You decided it is time to retire the legacy toner based printers and migrate to Inkjet so you can gain the advantages of color, speed and of course productivity, not to mention increase profit!

I had the pleasure of attending nGage's Inkjet Summit the past two years. The one thing I heard over and over again was the need to prepare for the big day. Workflow is the key to enhancing and improving the profits you expect to gain with your new purchase.

While the term "workflow" can be used in place of "Automated Document Factory", they are not necessarily interchangeable. In the case of Inkjet there are many workflow solutions you should implement prior to the first image coming off your new press. Some impact your ADF, others are simply enhancements like adding color using GUI tools to quickly implement changes without IT involvement.

You should step back and take a look at the types and sizes of jobs you want to migrate. First off, are they composed in the correct print format? If not, going back and changing legacy applications can be costly and time consuming.

Are the jobs you have segmented to optimize both print and post processing equipment? If not, lost productivity will cut into your profits

Have you identified which pre-printed stationary you can eliminate now that you can print the shells? Again, two choices exist, going back to the legacy application or enhancing the document post composition.

A large Print Services Provider was in the market for a new press, and decided to take a step back and identify the workflow components necessary to improve the ramp-up time once the press was installed.

Here is what they identified:

• Combine small jobs to make large jobs to ensure that the presses would run profitably

• Segment large jobs for optimization of rolls, inserters and mailing processes

• Automate file processing to ensure that the new presses will run optimally

• Adjust inserter barcodes and inserter control files to handle the larger print files

• Tweak some applications' name and address positioning to fit standardized envelope

• Deploy a GUI based job setup tool

• Add IMB codes to some of their print files for postal optimization

• Replace pre-printed shells with online color forms

• Change some fields to color to provide their clients with improved customer communications

• Automate file processing to ensure that the new presses will run optimally

• Implement step-by-step SLA and job tracking improvements to improve their operations management and control

Once they identified the challenges, they made the decision on how to address them and implemented a solution that saved them hundreds of thousands of dollars. The program was such a success that they are now looking into expanding their use of inkjet with the purchase of another press.

About David Day, EDP

David Day, EDP brings over 32 years of experience in the document management & mail industry. As an active member of Xplor for over 17 years, David frequently presents at local and global Xplor meetings. He has also been a guest speaker at various company user and industry groups including National Postal Forum, Graph Expo and Mailcom. David, Product Marketing Manager at CrawfordTech, is responsible for worldwide for their Enterprise Output Management Products. He works with customers, prospects, sales and product development to identify customer requirements, evaluate solutions and make product recommendations