Printing and Marketing Group Sees the Big Picture with Avanti Slingshot For nearly two decades, Printing and Marketing Group, Inc. (PMI), a family-owned business has specialized in print-on-demand and fulfi llment solutions. PMI’s head offi ce is located in Union City, CA, with a sales offi ce in San Diego. They employ a full time staff of 17, in addition to seasonal employees. Like most commercial print shops, PMI got its start in traditional offset and color work, with a focus on the real estate industry, a market they still service. Today, however, the majority of that work comes through their digital storefront. “We saw a shift in the industry to print-on-demand and realized it’s where we needed to be in order to grow our business,” states Armando Pena, COO and self-professed Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, of PMI. “We still maintain a small offset press, but got rid of the large offset to concentrate on digital.” This shift allows them to run campaigns with PURLs, as well as set up and manage storefronts for large, corporate clients. They also made a strategic move into fulfi llment. The challenge One of the biggest growth challenges facing PMI was the level of manual entry required to fulfi ll all the orders coming in, particularly through their digital storefront. “On a typical day, we could get 50 orders between three storefronts. We average 1,000 – 1,500 orders a month,” says Pena. PMI needed to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, the breaks in the workfl ow, including all of the manual keystrokes, copy/ paste functions, multiple spreadsheets, and other time-consuming methods, that were slowly eating away at the company’s productivity and bottom line. One of PMI’s key requirements was an open system that could communicate and integrate with their various W2P storefronts, including Page DNA, FOUR51 and PTI Marcom. Although they had a print MIS system in place, they had outgrown it and needed a solution that would not only meet their current needs, but help and support them through future growth. The solution Avanti Slingshot was selected because it had the most open architecture. Where historically other vendors would walk away, unable to meet the needs of PMI, or worse, offer a solution at a highly infl ated cost, Avanti was willing and open to do what was necessary for a successful integration. “I’m seeing things I didn’t even consider; things that make you go, ‘Oh yeah, this makes sense!’” The continued development of new features, and Avanti’s proactive approach, has further cemented PMIs decision in their purchase of Avanti Slingshot (Booth 1879). “We’re not a big company, but we sure were treated like one,” declares Pena. The impact Order Entry and Shipping has resulted in the biggest time savings for PMI–as much as eight hours/day just in order input, tracking, and managerial tasks. With the newfound hours, PMI will continue to develop its store front, fulfi ll more orders more quickly, and reduce overtime costs. With a new Print MIS in place, Armando and his team can focus on building business, rather than simply getting jobs out the door. “Everyone’s fi nally starting to see the big picture,” declares Pena. “Once you start working in estimating, you realize your true costs. We can look at history, particularly in outsourcing, and it’s all in one place. We no longer need to run around and fi nd information.” The learning curve, a concern at fi rst, was quickly overcome. “The beauty of Avanti Slingshot is that it’s browser-based Armando Pena, COO and self-professed Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, of PMI and hosted, so we’re not dependent on being on-site,” says Pena. You can access it from anywhere. You can do a quote from anywhere. This has been a tremendous benefi t to our customers and to us.” Discover Lake Image Systems’ Quality Inspection Solutions Stop by Booth 1169 in Deliver— The Mailing & Fulfillment Center and visit three-time MUST SEE ’EMS award winner Lake Image Systems to learn more about the company’s wide range of innovative solutions for variable-data verifi cation, integrity management, and print quality inspection. This year, Lake Image’s Discovery Roll Inspector won a MUST SEE ’EMS in the Color Management and Quality Control category. Making its debut at GRAPH EXPO 16, Discovery Roll Inspector is an all-in-one, cost-effective, and high-performance in-line print quality inspection system that automatically inspects 100% of the web, helping eliminate production costs resulting from printing errors. For a limited time, the Discovery Roll Inspector is being offered on a click-based pricing model which makes it affordable to all owners of digital web printers. Lake Image Systems is also showcasing its Discovery READ&PRINT, a fast and effi cient in-line inkjet printing solution for reading, document matching, and printing personalized messages. Discovery READ&PRINT asynchronously tracks all items to ensure that the proper piece is printed with the correct variable information, graphics, and addresses using the company’s latest thermal printhead technology. Offered as an integrated and cost-effective package, Discovery READ&PRINT comes with all the necessary hardware and software, as well as installation, training, and maintenance services. It’s the perfect solution to increase throughput, optimize postal rates spending, and enable higher open rates, resulting in superior campaign success. Last year, Lake Image Systems garnered a MUST SEE ’EMS for its Discovery MaxScan, which provides true 600-dpi inspection resolution for web and sheet widths up to 36" in full color. Discovery MaxScan is well-suited for digital print applications which require inspection of the full web width for controlling document integrity, front and back matching, color registration errors, and print-defect detection. Requiring signifi cantly less headroom than traditional camera-based inspection systems, this technology is ideal for integration within the transport system of a printer or press, without the need for costly additional rollers, redesigned web paths or complex optical assemblies typical with standard camera inspection technologies. New to the U.S. market is Lake Image Systems’ Discovery Enterprise, which provides a single point of control for managing integrity and print quality across all a facility’s printing and finishing devices. Enterprise enables production flexibility, increasing asset utilization, throughput, and operational performance. Lake Image Systems is also using its Plastic Card Verifi cation Solutions to combat fraud and minimize operational problems. Using a Pineberry card feeder, Discovery Multiscan verifi es that all variable data and barcodes are positioned correctly and are accurate, while Discovery PQExpress checks the face of the card for print defects such as ink spots, streaks, and voids. Plastic cards with embossed numbers and variable data are read and matched against a database. Lake Image Systems’ partner Mailroom Dynamics will also be demonstrating its new Elite MRD438 Feeder/Folder, which boasts processing speeds up to 50,000 sheets per hour, with enhanced reliability, production reporting, and remote diagnostics coupled with Lake Image’s Discovery Multiscan to provide complete page-level and set-level collation control and integrity verifi cation. 24 | September 27, 2016 | GRAPH EXPO 16 Offi cial Show Daily | PrintingNews.com
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