Corporate social responsibility often dictates that customer service go paperless.
Let’s examine what’s entailed in a package printing environment, why it matters and the obvious benefits to be accrued—increased efficiencies, reduced costs, repurposed labor force, soft and remote proofing, increased capacity and enhanced speed to market. Collectively that makes for increased productivity.
In the mid 2000s, tying order entry and an MIS to a production workflow was basically the driving factor to launch Hybrid Software—before we extended our portfolio. We were a virtual ticketing solution that could integrate an MIS into a prepress system. In essence, we were the conduit.
At that time, more information was needed for prepress to execute tasks properly. We offered software to bridge the gap between what was in the MIS and what was in prepress to begin the automated process.
So, the methods to create paperless customer service representatives (CSRs) have existed for a while. With ample workflow, order entry, and MIS systems, the routes to achieve this are reasonably straightforward. We’ve seen them all, whether a direct database query (usually extensive Mark-up Language [XML] or Job Definition Format [JDF]), calls through existing application programming interfaces (APIs), or timed data pushes from MIS. If you’re not certain how to do this, your vendors surely are.
Ticketing Solution
So, the questions are: Why is there a need and what should you consider?
That leads to the foundation of what a ticketing solution is, or what is on a job jacket. That’s where many printers still find job information. They print a report from the database—their MIS system. That accompanies the job jacket down the line, to customer service, manufacturing and accounting.
All graphics courtesy of HYBRID Software
Unfortunately, a static folder is dangerous. As soon as you print that job jacket, the data is frozen. The data is up-to-date for when that ticket was printed, not up-to-date as each processing step is conducted. When the information is in a virtual environment it’s dynamic. You have the ability to make changes.
Deadlines for manufacturing keep getting faster and faster. Unless you’re part of the eam responsible for the job, or you have access to an interface, there could be trouble.
Paper’s Place?
We look at Amazon as running a very efficient organization. Do you think they’re printing out all their orders, then capturing the items? Of course not! Paper tasks and reports can slow manufacturing down. You have to wait for that paper to get from department A to B to C. But in a virtual environment, without physical paper moving from one department to another, you can do things much faster.
The information has to exist for that department to execute what has to be done. If all the data is in the MIS, you can manufacture with that. Through many of our label integration MIS systems, we execute many jobs without any additional information.
In many of the flexible and folding carton companies we’ve worked with, we have to add prepress information because it’s not all housed within the MIS. There are many different factors that come into play.
In fact, many prepress departments like to see what’s coming in first and then the process goes through customer service and manufacturing. There might be 20 colors in the job, and three or four are brand colors. Prepress needs to help define the different factors. Which ones can be converted within the CMYK (or extended) gamut? If you’ve got three pastel colors you’re likely not going to attain that gamut with anything other than ink.
Find the Job!
“Where’s the job bag?” Some people spend half their day searching for them because they aren’t where they belong in the process. Physically moving it is its own challenge. Having the ability to check off and route information and give visibility to where things actually are is of great benefit.
Let’s use the Amazon analogy, “Where’s my order”’ I can go online, look at my dashboard, and see where it is and what’s happening to it. At Amazon, you know which warehouse it’s in and where it’s shipping from. They’re not manufacturing anything, but they are putting the most items in the least amount of boxes. Their efficiencies are gained by reducing shipping costs rather than manufacturing costs.
If you go paperless, soft proofing with a PDF file can help track jobs. You can use a soft proofing tool to track what’s occurred throughout manufacturing. We can also use soft proofing for the internal routing of the actual job ticket throughout the shop. With labels and flexibles, there’s usually a reference to a product—something needed for color for example—a sample, or something similar.
What’s helpful is the item or job number—some reference to what you’re manufacturing to travel throughout the shop—and then look at the information. There are different ways to get there. The easiest way is to just create a digital reference—a picture of what the final product will look like. You can see a good representation of what you’re looking to achieve without the bother of finding a job bag.
Ahead of the Job
With job jackets, a job would not get to the next step until it had been approved by those before them. Softproofing can have checklists. Not only must these people approve a job, but they need to check off the items they are associated with. They could press buttons approving certain aspects—check the barcode, check that the inks are correct, and so on.
But, some people insist on a printed job ticket. Depending on the type of job that you order, whether it’s a wide web flexible or different plate type, they use that printed job ticket as a quality-control checklist. There still is a rationale for hard copy checklists.
Many times when inspecting a plate, someone has to go to the computer and check off the item. It can get a little annoying. It’s easier to just check something off when you’re looking at the plate on a light table. It’s always better to have the data somewhere, but you don’t want to slow things down. So having a possible quality report checklist in addition to a ticket provides some advantages because capturing it digitally might be a nuisance.
Who’s Printing?
Some companies have an added complexity. They have a number of plants, often internationally. An order will come into one facility, then be manufactured in a completely different location. Most often, they assign work based on capacity or on the least expensive transportation costs. They have different ways of load balancing across their plants.
They also have a completely different reason to go paperless. How do you print a job ticket and send it to a remote plant? Do you fax it or email it? There’s a good chance you could lose it. And, imagine if the graphics are housed elsewhere.
They will implement a virtual work ticket and will also supply the graphics and images from wherever the files might be.
In reality, the pandemic taught us that every customer is multi-site. If your employees work from home, you now have multiple sites from wherever they work. How can you offer more flexible, independent information from the actual printed ticket? How do you provide customer service and prepress from home, and a printed job ticket you’re depending on? What is the process?
That’s where we came up with, on the fly, using our remote proofing tool for the virtual job packet. It’s a quick and dirty way to get visual representation of what you would see before manufacturing. And because, in our case, the solutions don’t charge per client or per access to the data, it makes it easier to implement than possibly expanding your MIS system.
Working Simultaneously
Imagine customer service on the second floor, and prepress on the first floor. Before, somebody would have to deliver the job bag/folder from the second floor to first. Either someone from prepress walked upstairs, or a CSR strolled downstairs. Think about all the physical steps the job folder needed to take between departments. Lean manufacturing can streamline the process flow of data.
With an integrated paperless system that’s not dependent on the job ticket itself, work starts automatically. Now you can do things concurrently. Prepress could be working on a job that’s just been requested. They can act upon data that’s driven from the system, not from a physical bag itself. The ink department could already be mixing ink as long as it’s not dependent upon prepress. New cutting dies, if needed, could be made before the job is printed.
But it’s a study of workflow efficiencies within a shop. What’s happening with the flow of the job? What can you do to make it even more efficient? Each department’s needs are different. What’s prepress dependent upon that we can integrate, automate, or eliminate? That’s where integration plays a big part.
Getting Help
Unfortunately, one of the more discussed topics is that the printing and packaging workforce is aging. As people retire, they need to be replaced either with new people—or with new systems. It’s a hands-on business, but we can also replace some with systems that can take on more work. They never ask for a raise. They’re not on any insurance plans. They don’t even fill up the parking lot.
Integrated systems often reduce the number of people needed to touch a job, while increasing capacity. Systems can repurpose people where they are most needed.
In fact, I just had discussions recently with a trade shop that has a good portion of its workforce ready to retire. Should they replace and train them hoping that that they stay around, or do they look for technology to do those tasks?
These are good discussions to have. An integrated system with the ability to optimize print algorithms and talk with other systems will be more cost effective in the long run. Unfortunately, humans aren’t getting cheaper—or available. We suggest you use your staff for the more challenging tasks.
Do I think complete digital ticketing will ever happen? Perhaps. Let’s increase our efficiencies through integration first and see how to best improve it.
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