The Reprint Challenge: Be a Budget Superhero with Automation and Tracking!
Part of running an operation is making sure you are reducing expenses where it is achievable and logical. What processes do you switch over to automation? How do you do it? When? Within your workflow, there are processes that are manual, which are hard to track and costly to your budget. The cost may not be completely transparent either, due to variable labor and the busy nature of a production floor.
Reprints are still, in many places, a manual task. With the fast-paced nature of today’s communications, the regulations, Service License Agreements (SLAs) in many industries, and the need for piece-level or individual communication tracking from creation to delivery for complete operations visibility—manual processes just don’t cut it. And they cost your operation more in labor, materials, and risk.
What can you achieve by implementing a modular and right-sized workflow software solution designed to solve these pain points?
Champion Output Solution, a provider of transactional document output, knew their Customer Communications Management (CCM) workflow limitations were causing them many pain points, including a high cost of labor and reprints.
“In certain areas of our operations, we had too many manual processes,” says Tim Dagostine, Division Manager at Champion Output Solutions. “We were forced to open each file before sending to the printer. We also were restricted because we could only accept and process certain types of data streams.”
In fact, the expense of these manual processes was estimated to cost Champion some $50,000 per year in labor, reprints, and mailing costs. Expenses that were eliminated when they implemented the Chemistry Platform from Solimar Systems (Booth 2458); including Solimar PrintDirector Enterprise, Rubika, and SOLindexer.
“We knew of Solimar’s excellent reputation, and how they have helped their clients improve production workflows. Once we saw Solimar’s solutions in action, we knew it was right for us.”
Press Group Printing & Digital Imaging Solutions, a commercial print and mailing service provider, is another example of the impact workflow software can have on cost savings.
The Press Group workflow included many manual steps, which was costing them hours of labor. When a file would come to their production environment, they would manually import and move the file. The process was costly in labor, and it had a ripple effect on their ability to be competitive in the marketplace.
After an evaluation, Press Group decided to implement workflow software in order to automate, optimize, and track their entire commercial print and delivery workflow. They settled on the Chemistry Platform, with a focus on Solimar PrintDirector Enterprise (SPDE). “The SPDE system was the best software solution for our situation,” says Steve Pond, Production Supervisor at Press Group. “The SPDE product feature set was very flexible due to the product’s modular architecture. We appreciated the modular design because we were only required to buy the component pieces that were needed today, but SPDE still allows us to expand in the future when our requirements evolve.”
And the impact to the reprint portion of the workflow shows the significant savings a company can achieve. For Press Group, they saw their reprint costs cut by $23,000 per year.
