MidAtlantic Printers has spent 100 years building a reputation of excellence by producing high-quality print work and maintaining exceptional customer service for their clients in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and North Carolina.

Todd Shelhorse, Systems Administrator, has a 25-year history with MidAtlantic Printers, and when he examined the inefficiency and errors inherent in the company’s planning and prepress workflow, he knew there had to be a better way to work. “I like to do things the correct way. Planning on a piece of paper is not the correct way,” says Shelhorse.

MidAtlantic often combines an order including multiple pieces of different sizes and quantities. With the company’s previous planning method, finding the most efficient layout was an arduous and error-prone process. The planning and prepress teams were also duplicating efforts, as the imposition was done at the prepress stage, when the planning team had already created a “digital paper and pencil” job plan using manual calculations.

When Shelhorse learned about Metrix, he immediately saw the potential for his company to gain significant benefits in streamlining their processes of estimating, planning, prepress and production.

From the start, Metrix integrated perfectly into MidAtlantic’s Heidelberg PrintReady workflow. “We tested sending JDF from Metrix to PrintReady before we purchased the software, so we knew it would be a working solution,” reports Shelhorse. “Once we had Metrix on board, we installed it and built the mark sets, so all the guys needed was a quick walk-through of the software. I was the teacher, having spent 8 hours spread out over a week learning Metrix, and after their brief tutorial, the operators were able to run with it themselves.”

MidAtlantic Printers has achieved the goals they set for their deployment of Metrix: more effective estimating, 50 to 75% time-savings per job, elimination of redundant efforts by planning and prepress, reduction of spoilage due to incorrect imposition, more efficient integration with their MIS and Heidelberg PrintReady workflow, and greater employee job satisfaction.

Todd Shelhorse believes their customers also reap the benefits of working with Metrix noting, “Metrix allows us to consistently find the best way – and the most cost-effective way – to produce a job. And our customers benefit from that. I believe Metrix is a significant factor in helping us survive and thrive in today’s challenging economy.”