Improving Operations with a Seamless Workflow

This is a guest article from Ricoh, a valued BCC Software partner.

Discover how Ricoh drastically improved one company’s operations by creating a seamless workflow and focusing on efficiency. 

The Background

An auto insurance company was printing and mailing approximately 500K company correspondences, like renewals, letters, notices, etc., each month to policy holders. Their host applications generated Metcode/LCDS print files that were printed on multiple forms using Xerox DP180s, and output was printed in one room, stacked on carts, and then moved to a separate mail room where it was inserted on OMR-driven B+H Mailstar inserters and dispatched via a presort vendor. However, this process did pose some issues for the company in terms of workflow and efficiency of operations. Some of these specific roadblocks included:

• Printing on the six DP180s took more than two shifts per day, increasing labor hours and causing jobs to not be completed in time to meet SLAs
• Physical move of loose stacks led to packages being lost and/or integrity being compromised
• Some jobs got lost/misplaced and never mailed, and test jobs were sometimes mailed
• No centralized tracking and reporting of jobs and mail pieces was available, meaning no visibility to status of work in the system. This caused SLAs to be missed and required manual inputs to requeue reprints
• Managing the inventory and handling of preprinted forms was expensive and error prone
• Experiencing a high-rate of returned mail as no address hygiene processing was being done

The Solution

Ricoh’s ProcessDirector was installed as an end-to-end Automated Document Factory solution. Ricoh Continuous Forms printers replaced the DP180s, and file-based, dual-feed Kern inserters replaced the B+H Mailstars.

What difference did this make for the company?

• Print files were converted to AFP and indexed, and addresses were run through CASS™ and NCOA^Link® processing for data quality
• Preprinted forms were eliminated using electronic forms/overlays, and mail piece sheets were split into perf and non-perf pages that were printed on separate CF printers
• File-based insertion was implemented with the Kern inserter controller (2D barcodes and exchanged KIC and results files) where the perf and non-perf CFs were merged into the mail packages for mailing
• Test jobs were identified for which the recipient addresses are masked/obscured via an applied overlay and a special TEST banner page was added to the jobs, which eliminated test jobs being sent out accidentally

Powerful Results

The solutions that Ricoh offered greatly improved the operations of the auto insurance company by increasing efficiency, enhancing the current workflow, and revamping processes.

• The entire operation was able to transition to one shift, meaning that SLAs were easily met
• There was now a single point of control with end-to-end job visibility and single point of print queue management:
  • Improved job and piece-level tracking and reporting for SLAs and operational metrics
  • Print opportunities management reports were now clear and simplified
• CASS & NCOA^Link reports informed LOBs of address quality and move updates
• Continuous Forms printing enabled a seamless hand-off to the mailing operations for the insert and dispatch of every job
  • Job and mail piece integrity preserved
  • Elimination of preprinted forms
  • Job mailings not missed due to misplaced stacks
• Automated generation and management of reprints are controlled within the shop floor operation
• Test jobs are easily identified, tracked, and kept from being mailed

At the end of this process, the Director of Operations at the auto insurance company stated, “Your [Ricoh’s] solution and team made me a hero.” To learn more about how Ricoh can improve the operations at your company, visit www.ricoh.com.