From vision to reality, a fully connected workflow: Marsh Labels’ 15-year automation journey with CERM

A family business built on long-term thinking

Marsh Labels is a second-generation family business with more than 40 years of history. Under Gary Burnely’s leadership, the company has continually adapted to market changes, ultimately transitioning into a fully digital label produces supplying the trade. This long-term mindset has shaped every major decision at Marsh Labels — particularly when it comes to technology. Rather than reacting to short-term pressure, the company has focused on building scalable systems that support sustainable growth.

The challenges of going digital

The move into digital printing marked a turning point for Marsh Labels. While it opened new opportunities, it also introduced a significant increase in data complexity. Customer volumes, frequently changing artwork, quotes, and job tickets quickly outgrew the company’s existing tools.

At the time, the business was managed through a combination of spreadsheets, documents, and accounting software. This approach made it increasingly difficult to maintain control, visibility, and efficiency as order volumes increased.

Gary Burnley recognized early on that a purpose-built MIS would be essential — particularly one that truly understood the realities of digital production.

Choosing CERM as a foundation

When evaluating MIS solutions, Marsh Labels was drawn to CERM’s clear focus on digital printing and its forward-looking development strategy. Starting with a subscription-based model allowed the business to adopt MIS technology without taking unnecessary risks.

The initial implementation focused on the basics: centralizing data and creating structure. From there, functionality expanded gradually as the business grew and confidence in the system increased.

Today, CERM supports operations across the entire company — from warehouse and scheduling to shopfloor data collection, reporting, and Smart BI.

Building a connected and automated workflow

For Marsh Labels, MIS was only the starting point. The long-term vision was always to connect systems across the entire workflow, from prepress through to production and delivery.

Accurate, shared data plays a critical role in a high-speed digital print environment. By integrating CERM with key partners such a Hybrid Software, HP, and ABG Digicon, Marsh Labels has created a closed-loop workflow that delivers real-time visibility across the business.

Removing the studio bottleneck

One of the biggest operational challenges was the prepress studio. As digital volumes increased, the studio became a bottleneck, even as more staff were added.

Rather than continuing to scale headcount, Marsh Labels chose to focus on automation. The integration with Hybrid Software was introduced gradually, starting with simple tasks such as file structuring, renaming, and status updates.

Over time, automation expanded to include preflighting, soft proofing, and handling repeat jobs without manual studio intervention.

This phased approach helped build trust withing the studio team and ensured that quality remained uncompromised.

Tangible results across the business

The impact of automation has been both measurable and meaningful. Production turnaround times were reduced significantly, while at the same time giving teams more flexibility to manage workload peaks and maintain quality,

Crucially, automation was not about reducing staff but about giving people time to focus on higher-value tasks such as quality control and customer support.

Live data and smarter decisions

With integrations feeding back data into CERM across the workflow, Marsh Labels now benefits from full visibility of every job at every stage. This has transformed both internal coordination and customer service, replacing reactive updates with proactive communication.

Smart BI plays a key role in turning this data into insight. Dashboards and reports support faster, more confident decision-making — from day-to-day operations to long-term investment planning.

A journey that continues

Reflecting on 15 years with CERM, Gary Burnley emphasized that automation is not a one-off project but a continuous process,

By evolving steadily and aligning technology investments with a business growth, Marsh Labels has built a resilient, scalable operation that is well positioned for the future.