The US-headquartered developer’s Nor’Star System is intended to provide commercial printers and document manufacturers with valuable insights into their business and print production costs for improved decision-making.

Nor’Star combines real-time data collection with automated production monitoring, reporting and cost analytics in one central command and control dashboard.

The company said the platform would enable document professionals, printing, mailing and fulfilment centres to understand true production costs of each job, from pre-press through production, finishing, bindery, sorting, packaging, shipping and mailing.

Speaking to PrintWeek at Hunkeler, which is taking place until Thursday (28 February), in Lucerne, Switzerland, Ironsides chief executive and founder Bill Riley said: “Nor’Star’s USP is that we can literally communicate or integrate with any of the devices here at Hunkeler.

“It’s not a proprietary system that’s focused on printers or inserters, it’s really open to any kit that a customer might have on their floor.

“You see print shops that are bringing in all kinds of kit and it’s good to have a tool that can work with anything.”

The Nor’Star System includes Ironsides’ existing APT (Automated Production Tracking) and adds two new platforms; Ironsides AOT (Automated Order Tracking), which monitors and reports on the pre-press process, and Ironsides ACA (Automated Cost Analytics), which provides real-time cost analysis.

The system is commercially available with immediate effect direct from Ironsides’ UK team and Riley said pricing is at the lower end of the market and “competitive.”

He added: “It requires a bit of analysis before installation, every customer has a different type of estimating process and we need to marry it to that.”

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