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. Many times, the questions are what processes do you switch over to automation, how do you do it and when? Communications that go out to your customers follow a workflow or defined set of steps that make up your print and electronic delivery process. Within your workflow there are undoubtedly processes that are manual, which are hard to track and ultimately costly to your cost center and yearly budget. The cost may not be completely transparent either due to variable labor and the busy nature of a production floor.

Reprints, printed customer communications that have to be reprinted often due to damage during the production process, 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 operations more in labor, materials and risk.

But what can you truly achieve by implementing a modular and right-sized workflow software solution designed to solve these pain points?

“In certain areas of our operations, we had too many manual processes that were holding us back,” said Tim Dagostine, Division Manager at Champion Output Solutions. “We were forced to open each file before sending to the printer, which slowed everything down. We also were somewhat 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; including Solimar PrintDirector Enterprise (SPDE), Rubika and SOLindexer.

When Press Group started looking for a solution, they were careful to define their goals. Those goals included:

• Lower labor costs by automating PDF file importing.
• Lower recurring print costs by enabling digital output to be archived and easily accessed when needed in the future.
• Lower spoilage and reprint costs by implementing an automated workflow.
• Remain price competitive by becoming as efficient as possible with low operational production costs.

The Press Group workflow included many manual steps, which was costing them hours upon 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 also had a ripple effect on their ability to be competitive in the marketplace.

After evaluation, Press Group decided to implement workflow software in order to automate, optimize and track their entire commercial print and delivery workflow. Settling on the Chemistry Platform with a focus on Solimar Print Director Enterprise (SPDE), Steve Pond, Production Supervisor at Press Group described the decision to select Solimar like this:

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.

Learn how your print and delivery workflow can benefit from modular, right-sized and reliable customer communications software from Solimar. Read our full Champion Output Solutions and Press Group case studies for all the details for how these companies turned their print operations around in their respective industries; and note the add-value it had on their overall business and customer experience.

Then drop a line to our experts here at Solimar with any questions, to schedule a demo or setup an appointment at one of our upcoming events.

Join us on Social Media! Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.