Press & Events

The Latest on ADF Implementations
Continued

Ensuring a Return on Investment
Return on Investment (ROI) is "user dependent," says Schumacher. "Some customers may start with one or more of Pitney Bowes hardware or software solutions. From there, we help customers define their requirements so we can deliver develop an ADF solution that meets their specific business needs."

"While ROI can be achieved in as little as a few months for a point solution, substantial ROI can be achieved with a renew and refresh of the complete document infrastructure," says Day. "Customers have implemented Sefas solutions themselves, with help from our professional services and as a complete turnkey system. The ROI can be seen in a less than a year in most cases. There have been reported ROI in much less when the ADF enhances the SLA and load balancing."

"The idea is to drive costs down, raise revenues, and remain relevant to your organization," adds Jones. "We drive costs down by taking steps out of the process. Those costs can include training costs or labor costs. We offer a toolbox of products and services that are integrated across our product portfolio. An example is Xerox DocuSP, which can export real time production data to your existing management system over the Web. It monitors inline finishing systems for quality assurance of the output and it also combines color and monochrome output into a single finished job.

"The average initial investment varies widely. The most difficult step is your first one. It often means replacing an existing analog printing device with a commonly architected digital one. A simple next step is to connect your DocuSP printer to your shop management system, for example. If you are already in the digital world, moving into new Web services or new applications like personalized printing is the next step. You can do this by using tools like Xerox's one-to-one communication solutions or DigiPath for Web viewing and job submission."

In some cases, there is no upfront cost. "Prospects have no upfront investment in the Active Data ASP business model and pay based on volume or usage. Therefore prospects will have specific needs that will have the Automated Document Facility begin work, which then grows using all the features and functionality within the solution suites," explains Cohen. "The ASP model is a pay as you go scenario, so the most upfront monies is for the application setup which on average is $10,000. Depending on the application, return can be as soon as 30 days, and usually 120 days."

The Bottom Line
"The industry now offers several commercial choices when looking at ADF solutions, but many remain closed, proprietary systems that are difficult to implement and scale. This is evidenced by growing number of internal operations that continue to build these systems internally due to functional or architectural gaps in commercial solutions," says Kemal Carr, principal analyst, Madison Advisors, Colleyville, TX, a company that tracks, analyzes, and evaluates various industry solutions. "The most successful implementations have leveraged multi-vendor offerings representing best-of-breed solutions with compatible technologies, rather than a single point solution."

<BACK 1 | 2 | 3 | 4