Midstates Inc. (Aberdeen South Dakota US) has been in business for over 30 years and remains a family owned business. However that is about the only thing that has not changed. They have evolved from a quick printer in the 80 s to a printer/mailer in the 90 s to a robust communications and cross media solutions company in the 21st century. Their in-house capabilities and ability to serve their customers are endless; commercial print quick print wide format magazines catalogs mailing fulfillment signs apparel websites purls and emails the list just goes on. Midstates ownership listens very carefully to their customers needs and respond with solutions services and products.
A major challenge faced by Midstates was managing multiple product lines each with different workflows. For example they may be printing an order of business cards with a production time of 15 minutes and across the plant be running a multi-version publication with a run length of 500 000 with many hours of press time. Clearly both jobs cannot be managed the same way. In order to solve the challenge they selected Technique MIS and shop floor data collection. Over the last 18 months the entire Technique system has been fully implemented. Now orders are taken via the web or CSR�s and the entire lifecycle of the order including real-time shop floor data collection is then managed by the Technique system. Says Justin Feickert Director of Sales and Marketing "The instant visibility provided to Midstates staff and management enables us to interact with our customers in ways we have never been able to do previously. We never have to say we ll get back to you as everyone here always knows instantly what is happening to any job."
Matt Feickert Production Director adds "We also see major internal production efficiencies. Controlling paper waste and overages has been a huge benefit. Plus with some of our longer run work understanding press performance in real time lets me manage the plant proactively rather than firefighting after the fact."
"Midstates is a great example of what can be achieved by a well managed and innovative communications business. Midstates management are constantly looking for ways to serve their customers even better and we are working with them right now on some new features that will move the customer service to even higher levels." says Chris Wood President Technique Inc.
