Johnson & Quin, Inc. has been in business for over 130 years and has evolved into a market leading full-service direct mail production and integrated marketing services provider that helps clients stand out and generate greater business results. Johnson & Quin offers a wide array of direct mail production services by leveraging creative solutions and innovative document production technologies.

Using a broad range of capabilities, Johnson & Quin is an excellent resource for projects ranging from small, on-going direct mail programs and customer communication programs to large projects involving several million mail pieces. They particularly excel at complex projects such as personalized and variable data printing. Johnson & Quin’s direct mail areas of expertise include:

By offering all of these services in one location, Johnson & Quin’s vertically integrated facility assures a level of consistency, quality and efficiency. Their Chicago metro location is convenient to O’Hare International Airport, major interstate highways, and postal facilities, so mail projects move efficiently to all parts of the country ensuring timely delivery.

The Challenge

Johnson & Quin has always been successful in the direct mail and document production market by using the latest data and personalization technologies. However, they felt their current production workflow and technology solutions were not in place to achieve maximum efficiency or the lowest cost of ownership.

Johnson & Quin identified several business issues they wanted to address in order to increase productivity while lowering costs. The problem areas uncovered included:

The challenge for Johnson & Quin was to replace the IBM InfoPrint® Manager system with a new solution that had more functionality at a lower overall TCO. Solimar Systems interviewed Manish Haria, Chief Information Officer at Johnson & Quin to discuss their experience in selecting a replacement solution.

The Solution

After researching their best options, Johnson & Quin chose the Solimar® Print Director™ Enterprise (SPDE) solution to replace the IBM product. “We found the SPDE solution to contain the most well rounded features to implement workflow automation and eliminate manual operations,” stated Haria. “The other compelling component was the overall ownership value of the SPDE solution. Both the price along with the annual maintenance and support were very fair which makes it a wise long term investment for us.”

The industry standard Windows-based SPDE solution has allowed them to transform existing AFP files to IPDS data streams. The added data stream options have provided Johnson & Quin with more output flexibility and opportunity for growth. Automated job routing and a streamlined document reprint workflow have also helped Johnson & Quin become more productive.

The SPDE solution’s robust print stream transforms has enabled Johnson & Quin to determine when to use print devices based on job requirements and/or availability. This operational flexibilty allows them to transform AFP output from their composition system to IPDS documents in order to load balance and ensure maximum printing efficiency.

The SPDE solution has also allowed Johnson & Quin to accept and process very large files from their customers, which previously they were unable to do using their old system. The added functionality of the new solution has enabled Johnson & Quin to gain new customers and secure more jobs, which has ultimately increased their sales revenue.

The Results

The impact of the Solimar solution has been extremely positive and beneficial from both an expense and revenue perspective. SPDE has clearly proven to cut operational expenses at Johnson & Quin, while increasing revenue.

The robust workflow automation provided by SPDE has significantly reduced their output and production management expenses. “Solimar’s SPDE solution has slashed our output and production management expenses by a total of $160,000 per year,” said Haria. “The ROI for the SPDE implementation was very quick and easy to justify.”

SPDE added new functionality for Johnson & Quin to accept additional projects from their customers. The ability to process large files increased their sales revenue. “In the past we were forced to turn down revenue generating work due to the technology limitation of the old system,” added Haria. “With SPDE, that has all changed. SPDE has helped us expand our opportunities and increase our sales by $20,000 per year.”

“Solimar’s tech support team went ‘above and beyond’ when helping us,” said Dave Henkel, President, Johnson & Quin . “The technical support that we received was first rate. As a result, we are researching different ways that Solimar can fit into our new Enterprise Wide Print Management System.”