London, UK – At Ipex, EFI™ announced that South Africa’s leading commercial printing company, the Paarl Media Group has chosen EFI Monarch™ enterprise software to create a single, integrated operation across its four heatset plants. In co-operation with EFI and its South African partner Prinfo, Paarl Media aims to take its group operations to the next level of efficiency and productivity and this project will be implemented across the company’s heatset division which comprises four of its 12 specialised printing plants nationwide.

As a leading printing operation in Africa, the Paarl Media Group meets the needs of a wide variety of print buyers from magazine, newspaper and book publishers to agencies, design firms, marketers and brand managers.

“This implementation will improve the integration of our existing print processes enabling us to further enhance our customer service. This technology will allow us to align our resources and execution capabilities with our customers’ requirements, resulting in Paarl Media being even more responsive,” said Christoff Botha, Paarl Media executive director, heatset.

EFI Monarch is an automated print production and management solution for multi-plant operations handling everything from the most basic jobs to the most complex projects. Monarch’s core system includes advanced job management, intelligent production planning and JDF-certified technology for seamless integration across various equipment types and formats. Its modular structure allows printing companies to add functionality as needed.

A review process was underpinned by a strategic drive to select the right system and right vendor for the long term.  Therefore the product must not only meet Paarl Media’s requirements, but the supplier must have both the ability and resources to execute, with a strong vision for innovation in the printing industry.

“This project offers us a great and exciting opportunity to streamline our business processes and systems amongst the Heatset plants,” said Botha. “Our implementation will reduce the number of systems and custom interfaces and enable us to implement a standardised solution, thereby enabling us to not only support efficiently but also to expand our systems strategically,” said Botha.

Paarl Media is the first company in South Africa to use EFI`s innovative iQuote estimating system, which was launched worldwide last year. It explores each path a job can take through any facility, calculating the best layout and the best resources for each job. EFI will also integrate its QTMS DMI (Direct Machine Interface) system, which has been in use at Paarl Media for years, into the Monarch ERP to streamline operations.

“We are excited to be a part of Paarl Media’s dedication to continuous improvement,” said Steffen Haaga, EFI’s director of Productivity Software sales, EMEA. “Monarch will not only allow Paarl Media to operate its plants from a single interface, but it provides tools such as scheduling and estimating which will allow the company to be more profitable as they increase their ability to serve customers more efficiently.”

“Looking forward with EFI we see the Paarl Media Group strategically expanding the solution in the front-office to automate and enable our customers with latest mobile technology.  We also see expanding the fulfilment side by integrating with customers to improve logistics execution capability, quality and customer efficiencies,” concludes Botha.