Headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, Apex Information Technologies is a dynamic technology-driven statement processing company. APEX provides innovative statement design, e-statement and e-payment tools, and complete print and mail services for the healthcare and financial services industries. APEX’s award winning software platforms include: a central operating system (Maestro®) that orchestrates all file processing, provides step-by-step file visibility, and a multitude of reporting metrics to achieve accuracy and meet customer Service Level Agreements. In addition, a configurable Web portal (myEasyView®) allows APEX customers the ability to monitor file processing, view and approve files and individual documents, access archived documents with advanced search capabilities, download address and document reports, take payment over the phone, and enroll end-users in e-statements. Using their proprietary technology and expertise, APEX continues to help their clients significantly reduce call center volumes by putting more power into the hands of the end users-letting them view, pay and archive bills online through their customizable end-user portal (mySecureBill®).

Over the last several years APEX has been named one of the fastest growing companies in America by Inc. magazine. The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal also recently presented APEX with a Fast 50 award as a result of its impressive growth. In addition, the Twin Cities Business Magazine recently named APEX as a “2011 Technology Innovator” and they also received a coveted 2011 Tekne Award from the Minnesota High Tech Association.

Solimar Systems interviewed Anthony Fenner, Manager Application Development at Apex Print Technologies to discuss how implementing Solimar technology has increased productivity, customer satisfaction and revenues.

The Challenge

APEX is a recognized leader in the print service provider industry because they continuously implement technology to improve the efficiency of their document processing operations. When it is determined that workflow areas are causing bottlenecks, they identify and analyze the “challenged” areas causing the inefficiencies. Once the challenges are identified they seek out the best solutions to improve and streamline the workflow. APEX identified several workflow challenged areas that were candidates for process improvements. Their document workflow analysis discovered the following:

Once the challenge areas were identified, APEX began the process to address them. They determined that if the workflow automation issues were addressed by streamlining them, the remaining challenge areas would also be diminished. “The lack of automation caused less than optimum results in several areas,” said Fenner. “We felt that if we implemented the right solution using the right automation technologies in the right areas that our workflow bottlenecks and challenges would be resolved.”

The Solution

APEX made the decision that they would implement the Solimar Print Director Enterprise (SPDE), iCONVERT and Rubika solutions from Solimar Systems. The robust product capabilities and performance, modular-based architecture, and ease-of-use were some of the determining factors that led APEX to select the Solimar solution. “Solimar’s reputation and industry experience made our solution implementation decision much easier,” stated Fenner. “Simply put, Solimar simply offered the best software solution for what we needed.”

Solimar’s client-server SPDE output management solution provides APEX with multi-level security, remote system administration/operation, email alerts, powerful job routing/tracking capabilities, and industry-leading data stream transforms. Solimar’s Rubika gives APEX a powerful re-engineering and optimization workflow solution that greatly enhances document distribution and management of transactional printing and web presentment.

SPDE is a flexible print manager that transparently connects APEX host systems with production printers. Rubika is a modular document re-engineering system that allows APEX to easily make changes to post-composition data prior to printing. The modules can be configured in many combinations to automate manual processes, enable postal savings, add value to documents, help automate inserter equipment and modify print-ready data streams. APEX uses Rubika to help ensure outgoing mail integrity by adding barcode symbology that is read by camera systems to leverage piece-level tracking. The barcode data is then used by APEX’s central processing system to record and apply unique serial numbers to each document/mail piece to make certain client projects are on time and that corresponding mail is delivered to correct recipients.

APEX also implemented the iCONVERT solution into their workflow which gave them the ability to transform AFP(IPDS) data streams into other print languages and route the resulting data to printers, archiving systems, and viewing stations as needed. The iCONVERT solution transforms AFP(IPDS) files to enable production printing on their PostScript printers. iCONVERT is also integrated with Rubika to dynamically re-engineer documents by removing unwanted OMR barcodes while adding other production barcodes plus envelope counters.

The Results

Once the Solimar solution was implemented, APEX began realizing immediate ROI benefits in several areas. They were able to reduce their recurring production labor costs by eliminating manual operations. “Our Solimar solution suite provided automation functionality to save us over $80,000 per year in labor expenses,” said Patrick Maurer, APEX President.

Using the Solimar solution, APEX was able to streamline various workflow areas allowing them to complete customer projects faster and increase their production efficiency. “We were able to reduce our customer project turnaround time by 75%,” said Fenner. “The increase in turnaround along with other automated improvements helped increase our production output by approximately 200%.”

In addition to reducing expenses, the new technology allowed APEX to pursue new business opportunities that they previously could not. “Our Solimar solution has given us more capabilities to broaden the scope of what we can offer to our customers,” said Fenner. “With our newly acquired capabilities, we are now in a position to attract new customers along with gaining new business from existing customers. Recently we were able to help a client solve a problem that we could not have solved prior to implementing the Solimar software. APEX was able to realize $50,000 because of it and there is future potential for a lot more.”

APEX also contracted with Solimar’s professional services organization to accelerate the solution implementation timeline and increase their productivity. “We engaged Solimar’s professional services group to get up and running in a shorter period of time,” said Fenner. “Because of it, our people were more familiar with best practices, we were able to become efficient with the solution sooner and APEX was able gain the productivity efficiencies more rapidly.”