Boutwell, Owens & Co. Enhance Production Scheduling with Solarsoft

Packaging manufacturer implements Solarsoft's Advanced Planning & Scheduling software to improve visibility, flexibility and efficiency.

Printed paperboard packaging manufacturer Boutwell, Owens & Co. can now easily change its production schedule in real time with Solarsoft

Chicago, IL - April 6, 2011 - Solarsoft Business Systems, a leading provider of enterprise software and IT services to manufacturers, distributors and wholesale businesses worldwide, announced today that Boutwell, Owens & Co., a full service designer and manufacturer of printed paperboard packaging, has chosen to improve the visibility, flexibility and efficiency of its production scheduling with Solarsoft's Advanced Planning & Scheduling software.

Prior to Solarsoft, the Fitchburg, MA-based provider of packaging solutions had used scheduling software that had been developed in-house.

"With our previous scheduling software we could see the status of a job on a particular machine, but not what was scheduled before or after that point," says Bill Lorenz, Vice President of Operations at Boutwell. "Solarsoft gives us full visibility on one screen, so we can follow a job, and all the different production steps, through the operation, and see what's scheduled before and after."

Solarsoft's Advanced Planning & Scheduling software also provides Boutwell with the flexibility to easily change the schedule. "With our old software, inserting a job into the schedule was a cumbersome process. We had to manually move all other jobs back or forward," says Lorenz. "With Solarsoft all you have to do is insert the job where you want it, and the software will adjust the schedule accordingly, and automatically schedule all the different steps within the job."

Boutwell can also achieve further efficiency gains with the ability to group similar jobs together to optimize production. "The Solarsoft software makes it easy for you to see the pool of jobs and link them together based on certain characteristics. For example, you may want to group together all the UV work or jobs that use a particular die for production," says Lorenz.

"We're pleased that Boutwell, Owens has chosen to partner with Solarsoft," says Andy Armitage, Senior Vice President of the Packaging Systems Division at Solarsoft. "We look forward to helping this progressive company attain its production optimization and customer service goals."

About Solarsoft Business Systems
Solarsoft provides modern enterprise software and IT services to manufacturers, distributors and wholesale businesses in North America, Europe and Asia. The company has grown organically and through acquisition since 1986 and has worldwide revenues of US$100 million. Solarsoft employs more than 400 professionals providing local support across 16 time zones. More than 2,000 companies rely on Solarsoft to bring clarity and efficiency to their daily operations.