Located in Ottawa, Ontario, Gilmore Doculink is an operating unit of privately held Canadian-based R. E. Gilmore Investments Corporation. Gilmore Doculink enables organizations to communicate with target audiences more effectively. They are a leading provider of variable data printing solutions for a variety of market segments including insurance, financial services, retail, investment, information technology, energy, government, non-profit, telecom and other verticals that have a need to create and distribute highly personalized communications content.

Solimar Systems recently interviewed Chris Beech, Manager of Composition Services at Gilmore Doculink to discuss how implementing Solimar technology has enhanced their infrastructure and improved their workflow capabilities through output automation.

Gilmore Doculink performed a strategic internal analysis of their document creation and distribution processes. The purpose of the analysis was to investigate and uncover ways to potentially improve their Automated Document Factory (ADF) workflows. After a thorough examination of their document related business operations, Gilmore Doculink discovered several workflow challenges that they wanted to address. The technology and business problem areas that Gilmore Doculink faced included:

After researching potential solutions, Gilmore Doculink decided they would install the Solimar® Print Director™ Enterprise (SPDE) and Rubika® solutions from Solimar Systems to replace the existing out-dated products and in-house developed tools. The robust product capabilities and performance, modular-based architecture, and ease-of-use were some of the determining factors that led Gilmore Doculink to select the Solimar solution to meet their output management requirements.

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

Gilmore Doculink has found their Solimar solution to address their previous workflow challenges by providing new capabilities and efficiencies, including:

When installed together, SPDE and Rubika serve as a powerful output management solution. SPDE is a flexible print manager that transparently connects Gilmore Doculink host systems with production printers. The processing control, conversion routines, and job management capabilities of SPDE allow a very high degree of control over Gilmore Doculink’s printing environment. Rubika is a modular document re-engineering system that allows Gilmore Doculink to easily make changes to composed data prior to printing. The modules can be configured in many combinations to automate manual processes, enable postal savings, add value to documents, and modify print-ready data streams.

The new Solimar solution has expanded Gilmore Doculink’s capabilities to drive increased revenue through new customer acquisition. With the additional functionality made available through the Solimar solution, Gilmore Doculink has been able to rapidly add several new customers. Revenues have also increased from the existing customer base because the new solution has expanded the scope of what Gilmore Doculink can deliver.

“With Solimar, there are other jobs that are being implemented that will introduce production standards to our non-controlled workflow. That will allow for verification of mail-piece integrity that has not been possible in the past. There will be automation savings and value in that area,” said Beech. “Using Solimar, workflow throughput will also be increased, due to the production standardization.”

“All aspects of our Solimar customer support experience has been positive,” said Beech. “Walking away from Solimar’s hands-on training left us with the immediate ability to use the SPDE and Rubika products. Having Solimar technical support interactively working with us online is incredibly helpful. When we need assistance, the Solimar technical support team is always available for efficient troubleshooting to resolve any issues. Their technical support staff represents a real time saver and an excellent way to increase our productivity.”