step 1
Walk Your Workflow
Understanding the people, processes and technologies currently used in your digital printing operation is essential.
If put into practice for how the customer submits order specifications to your digital printing workflow, your answers could look like this.
Start by selecting a few of the print applications you produce
Question What is needed? Why is this needed? When or in what order is it needed? How is it captured?
the most, whether those are direct mail, brochures, business cards
Where is the information put?
or wide-format signage.
Who provides the information?
Now walk the workflow from the point where the customer
How much in time and labor costs?
makes the request to the point where the product is finished and ready for delivery. Pay extra attention to the interaction and tasks required between the customer’s initial request until it becomes a job ticket.
and thinking of time and cost savings on an annual basis provides a clear path to the actions required to improve the workflow.
This onboarding is frequently loaded with physical touchpoints
If you produced 10 of the jobs in the example per day (2,600
and process loops. There is often a discrepancy between the ac-
per year), the $150 in labor savings per job to implement on-
tual processes and tasks performed versus what supervisors and
line ordering could save $390,000 annually. Those time savings
management think is happening.
would also allow your sales team more time to focus on selling
It is crucial to observe and document the workflow and avoid
higher-value solutions, your CSR more time to engage customers,
influencing the standard behavior and processes performed. Be
and your estimator more time to focus on estimating higher-value
sure to note workflow loops, private spreadsheets and the wide-
work.
spread use of email, chat or sticky notes outside workflow tools. At each point, ask: what, why, when, how, where, who and additionally, how much. These questions work well to understand
Based on past assessments, it is common to find several hidden yet costly touch points throughout the workflow. Over time, employees can create processes using generic tools like spreadsheets to help them accomplish their tasks, instead
and evaluate any process. What did you find after walking the workflow for your most
of fully using the workflow tools available.
commonly printed products? Focus on the answers found to the
Identify hidden processes and spreadsheets and fix them in
“How Much” question. Any process incurring outsized time or
steps two and three when building your workflow stack and opti-
costs should be improved, eliminated or automated. Calculating
mizing job onboarding.
step 3
Optimize Job Onboarding Through Printing
The most efficient job onboarding is when the customer can
repeatable print products with zero touches from the initial request
enter the job specifications, validate them, receive pricing and
through ticketing. Once the ticket is created, let your print MIS do
approve the order on their own. Online ordering through a W2P
the heavy lifting.
solution is an excellent example of how customers can self-service
Purchase orders should be automatically generated if mate-
standard products, but it is not the only way to streamline ordering.
rials are below set inventory thresholds or if more is required for
Larger companies may integrate their entire purchasing soft-
the work-in-progress jobs. Let the system figure out the optimal
ware suite to send orders directly to your print MIS through an
schedule for production with rules set to minimize changeover in
electronic data interchange (EDI) or application programming
printing and finishing.
interface (API) integration.
Digital orders are commonly printed and finished quickly
Regardless of how it is done, the goal is to onboard standard,
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WhatTheyThink
Issue One 2023
enough that a first-in, first-out approach can also work in many