LithoTechnics, Inc., announced today that the Graphic Systems Division of FUJIFILM North America Corp. just sold the 1000th license of the award-winning, automated job planning and imposition system Metrix.

Rohan Holt, the founder of LithoTechnics, said, "We are extremely proud to reach this significant milestone. It's very gratifying to think that at any one moment, up to 1,000 people worldwide are using Metrix to do their work."

Since the debut of Metrix 1.0 in 2004, Metrix has been sold to printers across 22 countries, who use it in any one of five available languages. "We believe Metrix is the leading product in its category," Holt said. "The printing industry is experiencing an incredibly tough time due to the economy and the shift in publishing towards the Internet. I think some of the success of Metrix is due to the fact that Metrix helps printers optimize their manufacturing efficiency perhaps better than any other tool or strategy for its cost. Customers are regularly amazed by the short learning curve and the astonishing ROI."

Metrix customers tell the story best – a sampling:

•       "Metrix has streamlined and standardized our planning and imposition, saving 66-75% of the time required for these tasks." – Mike Banfield, Planning/Estimating, Transcontinental Printing, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada.

•       "By defining the project plan at estimating, Metrix positions us to get the most competitive price to market. Plus, we're saving $60,000–$80,000 a year in labor." – Ted Straus, Vice President and COO, Suttle-Straus, Inc., Waunakee, WI.

•       "Metrix has helped us to remain highly competitive by cutting our labor costs in half." – Colin Gammon, Technical R&D Manager, MPG Books Group Ltd., Cornwall, UK.

•       "On one job, Metrix came up with a layout we hadn't thought of that brought the price down $7,000." – Andrew Cook, President, Peel Graphics, Inc., Brampton, Ontario, Canada.

•       "With Metrix, we have been able to increase the number of orders we process each day by 20%." – Hervé Vermeuil, Exaprint, Montpelier, France.

•       "With Metrix, we reduced the time required to plan and impose simple jobs by 50%, and for complex jobs, we reduced the time by as much as 75%." – Todd Shelhorse, Systems Administrator, MidAtlantic Printers, Altavista, VA.

•       "Metrix saved us $11,000 on a single job!" – Kevin Coombs, Prepress Manager, Multi-Craft, Inc., Newport, KY.

•       "The speed, accuracy and consistency of Metrix-generated plans save time and raise throughput in the sales, planning, prepress, the pressroom and finishing departments."  – Steve Plourde, Director of Technology, Worth Higgins & Associates, Inc., Richmond, VA.

•       "Metrix combines all of our staff's expertise into a single pool of knowledge, then applies that knowledge to its database of our equipment to create efficient, money-saving project plans and layouts – automatically." – Margie Sims, Production Manager, EBSCO Media, Birmingham, AL.

Bryan Hughes, product marketing manager, workflow products, for the Graphic Systems Division of FUJIFILM North America Corporation, commented: "Decline in both volume and margin make finding manufacturing efficiencies essential. Printers understand the productivity gains of implementing new printing and finishing hardware technologies. But today it is more important than ever to implement software solutions that allow equipment purchases to be driven at their maximum potential. We also see experienced manufacturing personnel exiting the industry as a result of retirement, plant closures and other economic factors." Hughes continued, "This means printers are seeking strategies that allow them to grow their business and maximize their manufacturing potential without increasing direct labor costs. Metrix is a product that dramatically improves efficiency and provides a repository of manufacturing knowledge, enabling less-skilled workers to be extremely productive. Metrix can be a key component in this strategy."