Print
Solutions January 2006
manufacturing
IN
BRIEF:Digital workflows and design
services allow manufacturers and
distributors to offer new products,
reduce waste and increase throughput.
The
Art Department: A Driving Engine
BY
HEIDI TOLLIVER-NIGRO
Traditionally,
forms manufacturers have considered
forms composition, file preparation,
and other preprinting tasks as
necessary evils. They were time-consuming
services required to gain what
they really wanted—the forms
printing. But manufacturers embracing
digital workflows, digital printing
technologies, highly trained graphic
artists, and efficient forms composition
software find that these services
are more than a stepping stone.
They’re the very engines
that drive their businesses.
“We
made a significant investment
in digital workflow,” says
Allen Simon, president of Datatel
Resources Corp., a high-volume
transactional and forms printer
in Pittsburgh. “Now we have
a lot of flexibility to make changes,
offer immediate PDF proofs and
digital hard copy proofs, and
maintain complete file integrity
throughout the process. This has
become an integral part of our
service proposition to our customers.”
The result: gaining the right
kind of business, which Simon
defines as “long-term contract
customers.” In other words:
dependable, repeat business.
Trebnick
Systems, Springboro, Ohio, made
a similar transition. “One
of the major changes we made in
the last two years is switching
to a process-driven company,”
says Gregg Trebnick, president
of Trebnick Systems, which specializes
in flexo labels for harsh environments.
“You can’t get a final
product perfect every time unless
the process is perfect, so we
digitized our workflow, hired
a professional artist to prepare
our files, and started making
our plates by laser from digital
artwork, so every plate is perfect.
That has literally changed our
operation.” The company
has grown 100 percent per year
for the past five years and at
same time has reduced its staff
from 20 employees to less than
15.
Process
Control Brings Benefits
The
shift in philosophy has become
important for manufacturers and
distributors. The goal is to bring
capabilities in house, control
the process, provide better service,
and keep the revenues they once
paid someone else. It’s
a win for the customer, and certainly,
a win for the distributor.
Doxpress
Inc., Harrisburg, Pa., is among
those embracing this philosophy.
Scott Silverstine, owner, recently
added forms design as part of
his full-service operation. He
now sees it as one of his best
decisions. “When a customer
wants a simple change…I
can turn around the job myself
within five or 10 minutes,”
Silverstine says. “Plus,
it dramatically reduces the potential
for human error. There’s
always depreciation in service
when I go outside.”
Datatel’s
Simon agrees: “When you’re
in complete control of your process,
you naturally have fewer mistakes,”
he says. “By doing everything
ourselves, the distributor and
end client become very familiar
with what we can do, eliminating
the need for them to go to outside
sources.”
Once
you handle more services in house,
customers perceive you differently.
“It’s a difference
between providing a service because
you have to vs. providing a service
because you’re confident
how well you can do it,”
Simon says. “We used to
outsource our forms composition,
but now we’re eager to say,
‘Bring it on! We’ll
do a better job than anyone.’”
Another
ancillary benefit is cost control.
“When I outsourced graphic
design, it was hard to control
the cost, particularly with respect
to revisions,” Silverstine
says. “Now I have everything
I need to provide a total graphics
and composition solution in house—PhotoShop,
Quark, FormsX, Illustrator, the
whole nine yards—and I know
what it will cost to do prepress
on all of my jobs. This helps
me avoid unnecessary expenses
upfront.”
Changing
Customer Mindset
The
benefits to adding these services
are substantial, but getting started
is challenging. The hardest part
is getting customers to pay for
services they used to get free.
Manufacturers and distributors
hesitate to disclose how much
they charge for prepress and forms
composition services, but it’s
often $50 to $75 per hour, and
they build these costs into the
project’s overall cost.
Sometimes, these costs are broken
out and charged separately.
The
need for in-house services became
apparent at QuickTab II Inc.,
a Tiffin, Ohio-based security
documents and checks manufacturer,
when the company started looking
closely at its real costs, from
paper and ink to the supplies
used by its graphics department.
“It’s all increasing,”
says Mike Daughenbaugh, vice president.
“To stay competitive, we
can’t build anything more
into our product cost. We have
to recoup that in comp.”
To
achieve that goal, QuickTab II
built trust-based relationships
with its customers. “We
were upfront with our customers
and told them about the changes
we were going through,”
says Daughenbaugh, whose company
offers design services to its
customers and increasingly handles
design work for its distributors
as well. As a result, QuickTab
II found that its client mix is
shifting. Customers who want inexpensive
printing only go elsewhere, but
they’re replaced by what
Daughenbaugh calls “partners.”
“As the distributor base
grows, and as customers demand
more security and color, it’s
feasible that our design and forms
composition business will contribute
12 to15 percent to the bottom
line,” he says.
Meeting
Changing Expectations
Digital
workflows and forms composition
services differentiate companies
from their competition, but this
is temporary. As in the commercial
printing industry, which began
the transition years ago, digital
workflows and digital artwork
services will become the norm.
Within a few years, these services
will no longer be a positive differentiator
as much as not having them will
be a negative one.
Already,
manufacturers increasingly wonder
how they can meet their customer
expectations without them. “It’s
not unusual to receive a digital
file by 11 a.m. and have a customer
expect to see a PDF by 4 p.m.,
and a hard copy, full-color digital
proof by FedEx the next morning,”
Simon says. “That’s
why we’ve spent more than
$200,000 to upgrade our capabilities.
We don’t go outside for
anything. Using an outside service
bureau would simply be cost- and
time-prohibitive.”
These
customer expectations have been
the norm in the commercial printing
industry for years, and customers
increasingly see very little distinction
between commercial printing and
forms. “If the customer
doesn’t differentiate between
two sides,” confirms Simon,
“neither can we.”
Diversifying
Into Commercial Print
As
customer expectations grow, the
transition to streamlined, fully
digital workflows and fully staffed
art departments allows manufacturers
to offer commercial print. Both
flexo and offset manufacturers
use their new capabilities to
make inroads into the commercial
print marketplace, and many look
to digital print, wondering if
it will fit into their business
models.
Trebnick
Systems is among those that have
jumped into digital printing.
It recently added a high-end digital
color copier to service a distributor
whose customer wanted a zero-inventory,
print-on-demand model. Trebnick
Systems uses two high-end color
copiers, a Hewlett Packard for
uncoated stocks and a Gestetner
for coated stocks, and it set
up a web site that allows the
customer to access inventory and
order copies on-demand. Trebnick
Systems now ships two to three
print-on-demand orders per day.
“The end user has eliminated
100 percent of its inventory and
obsolescence,” Trebnick
says. “It eliminated the
people it needed to handle the
ordering. It eliminated the handling
and shipping. And it eliminated
the space in the warehouse.”
Print-on-demand
is a growing area of Trebnick
Systems’ business, thanks
to its art department. Not only
has it grown its business, but
due to its digital workflow, it
has noticed its waste drop significantly.
On one job, waste was reduced
by 50,000 feet.
The
art department has become the
engine that drives some manufacturers’
and distributors’ businesses.
While digital workflows and design
services enable them to offer
new products and charge for what
were once offered free, there
are additional benefits that go
unseen: reduction in mistakes
and waste, the ability to increase
throughput, and changes in customer
perception that result in the
development of long-term partnerships.
Simon
notes that as customers become
more sophisticated, his company’s
digital workflow is often the
most important differentiator.
“Sometimes, end users are
more interested in the prepress
end and how we handle their files
than what presses we have on the
floor,” he says.
This
turnaround is a new business environment
for manufacturers, distributors
and their end users. “It
isn’t just a competitive
differentiator. It has become
the lifeblood of my business,”
Silverstine says.
Heidi
Tolliver-Nigro is an industry
analyst and writer specializing
in digital and variable data printing
technologies. She is the former
editor of Printing News, a consultant
and writer for TrendWatch Graphic
Arts. Email her at htollvr@aol.com.
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