February 26, 2008, North Andover, MA, USA – After a rigorous period of testing and implementation, the journal Nature went live with Web-based production tracking on February 11, 2008 using Preprint Manager from Aries Systems Corporation.

Although other journals published by Nature Publishing Group (NPG) had been using the system since 2007, the staff of Nature had additional requirements that were not originally part of the software’s functionality. Aries Systems and Nature Publishing Group entered into a trans-Atlantic cooperative development effort that resulted in the successful release of many new features. Innovative aspects of the system implementation include the seamless import of accepted manuscripts from Nature’s peer review system and cross-journal reporting using a mirror server. In addition, the highly configurable architecture of Preprint Manager enables Nature to respond immediately to changing workflow needs.

Nature, the flagship journal of Nature Publishing Group, is published weekly, making precision and efficiency vital concerns throughout the production workflow. The implementation of Preprint Manager has allowed the production staff to improve the efficiency of their operations without compromising the quality of one of the world’s leading scientific journals. It also allows for unprecedented participation by authors in the post-acceptance workflow.

“Improved production tracking for Nature has been an important objective for NPG, and we are delighted that the system has been successfully deployed,” says James McQuat, Editorial Production Director of Nature Publishing Group. Aries Systems’ President, Lyndon Holmes adds, “The team at Nature provided invaluable feedback during the development phase and the system is richer and more functional as a result of this interaction.”

About Aries
Aries Systems transforms the way scholarly publishers bring high-value content to the world. The company’s innovative and forward-looking workflow solutions manage the complexities of modern print and electronic publishing – from submission, to editorial management and peer review, to production tracking and publishing channel distribution. As the publishing environment evolves, Aries Systems is committed to delivering solutions that help publishers and scholars enhance the discovery and dissemination of human knowledge. Publish faster, publish smarter, with Aries Systems.