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Latest on ADF Implementations
Finding Gold in a Lights Out Operation
May 2003 - Digital Publishing Solutions - Print-for-pay and corporate inplants are realizing that they can make hay
while the sun doesn't shine with an effective Automated Document Factory (ADF)
implementation. While staffers are sleeping, these shops are printing
thousands of documents: collating, folding and inserting them into
envelopes, and sending them to a shrink wrapping station before delivering
them to the post office to mail or, in some cases, to a computer server to
email to customers. Those who are still running multiple manned shifts and
still can't find profits may be falling into a trap that is all too common.
The question for these operations is this: Are you 100 percent confident
that you printed and mailed everything you were supposed to?
For an automated system to work, it requires more than filling up the
digital presses with eight hours worth of paper,” says Scott Bannor,
national sales manager, PrintSoft Americas, Inc., Barrington, Ill., which
provides document composition tools so that users can send personalized
messages via mail, email, fax, Internet, XML, and SMS.
What’s in a Name?
Although the Gartner Group, the leading provider of
technology and business research and advisory services, was first to coin
the term “Automated Document Factory,” vendors selling all or part of an ADF
have developed their own name for the process. Whatever its name, ADF
typically refers to a “large scale, integrated mail, messaging, and document
management process through a closed-loop messaging process that involves
both digital and document creation, production, distribution, receipt, and
updating of enterprise systems,” says Karl Schumacher, vice president of
global strategy, Pitney Bowes, Document Messaging Technology.
Xerox Corporation uses the term, Automated Production Workflow, which
encompasses everything having to do with the management of a print job from
acquisition through payment receipt. “Some vendors only focus on the
printing operation, but Xerox believes the focus on increased efficiency
must be applied in all aspects of the entity’s value chain. This is
accomplished by integrating key information such as page counts, processing
time, finishing processes, paper stocks, etc. across the enterprise,” says
Greg Jones, Xerox Corporation's Production Systems Group, vice president,
marketing of the Monochrome Solutions Business Unit, Stamford, Conn.
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Active Data Services, Inc., Durham, NC,
reports it has taken the Automated Document Factory one step further,
developing what it calls “the next generation Automated Document Facility.”
The company's Active Data Integrated Document Facility ingests any content,
stores all types of data and information in the Active Data Vault, and then
produces millions of personalized business communications that can be
distributed both in print or electronic for multiple clients simultaneously.
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At the heart of Xerox’s system is the DocuSP and DigiPath platforms
integrated with Xerox digital printers, such as DocuTech, DocuPrint,
DocuColor, and continuous feed products. These platforms provide commonality
across the 27 Xerox production engines.. Finishing partners such as Bourg
and Plockmatic and various hardware and software partners such as Creo, EFI,
Adobe, and Avanti complete the tools a user would implement to make up this
system, enabling Automated Production Workflow.
Active Data Services, Inc. in Durham, NC says it has taken the ADF one
step further, developing what it calls the next generation Automated
Document Facility.
“The Automated Document Factory prints millions of the same bill and or
statement in an assembly line,” says Jeff Cohen, vice president marketing,
business development and creative services, Active Data Services, Inc.
“Active Data's Integrated Document Facility produces more than 200 million
personalized print and electronic communications such as bills, invoices,
transactional documents, financial statements, trade confirms, policy
renewals, explanation of benefits, newsletters, enrollment kits, and direct
mail across multiple channels of distribution with reliability and
accuracy.” Pitney Bowes isn’t as picky about the name as other companies
and it does offer both the hardware and software users need to get started.
“Pitney Bowes is the only company to present a truly integrated solution,
which includes the hardware, software, and services to engineer the flow of
communications throughout the enterprise. Our solution offers business the
bottom-line results they are seeking,” says Schumacher, citing everything
from Pitney Bowes’ ability to decrease labor and optimize assets, increase
application flexibility, increase uptime, and of course, realize postal
discounts.
Other companies, like PrintSoft Americas, specialize in one aspect of an
overall ADF. In its case, PrintSoft provides document composition software
for the front end of the process.
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