Corporate Mailing Services, Inc. (CMS) began operations in 1996 as a presort bureau providing commingling services. Over the years, CMS has grown through internal expansion and the acquisition of several firms. Today, CMS is a full-service document and facilities management firm, providing a single source solution for all outgoing document communications and facilities management needs. CMS is dedicated to providing state-of-the-art services to efficiently and effectively produce, distribute and manage business documents.

CMS is a recognized leader in presort (1st class) and commingling (standard mail) services, data processing, laser document production (statement rendering and other time sensitive correspondence), direct mail production, as well as providing customized document and facilities management solutions. CMS’ objective has been to position the company as a world-class regional service organization with a focus on customer service. CMS provides clients with reduced costs, increased productivity, and improved internal and external communications.

Solimar Systems interviewed Tim Steward, Director of Information Technology at CMS to discuss how implementing Solimar technology has enhanced their infrastructure and improved their workflow capabilities through output automation.

As a long time user of the Solimar® Print Director™ Enterprise (SPDE) solution, CMS has enjoyed the value and benefits of the enterprise output management system for several years. SPDE has given CMS the any-to-any connectivity for their IT infrastructure. SPDE also has performed multiple conversion routines on print files to support the requirements of their respective printers. By providing combinations of inputs, outputs, and data stream conversions, the SPDE system has served as a powerful print manager that transparently connects and integrates CMS’ host systems with their production printers.

CMS discovered that if they could shift and re-adjust the print volumes among their print fleet they could save thousands of dollars per year in printer related costs. Moving print volume from one printer manufacturer to a different printer manufacturer is often problematic and challenging. Depending on the printer manufacturer and model, not all printers accept the same Page Description Languages (PDL) as the data stream output.

CMS wanted to migrate and re-direct Xerox VIPP™ print volume to continuous feed (CF) printers. Because the CF printers do not natively accept and print VIPP files, CMS needed to find a solution that would allow them to transform the VIPP files into a PDL file type that the CF printers can recognize and accept.

“We knew if we could re-direct print volume to our CF printers we could save a fair amount of money,” said Tim Steward, Director of Information Technology at CMS. “The technical challenge that we faced was that much of our print volume was VIPP output and the CF printers will only accept and print IPDS data streams.”

After searching for potential products that would allow VIPP files to be printed on their CF printers, CMS discovered that several products on the market were not up to date with the current release of the VIPP interpreter. Some products were as much as two versions behind the current VIPP release and did not fully support all the features that were presently available. However, CMS found the Solimar SOLscript™ solution to be both up to date with the latest VIPP version and it also supported the new functionality that CMS wanted.

“As a current customer of Solimar with our SPDE system and Solimar’s expertise with data streams, we looked to them for help,” said Steward. “The SOLscript product was a perfect fit for what we needed.”

The combination of SPDE and SOLscript provides CMS the ability to interface with virtually any CMS host system or printer. Moreover, the processing control, data stream conversion routines, and job management capabilities of the Solimar solution allow a very high degree of control over CMS’ printing environment.

“Using the SOLscript and the SPDE data stream transforms, all document data streams can easily be accepted, managed, and printed,” said Steward. “We found that the Solimar solution addresses our previous workflow challenges by providing new capabilities and efficiencies. Solimar’s modular-based product architecture also allowed us to only acquire what is needed based on our current business needs. When installed together, SOLscript and SPDE serve as a powerful output management solution.”

Delivering excellent customer service and support is extremely important to Solimar Systems. Solimar’s award-winning technical support team helped CMS set up the solution and provided guidance during the installation process.

“The Solimar technical support staff is always very helpful. Access to the support team is made easier because they are spread out across multiple time zones,” said Steward.

Using SOLscript in conjunction with SPDE gave CMS expanded output capabilities and greater flexibility. By adding SOLscript to the existing Solimar solution, CMS was able to natively send VIPP output to the continuous feed printers. By re-directing VIPP print jobs they were able to significantly reduce their annual print related costs.

With Solimar, we are now able to send print jobs to whatever printer we determine to be the best device for any given application,” said Steward. “The SOLscript product gave us the ability to migrate VIPP print volume to a more efficient print cost model. As a result, the SOLscript product saves us $21,000 per year.”