Background
This large internationally distributed organization provides comprehensive payment technology and services solutions to businesses of all sizes. They are about 50% through their migration to full color inkjet printing technologies, which they have deployed in their 2 large production centers. The services provider has been using Crawford Technologies print stream transform solutions for a number of years. They receive files from their customers in multiple formats, including AFP, Xerox Metacode, Xerox LCDS, PDF, PCL and PS, converting to AFP for printing and PDF for archiving.
The Challenge
The service provider recently had an opportunity to take on a large project that would involve the processing of over 800 million documents each year. The incoming files consisted of approximately 50 print product groups such as statements, tax documents, checks and other documents, distributed to the provider in close to 1,500 unique print file combinations. For example, statements might have 45 or more processing variations based upon the required production and handling attributes needed for this type of job. Although all of the specifications were embedded in the print file, typically on a banner page, this was not done consistently within different product groups or files.
The already composed print files required extensive reengineering, including applying new barcodes, swapping out images and replacing them with color images, and removing and adding banner pages. Not only was it essential that these requirements be supported, but the provider needed to implement an automated process that would be reliable and fast, with no margin for errors.
The process employed at the time by the service provider was to create an interface layer that was used to standardize the inbound print to a convention that would ft their production needs. This layer relied on internally developed APIs to extract data from the print fle and insert the modifed data into the AFP stream. It would normally take a programmer 20-40 hours per fle to create the interface layer and custom APIs. Given the scope and complexity of this new project, it was not practical or economical to continue with this approach.
Solution
CrawfordTech worked with this customer to evaluate their needs in relation to their current infrastructure and licensing, factoring in seasonal production peaks and redundancy as well as their expectations of growth. After a thorough analysis, the service provider opted to add Operations Express to expand their production throughput, and to add more functionality to their existing Crawford Technologies transforms solutions. Their licensing configuration allowed them to test and upgrade quickly with no impact to ongoing production, ensuring a seamless transition.
Results
With their updated solution set, they were able to take on this large project, using a highly efficient automated process with their CrawfordTech solution to successfully reengineer and process the incoming files.
The average configuration time was immediately cut in half – from 20 to 40 hours per input file down to 10 to 20 hours. With additional experience, they now spend only 5 to 10 hours per file, saving them time and increasing their throughput and their profits.
