales process of their specific products.

Niche products also need good administrative support.

Until recently, Aluscreen used different systems to manage its operating processes, which were not always connected. They used a standard ERP application to manage CRM, business development, and price requests. To prepare and forward quotes they used Excel and Outlook. They did all their planning on a board on the wall and in Excel, which was manageable enough for a 3-strong team.

Short communication lines and process automation are essential to Aluscreen to be able to deal efficiently with our above-mentioned product flexibility. The production steps are evaluated on a continuous basis and refined where possible. In this way, they can respond quickly to customer demand with their own production. 

MultiPress centralises all operating processes

The company’s professionalisation and healthy growth made it necessary to look for ways to bring the entire graphics process together in a single structure. The objective is to automate the flow from calculation to invoicing as much as possible. All this is right up MultiPress’ street.

It soon appeared from the discussions with our project manager that Aluscreen's niche activities have a lot in common with large-format printing. Aluscreen did ask some pertinent questions:

• How does integration with our Exact accounting package work?
• How soon will we be operational again after switching to MultiPress, and how much training will be given at the start?
• Once MultiPress is installed, will the database already contain the existing data such as the templates of the laminator, swissQprint, Zund, punching, screen printing, etc?
• Does MultiPress integrate with CloudLab’s PrintQ?

In addition to the MultiPress production module, Aluscreen will soon also activate the web module, the costing module, and the time registration module. The switch to MultiPress is now in full preparation, and thorough training sessions have already been scheduled.