It can be very difficult producing and monitoring large, ‘global’ accounts: clients with offices located nationwide — or even internationally.
Traditionally, in order to meet a large customer’s needs, a premedia organization would need to establish and maintain a premedia presence at each one of the customer’s locations.
This was the challenge that Vertis faced when pitching for a major account. The requirement to create four complete, self-reliant facilities, yet link them together – all within a realistic budget. The only apparent solution was to deploy a “hub & spoke” model, where both manufacturing and financial requirements could be met. And, as Vertis will tell you, working with their client would likely have been impossible without TWIST.
Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland USA and with 120 locations worldwide, Vertis is a premier provider of targeted advertising, media and marketing services whose capabilities include advertising inserts, direct marketing, direct mail, interactive/online marketing, one-to-one marketing, newspaper media planning and placement and advertising premedia. The company serves over 3,000 clients, including major manufacturers, retailers, newspapers and advertising agencies.
Vertis was called upon to service a large client who wanted to distribute, promote, and sell content globally. However, the client’s offices were spread out across the whole of the USA, with an HQ in New York City. It was a nationwide organization whose needs fluctuated greatly depending on the type of work, or the location of the office.
“We needed to produce standardized, finished goods in many appearances and forms. In addition to keeping a consistent appearance and timely delivery, we needed to balance it with profitability,” remembers Scott Tully, Vertis Digital Workflow Strategist. “We decided to deploy TWIST, establish a robust file naming convention and folder structure, and meet the challenge head-on.”
TWIST is a key component of Vertis’ Distributed Digital Manufacturing (DDM) system, a comprehensive production strategy where information management, data storage, data transfer, Internet connectivity and process control are fused into a self-reliant, automated manufacturing centre. The result is a “digital production hub”, where automated workflow solutions are based locally and distributed globally.
The ‘hub and spoke’ model was immediately put to the test. While an area in the client’s New York offices was being prepared to take a TWIST system, most of the work was sent to the Vertis facility in North Haven, Connecticut. Operators in North Haven had local access to TWIST via desktop publishing, and the start-up personnel in the New York office had remote access via the Internet thanks to DALIM SOFTWARE’s WEBLINK interface. Despite geographic and personnel differences, TWIST produced final files and made them instantly available to both locations.
Once the client’s New York offices were ready, it was just a case of installing the set-up from the TWIST server in North Haven. The changeover was seamless. With common TWIST platforms exchanging workflows, balancing the workload was achieved in just a few hours. The client’s materials were now manufactured by two separate groups—joined, yet independent—with indistinguishable results.
Work proceeded on implementing a similar system at the client’s offices on the West Coast of the USA, initially serviced by the Vertis office in Irvine, California. Shortly thereafter, an office opened in Miami Florida, and they too, became part of the model.
In the end, Vertis had more than twenty personnel, at five different locations, all working concurrently and seamlessly with a single, truly automated production workflow!
Since early 2004, the features and functionality of the master TWIST server have evolved from a simple ‘RIP, trap, and render’ solution to an intelligent collection of automated production efficiency.
“Our present solution consists of the main workflow master template and 97 sub-routine templates. All of the workflow templates contain checks and balances to prevent flawed input files from being processed. Each workflow template is programmed with ‘intelligence’, validating that the input is correct. Incoming files are classified by ‘fuzzy logic’ as being packaging or advertising jobs, and are then sub-classified and routed by component type,” notes Scott. “These features are utilized within TWIST, but are made possible by the comprehensive planning and organization of our entire Vertis team, who collaborated to create a file coding system.” This coding system is the real heart of the operation and the secret as to how Vertis can produce such varied output from just a handful of operators.
While the back-end system is elaborate, using TWIST to produce the work couldn’t be easier”, explains Scott. “The operator selects from project-based choices, determining the final file format to be produced (PDF/X-1a:2003 or TIFF-IT.P1), and the page delivery type (single page or imposed printer spreads). Other options include an intermediate-resolution PDF file to check composition; a flattened, CMYK TIFF of the input file for our DAM system; and a form-based collection of imposed pages, ready for a colour copier in a single PDF file which can be printed and folded into a paginated folding dummy. This minimizes operator error, and provides more time for the operator to employ his/her desktop publishing skills. The only thing the operator has to do is prepare a correctly-named and composed Quark XPress or Adobe InDesign document, and select a few workflow options”.
The TWIST servers have proven 100% reliable and have been operating at peak efficiency since their installation. The system has a perfect record. Not one press-ready file produced by TWIST has been rejected by a printer for not meeting ISO standards.
The TWIST-based manufacturing environment has matched or exceeded the previous total output of the customer’s Graphic Arts Production department, plus the eight vendors the customer had previously employed. In New York, Vertis’ on-site staff, roughly 60% the size of the customer’s previous staff, is producing 200-800% more projects daily. Along with the staff in North Haven, these two facilities have matched or exceeded all of the customer’s previous output, with an estimated 50% reduction in total labour, and a 75% reduction in workflow systems, file servers, proofing, and other equipment.
“Altogether, the master workflow, combined with the supporting workflow templates, can automatically deliver five different file formats, 150 impositions, 150 blueline PDFs, 87 unique packaging components, 28 unique advertising components, innumerable assets for the asset management system and 100% reliability—all at the click of an operator’s mouse,” summarizes Scott. “Certainly, it took our expertise to make this possible...
... but it couldn’t have happened without TWIST.”