Flexbiz's ERP and CRM solutions can perform a host of features: including job estimation; quotations; job card management; order management; inventory; production planning; cylinder, plate, and tool handling; invoicing and management information systems for sales; scheduling production orders; quality assurance; plant maintenance; and accounts, finance, and taxation.

Gaurav Bansal, director of Flexbiz ERP, said, “We provide end-to-end coverage for label manufacturing. In this industry, we have delivered our software in India, Africa, Sri Lanka, and the UAE.”

The Flexbiz ERP can be used to generate waste analysis and traceability of materials, among other things. You must disclose where you procured your film and paper, what its QC parameters are, where it was produced, and what the inline QC parameters are.

Bansal said, "All certificates of analyses can be easily retrieved, and job cards can be managed, which is the need of any label converter running a reasonably sized business. So, he cannot run the plant without software as of today."

In terms of the ERP's compatibility with different machines, Bansal said, "It could be any machine, but we pick the data from the start-up. It is the machine manufacturer who has to provide an interface for that. Once that is done, all the parameters can be picked up from the spreadsheet. It does not matter whether it is compatible with Nilpeter or some other machine."

What sets Flexbiz ERP apart? According to Bansal, there are a few things. He said, "We have an end-to-end coverage for any big converter. It's not that he has to work using multiple software, he is dependent on some third-party accounting software. We have our accounting software, which is one advantage."

Bansal said that the second advantage is that customers who have multiple locations can retrieve data consolidations without doing anything. He added, "Just sitting at one place, he can control everything and he can get a plant-wise, company-wise or group-wise profit and loss statement. This is something that is not possible even in some international ERPs."

In terms of efficiency management, Flexbiz ERP is useful. Bansal said, "For efficiency management, you need software to measure all this because volumes are increasing. And then because the management is often on the go, they want those automated reports to come to them. This is where our system assists them. Because we are capturing all the grassroots level data."

The question is whether and how this software helps in terms of job setup and colour management. Bansal said, "What we do is, our system has a smart scheduling interface where we take all of these parameters into account. Whether its the cylinder, job setup, machine make-ready time, or if there is some downtime which is already pre-scheduled for some plant maintenance that is to happen."

In terms of traceability, Bansal said, "We do barcoding at every place. These barcode stickers are generated. As soon as you receive a paper roll that gets barcoded this exact roll will be issued to the shop floor.

This will be scanned and whatever output gets produced will also have a barcode mentioning certain details like which machine, the in-charge, the operator, the number of impressions, the rates, and everything. So, this helps in the traceability of the material so that there is no unaccounted material at the shop floor and the true costing is derived from the system in terms of what got consumed, and the rate at which it got consumed."