District Photo first implemented the Tharstern MIS to expand their service offering from business to consumer to add business to business. Their primary service offering has been in producing photo prints and photo gifts but the seasonality of this type of work meant they had spare production capacity to utilize outside the seasonal peaks. They expected to receive a lot of small orders for this new business line and so District Photo implemented Tharstern to help launch the new side of the business.

District Photo is a 70-year-old, privately held business that currently operates 4 production facilities across the US. Since implementing the MIS, due to Tharstern’s high level of automation, District Photo have been able to handle hundreds of unique orders a day despite only having a small commercial admin and pre-press team.

District Photo are now adding the HP integration and Layout Library to their MIS functionality;

“As our commercial business continues to scale, we are investing in ever more sophisticated printing and finishing equipment. We are looking to achieve increased efficiencies as we grow. The HP integration allows us to move JDF/JMF and CIP4 data between our various devices and software solutions effectively.” Julian Marsh, Director of Commercial Printing, District Photo.

The Layout Library tool was launched by Tharstern in Summer 2018 and allows printers to teach their MIS to automatically select the imposition layouts that they would have chosen manually. District Photo have decided to add the feature to their MIS because they don’t always produce the same specification product the same way, or on the same equipment. Several factors influence the workflow including run length, urgency, special finishes etc. Layout Library will allow District Photo to impose more intelligently to maximize efficiency.

“District Photo is one of the first US customers to add Layout Library to their functionality. They are hoping to continue to expand over the coming years and we’re looking forward to being able to support them through this with the MIS and any new modules we develop.” Susan Moore, Customer Enrollment Director, Tharstern.

Tharstern will be at Dscoop next week, giving demos of the Tharstern system as well as the HP integration. They are also hosting a Layout Library webinar at 11 am EST on Wednesday 3rd April. The webinar will a variety of different impositions to show you the extent of what the tool can do. You can sign up for that here https://www.tharstern.com/webinar-challenge-layout-library.