arifiQ news

The New Role of Estimating – Article by Richard Romano in Printing News November issue

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We love that Romano is putting the light on the subject and his progressive conclusions; “There was a time when it seemed like estimating a print job was one of the occult arts, a plant’s estimator being a kind of Delphic oracle who, when presented with an RFQ, would go into a trance and, some time later, reveal the number to be passed on to the potential customer. It was an estimate based on experience, with nosmall amount of “secret sauce.”

The wrap-up featuring arifiQ:

“Shop owners need to change their mindset. “People don’t like to have their knowledge put into a system so that then everyone can do estimating,” said Rosen, “but that’s the way it has to be. It’s not the printer who sets the agenda, it’s the customer. If they are used to getting pricing and placing orders online in a very fast and transparent way, print will seem like an old technology.” It can thus drive people away from wanting to print at all. And haven’t we had enough of that already?”

Read the complete article at page 12-16 at PrintingNews.com

King of estimating – new Large Scale Estimating app does 500 in a few minutes

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arifiQ, the technology that provides estimates and optimized workflows in seconds; today announces a powerful addition to its front-end estimating product family: the Large Scale Estimating module, capable of delivering hundreds of estimates in only a few minutes. Working in real time with PSPs’ actual device availability and inventories across any number of sites, the arifiQ Large Scale Estimating module makes it possible for print buyers and print service providers to answer extensive RFQs immediately, and then execute orders – including recurring procurements – as fast as clients say “yes”.

“This new arifiQ Large Scale Estimating module eliminates the days and weeks needed to prepare and then calculate hundreds or thousands of entries at print buyer and print provider sites,” says Carina Karlsson, CEO, arifiQ Development. The Module will also prove especially beneficial to procurement staff at enterprises and organization sectors such as retail, real estate, financial, and insurance; where timing is critical to profit potential or compliance.

“arifiQ technology completely removes the greatest bottleneck in print production; which is the amount of time needed to calculate estimates,” Karlsson continues, citing the North American MIS/ERP Adoption in Commercial Printing report[1] issued last month. 

How the arifiQ Large Scale Estimating module works:

  1. The product specifications (any number of products) are easily entered, in Excel sheets – connected to the arifiQ optimizing engine.
  2. The pricing for each product, as well as the total of all estimates, is presented instantly.
  3. The order placement is done in the Excel sheet or by submitting the data to arifiQ PRO (or other MIS).
  4. The order is saved and managed in arifiQ PRO (or other MIS).
  5. The Gang-Run option in arifiQ PRO combines jobs that can run at the same time.

“Printers and buyers who use the Large Scale Estimating module can get orders on press before RFQs are even opened by their competitors,” says Karlsson.

arifiQ’s Most Recent Procurement Request:

A procurement officer at a large enterprise needed pricing on 2000 products. The estimator complained, saying, “It will take forever, and we might not even get the print order!”

Karlsson went over the job with the customer, and found that if they used a typical MIS to calculate estimates for all 2000 products, it would take 4 weeks at 5 minutes per. The other option that estimating personnel often employ is to take a “smart guess,” which includes few-to-no real calculations. In these cases, the PSPs have no idea if they will take a great loss on the extensive order.

Also consider that simple RFQs for one piece often demand many different estimates, such as numerous sizes and pages. For example, a customer can easily ask for 3 sizes and 3 different numbers of pages; which equals 9 estimates for only one quote. Imagine the number of estimates requested when a large procurement is sent out to numerous printers!

With the arifiQ Large Scale Estimating module, the PSP provides the arifiQ Excel document to the print customer, who easily fills in product specs and sends it back upon receipt. The buyer can also get pricing in real time, while they fill in the sheet.

The Large Scale Estimating module is the newest addition to the arifiQ line of front-end estimating applications. The product family now includes:

  1. arifiQ PRO – this highly advanced estimating tool for professional print buyers and sales teams is arifiQ’s flagship product
  2. Plugin for Adobe InDesign – for designers; allows creation of jobs while simultaneously staying within budget or other parameters
  3. deQuote – for quick print jobs and Inplants
  4. Customized Web forms created with arifiQ API – for a regular print customer and key accounts
  5. Large Scale Estimating – for calculating estimates on any number of jobs, and each job estimated unlimited times, according to any number of options, for print buyers and any size PSP or organization, including large enterprises with extended RFQs

[1] The North American MIS/ERP Adoption in Commercial Printing report was produced by industry consultant David Zwang for PRIMIR, the market research arm of NPES. Included in the report was quantitative research extracted from a Keypoint Intelligence (formerly InfoTrends) 2016 survey on North American Software trends in Commercial Printing.

The New Role of Estimating – Article by Richard Romano in Printing News November issue

/in /by

We love that Romano is putting the light on the subject and his progressive conclusions; “There was a time when it seemed like estimating a print job was one of the occult arts, a plant’s estimator being a kind of Delphic oracle who, when presented with an RFQ, would go into a trance and, some time later, reveal the number to be passed on to the potential customer. It was an estimate based on experience, with nosmall amount of “secret sauce.”

The wrap-up featuring arifiQ:

“Shop owners need to change their mindset. “People don’t like to have their knowledge put into a system so that then everyone can do estimating,” said Rosen, “but that’s the way it has to be. It’s not the printer who sets the agenda, it’s the customer. If they are used to getting pricing and placing orders online in a very fast and transparent way, print will seem like an old technology.” It can thus drive people away from wanting to print at all. And haven’t we had enough of that already?”

Read the complete article at page 12-16 at PrintingNews.com

King of estimating – new Large Scale Estimating app does 500 in a few minutes

/in /by

arifiQ, the technology that provides estimates and optimized workflows in seconds; today announces a powerful addition to its front-end estimating product family: the Large Scale Estimating module, capable of delivering hundreds of estimates in only a few minutes. Working in real time with PSPs’ actual device availability and inventories across any number of sites, the arifiQ Large Scale Estimating module makes it possible for print buyers and print service providers to answer extensive RFQs immediately, and then execute orders – including recurring procurements – as fast as clients say “yes”.

“This new arifiQ Large Scale Estimating module eliminates the days and weeks needed to prepare and then calculate hundreds or thousands of entries at print buyer and print provider sites,” says Carina Karlsson, CEO, arifiQ Development. The Module will also prove especially beneficial to procurement staff at enterprises and organization sectors such as retail, real estate, financial, and insurance; where timing is critical to profit potential or compliance.

“arifiQ technology completely removes the greatest bottleneck in print production; which is the amount of time needed to calculate estimates,” Karlsson continues, citing the North American MIS/ERP Adoption in Commercial Printing report[1] issued last month. 

How the arifiQ Large Scale Estimating module works:

  1. The product specifications (any number of products) are easily entered, in Excel sheets – connected to the arifiQ optimizing engine.
  2. The pricing for each product, as well as the total of all estimates, is presented instantly.
  3. The order placement is done in the Excel sheet or by submitting the data to arifiQ PRO (or other MIS).
  4. The order is saved and managed in arifiQ PRO (or other MIS).
  5. The Gang-Run option in arifiQ PRO combines jobs that can run at the same time.

“Printers and buyers who use the Large Scale Estimating module can get orders on press before RFQs are even opened by their competitors,” says Karlsson.

arifiQ’s Most Recent Procurement Request:

A procurement officer at a large enterprise needed pricing on 2000 products. The estimator complained, saying, “It will take forever, and we might not even get the print order!”

Karlsson went over the job with the customer, and found that if they used a typical MIS to calculate estimates for all 2000 products, it would take 4 weeks at 5 minutes per. The other option that estimating personnel often employ is to take a “smart guess,” which includes few-to-no real calculations. In these cases, the PSPs have no idea if they will take a great loss on the extensive order.

Also consider that simple RFQs for one piece often demand many different estimates, such as numerous sizes and pages. For example, a customer can easily ask for 3 sizes and 3 different numbers of pages; which equals 9 estimates for only one quote. Imagine the number of estimates requested when a large procurement is sent out to numerous printers!

With the arifiQ Large Scale Estimating module, the PSP provides the arifiQ Excel document to the print customer, who easily fills in product specs and sends it back upon receipt. The buyer can also get pricing in real time, while they fill in the sheet.

The Large Scale Estimating module is the newest addition to the arifiQ line of front-end estimating applications. The product family now includes:

  1. arifiQ PRO – this highly advanced estimating tool for professional print buyers and sales teams is arifiQ’s flagship product
  2. Plugin for Adobe InDesign – for designers; allows creation of jobs while simultaneously staying within budget or other parameters
  3. deQuote – for quick print jobs and Inplants
  4. Customized Web forms created with arifiQ API – for a regular print customer and key accounts
  5. Large Scale Estimating – for calculating estimates on any number of jobs, and each job estimated unlimited times, according to any number of options, for print buyers and any size PSP or organization, including large enterprises with extended RFQs

[1] The North American MIS/ERP Adoption in Commercial Printing report was produced by industry consultant David Zwang for PRIMIR, the market research arm of NPES. Included in the report was quantitative research extracted from a Keypoint Intelligence (formerly InfoTrends) 2016 survey on North American Software trends in Commercial Printing.