Packaging Manager's Pub's Tab

The premier package planning tool in use today and successfully deployed at over 50 major production facilities throughout North America, the BURT PackagingManager™ gathers the necessary production information from Circulation, Advertising, Transportation and Packaging, and represents the missing piece in the packaging and distribution puzzle.

Key Features
• Circulation Interface

Circulation Draw is imported from any circulation system, down to the carrier route level, through a standard file interchange specification, thus allowing all functions to be performed with the most up-to-date circulation quantities.

• Order Entry

Central to the system is the ability to record the precise zoning and routing desired for inserts within a publication, even down to the carrier route level, for both customer-supplied and press products. While ad zones are the norm, support exists for targeting individual ad routes or for configuring alternate zones that may be geographic or demographic in nature. When targeting areas of distribution, ad zones, alternate zones and ad routes may be combined and defined as inclusions or exclusions to satisfy the ever-evolving needs of the advertising customer.

Fill Priorities allow a customer’s preference for handling variances in available preprint stock — either shortages or overages — to be respected. In the event of insufficient preprint stock to satisfy the routing, ad routes may be selectively targeted to not receive the preprint. In the event of a surplus, remainder zones or additional areas of distribution may be targeted to receive the preprint, provided production problems with the piece do not arise.

• Package Assignment

Allows an inserts distribution, or portion thereof, to be assigned to the package of your choice.

The sophisticated "Build Prepack by Zone" utility can make creating even the most confusing Sunday package a snap.

• Inventory & Receiving

Support for skid-level inventory of both incoming preprint stock and completed product.

Support is included for rack storage systems.

Optional support for radio-frequency, hand-held barcode readers is available and allows inventory movement records to be generated so that the precise location of an individual skid is known at all times.

• Bundle & Unitizing

PackagingManager calculates bundle sizes based upon established user-defined rules. The system calculates unitizing specifications (number of bundles per skid, cart, etc.) and fully supports disparate loading units within an individual package.

• Production Planning Options

These configurable options allow the packaging process to be based upon either expected preprint stock or actual on-hand inventory. Production may be prioritized by any or a combination of methods, with the requirements allocated to the available shifts and machines participating in the production plan. Restrictions, be they preprint, truck, trip, product type, class of sale, etc., can be expressed to ensure the proper assignment of production quantities to the machines on the production plan.

Sample Packet Chart

• Statistics

Statistics from Packaging, Production and Advertising perspectives are preserved for historical reporting. Advertising can easily track purchasing and volume trends over weeks, months and years. Packaging can see the cost and productivity information for any inserting machine, shift, machine operator, package or publication.

• Reports

The BURT System contains a plethora of standard reports that satisfy all perspectives.

Reporting capabilities can be significantly enhanced by implementing the optional BURT ReportManager module which affords access to all packaging, distribution and staffing data through state-of-the-art OLAP tools. A complete business intelligence toolkit, BURT ReportManager, is customizable and scalable and may be seamlessly integrated with other technologies such as Lotus Notes® and Microsoft® BackOffice®.

The BURT StaffingManager™ makes matching your personnel resources to your production easy with full-time cost accounting.

A natural companion to the BURT PackaingManager™.

Applicable in both the single-user and multi-user configurations, most tasks may be scheduled for deferred execution and processed "off-line" without interruption of the local workstation.

BURT AdManager™ enhances the BURT PackagingManager's™ insert order entry features to include billing-specific information, as well as an interface, with the advertising billing system.

Contract information may be optionally maintained, or the information necessary to allow the rate calculations to be performed by the billing system may be captured.

User-defined fields can capture the information you feel important, not just what the system supports.

Adequate security is provided to afford access to this information only to those with a need to know.

In addition to the plethora of standard reports contained in The BURT System, access your packaging and distribution your way using third-party reporting tools such as Crystal Reports™.

Should your in-house resources be unable to accommodate your individual custom reporting requirements, those of Burt Technologies, Inc. can help meet your specifications for a reasonable additional fee.

The BURT SuperManifest™ provides unmatched flexibility. Referencing PackagingManager's packaging information, DistributionManager completes the distribution process through the preparation of the trip, drop and carrier level manifests traditionally prepared from the circulation system. Since DistributionManager can reference exactly what Packaging has produced, disparities in quantities and bundle counts are eliminated. Seamless integration with PackagingManager means bundle sizes, preprint content, jackets and page counts are immediately available.

The BURT PostalManager™ provides complete support for postal-delivered products within the BURT PackagingManager™, including Postal Form 3602 and 8125.

The BURT PressManager™ is fully integrated with the BURT PackagingManager™, allowing press orders to be prepared and tracked using the same up-to-date circulation draw used for packaging.

BURT AddressManager allows a mailing list of individual addresses to be associated with an insert order. Given a count of the addresses included in a selective mailing list by carrier route, selective inserting requirements supporting your advertisers' household selections are folded into the production planning process, allowing you to meet these special demands with all the power, flexibility, and accountability inherent in the BURT System. All of the data required to effectively manage this production challenge are immediately available to both up- and down-stream control and management information systems.

This option requires compatible inserting machine control software from Quipp, EnterNet or Prism.

Significant benefits accrue from a bi-directional interface between the BURT System and your Circulation and Advertising systems. Such an interface provides single-point data entry, timely feedback to various departments, and a high degree of accuracy and accountability. Historically, these interfaces have been implemented by exchanging text files in a common shared folder on the BURT server.

The BURT Open Interface™ greatly enhances the speed, flexibility and manageability of these interfaces by exchanging information via an MS-SQL 2000 database. Source data from Circulation is immediately available without the need for attended file transfers, and BURT data spanning multiple packages and publication dates are available to host systems in any format supported by query tools such as Crystal Reports™.

With the BURT LineManger, the BURT PackagingManager™ can also be integrated in a similar manner with computerized packaging control systems, including those from Heidelberg, GE/ICS, NEWSTEC and EnterNet.

Control systems such those from Heidelberg, GE/ICS, NEWSTEC and EnterNet provide an open, interactive interface with PackagingManager. Job setup information can be placed in the job queue at any time. Individual jobs can be re-sequenced, tracked while in progress, monitored for satisfactory completion, and reassigned between packaging lines while production is in progress. PackagingManager provides an historical summary of the wealth of production statistics gathered by the control system.

The BURT LineManage™ provides an industry-standard interface for full integration of the BURT System™. Components include a Microsoft SQL Server database into which the BURT System™ places read-only views of all of the data required to set up a packaging run (the Outbox), and read-write views into which the control system posts the progress and completion of the run (the Inbox). A process running on the BURT server monitors the Inbox and posts the updates to the BURT database.

The BURT Open Interface™ is required for any implementation where source data from Circulation or Advertising are not provided in the format specified or otherwise requires manipulation to fulfill packaging and distribution requirements. The BURT LineManager™ is required for integration with downstream controls.

A total of two or three on-site weeks is generally proposed for initial deployment and implementation assistance. The first on-site visit normally consists of two consecutive weeks, with follow-on visits scheduled later.

Additional on-site services may be requested at any time, can help embellish the capabilities of your packaging & distribution team, and ensure your system is being used to the fullest degree possible. These services will be billed at our then-current on-site rates.

Whether initial familiarization with the BURT System, or follow-on training focusing on advanced features, off-site training is an important ingredient to our collective success.

For initial deployments, one four-day session is generally proposed, for a maximum of four attendees.

Refresher training, be it for seasoned BURT System veterans or new members of the team, is generally two or three days, for a maximum of four attendees.

Support

We provide support during normal business hours (i.e., Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. MST/MDT) excluding Federal holidays. We are very proud of the quality of support services we provide, and have been characterized, as providing “the best support in the industry.” We are always on call for emergencies.

Upgrades

Upgrades to your system are essential, and ensure you are exploiting the latest technologies available. With our support & upgrade policy you can rest assured your packaging & distribution software will be operating at peak efficiency.