Erler + Pless GmbH – Digitalisierung im Digitaldruck

Digitalisation in digital printing: How Erler+Pless develops new business ideas and implements them with start-ups.

Erler+Pless is actually known for impressive large formats in the shops of major brands, on house walls in major European cities, on trade fair stands or in arenas. For this, the Hamburg-based company has received several awards as Large Format Printer (LFP) of the Year. The company creates LFP concepts for its customers, prints, stores, delivers and installs large formats and advertising technology throughout German-speaking countries and beyond. True full service.

But Erler+Pless can do more than just large-format printing on a grand scale. The LFP all-rounder with almost 40 employees never stands still. On the contrary: the company has recognised the signs of the (digital) times and focuses on young, new companies with innovative ideas. Erler+Pless supports the entrepreneurs and secures production orders at the same time. All of this is possible through consistent standardisation and automation. advanter provides the company with the necessary flexibility to survive in the digital world.

Sector-specific right from the start

The cooperation with Erler+Pless began in 2005. At that time, managing director and owner Simon Pless recognised that, in addition to good products and advice, the efficiency of one’s own processes is particularly important for the company’s success. Therefore, Erler+Pless replaced individual software systems with a central ERP industry solution.

Together with Günther Business Solutions, they developed a unique production planning system for the LFP industry, which the company still uses successfully today. No more silos and “silent mail”. Production orders are systematically scheduled. The display resembles a boarding list at the airport. A traffic light system reports back the status of the order – all the way to the administration. The beginning of continuous order processing. Later, an order-related detailed calculation followed, with which complex individual solutions can be precisely calculated. The result: the amount of detailed costing rose sharply.

Once the order has been produced, advanter takes over the invoicing. The corresponding data is passed on to the financial accounting system via an interface. The same applies in the ordering area for incoming goods. Important for the management is the management information system (MIS), which shows at any time how many orders are in the house or how the business development looks – for example, compared to the same month of the previous year.

“For us, the introduction was the right decision. Now we have a system that accompanies almost the entire workflow. All important information – e.g. the current order status – can be called up at the push of a button. This allows us to work faster overall and ultimately serve our customers better. In the future, we will continuously expand the system and further increase the consistency. I can really recommend advanter.”

 Simon Pless, Managing Director of Erler+Pless GmbH

Connection to customer systems secures turnover and margins

With the LFP functions, internal processes improved and the volume of orders that could now be processed grew rapidly. Erler+Pless recognised the advantages of linking its own production to external order entry systems at existing customers. Therefore, advanter was connected to customer systems via an interface so that various customers could enter and process orders more easily and quickly. A win-win situation that made it easier for everyone involved in the day-to-day business.

The Picmentum app from Cocologics. Please click on one of the three images to enlarge it.

One of many examples is the mobile-first company cocologics. The company, known among other things for the photo app ProCamera, builds the bridge between modern software and high-quality produced photographs. With the app Picmentum, pictures can be ordered in the desired format via smartphone, e.g. as a canvas print or photo exposure behind acrylic glass. With just a few taps, the individual wall picture is ordered via the app and delivered directly to your home shortly afterwards.

For Erler+Pless, the cooperation with the software experts has been extremely successful. The cocologics team continues to work intensively on the app and implement new functions – such as an innovative augmented reality mode to bring its murals to life – and is continuously expanding its customer base.

Erler+Pless, meanwhile, is enjoying the growing number of orders without having to build up skills in software development itself. A textbook digitisation project.

“Our high quality standards, which we have been pursuing for years in our software development, are also applied to our physical products. With Erler+Pless, we have therefore chosen the best provider in the industry to be able to offer gallery-quality images for individual one-off productions according to customer specifications.”

Jens Dämgen, Managing Director cocologics GmbH

For this collaboration, Erler+Pless was awarded in two categories by Verlag Druck & Medien: Large Format Printer and Most Innovative Online Printer of 2018.”

Further information:

Current investments and innovations in which Erler-Pless is involved:

Links News about the involvement with Cocologics:

 

Would you like to know more about this or other projects? Please do not hesitate to contact us by e-mail at vertrieb@guenther-bs.de or by phone at (+49) 02171 36 37 100.

 

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