Zaventem, Belgium - After careful market analysis and product benchmarking, Slovenia's leading media company Krater Group of Ljubljana has selected the Monarch business management and workflow solution from EFI to automate and integrate planning, scheduling and print production. The company has now started installing Monarch at two of its sheet-fed print sites specializing in high-quality, hard-cover books. They plan to complete integration and be fully operational in January 2010. Monarch is EFI's flexible, powerful, and intelligent print production and management automation software for large single and multi-plant operations. Infinitely scalable, Monarch includes an array of wizard-based processes to handle work from the most basic jobs to the most complex projects.

Krater will install a Monarch Suite including:
    * Monarch Foundation, the customizable basic MIS module for estimating, quotations, job tickets, data capture, costing, accounting, credit checks and stock management.
    * Monarch Scheduling to automatically select the fastest and/or lowest-cost production schedule from delivery of data and paper via prepress to plate and printing press scheduling as well as finishing.
    * Monarch Planner planning system, which determines optimum production workflow processes with dynamic monitoring and calculation of multiple what-if scenarios. It manages simple signature work to complex case-bound binding.

The Monarch Auto-Count Direct Machine Interface for waste compensation is not included in the current installation but may be added at a later date.

Krater's benchmarking of MIS systems on the market today showed Monarch's reporting and dynamic scheduling to be superior. But it was EFI's local support capabilities offered by Slovenian distributor and partner Grafik d.o.o. that tipped the scales in favor of EFI's leading solution.

Grega Kokolj, the managing director of MA-TISK d.o.o., one of Krater's sheetfed printing houses, said: "EFI Monarch is modular and easy to navigate, but since we are having our entire production integrated for print automation, reduced costs and growing margins, we absolutely need to make sure there is a strong local partner nearby to provide hands-on service immediately if ever we need it. Grafik's solid reputation in the Slovenian market and their strong relationship with EFI allayed any concerns we might have had."