Our roller coaster world has made traditional printing businesses take another look on how they generate orders. When schools and restaurants were closed, many of our community printers had to consider other avenues for revenue generation. The world of online shopping became essential for all decorators, whether one off orders or bulk. These orders can be challenging to pull into standard community printing production management.
The old school paper production tickets are messy and confusing for small orders. Barcode systems that can function for both small and bulk orders are cleaner and more efficient than sheets of paper floating around a production floor. Scanners at each workstation can pull up all order details within seconds and connect directly with shipping software. With Linx Production software, the barcode will also drive the printers, laser engravers and sublimation systems.
Wait, what? It can connect my online to my production machine and back to my shipping software?
So how does Linx Production software do all that?
Beginning at a web store, information for an order is pulled into Linx and a barcode is assigned. This information includes garment data as well as art and print locations. The PNG artwork is ripped for the DTG as well as scaled for garment size and print location. For other print mediums, the art is converted to match the requirements of the output device. The operator loads the item, scans the code and the output device has all the information needed for production. Print specifications are preset by the user as well as pretreat and cure requirements.
Orders can be sorted by all major factors. This aids in purchasing, product picking, pretreat scheduling and customer management. At shipping, a binning system allows for gathering of multiple items of an order with notifications when an order is complete. In the QC department, if a product does not pass inspection, the barcode returns to th production schedule for a reprint.
A QuickBook plug in will also connect your orders directly to your billing department. Inventory modules are available for small and large users. Custom API connections are available to give full flexibility to your production needs.