By Erwin Busselot, Director, Business Innovation & Solutions, Ricoh Graphic Communications, Ricoh Europe
Public transport systems, like the underground, metro and trams, are remarkable for the ability to move large numbers of people throughout a city efficiently.
For instance, the subway system in Tokyo moves nearly seven million people into and around the city during business days.
It works for several reasons. There are established routes, connection points, and schedules. There are timetables and route maps that clearly show how to use the system. Even tourists can quickly grasp where to go and how to get there.
These same lessons can and should be applied to job onboarding in your print production workflow.
How do clients submit order requests along with their supporting artwork and data files? There is no single path, but there should be clear instructions and directions on how to make those submissions.
Clients may use a branded, online storefront to order products, but many still come through your sales channels, most likely using email. The key is to get the minimum amount of information to accurately quote and produce the job using the minimum effort required by the client and your staff. The side benefit is increased client and employee satisfaction.
The best place to start is by evaluating your current set of print applications and documenting the specifications required for each.
With criteria in hand, build processes and solutions to accurately and repeatedly capture the information needed for quoting and production.
Two commonly overlooked solutions for capturing and standardising client requests are your e-commerce (web to print) solution or the online customer portal of your Print MIS. These systems act like virtual sales machines, allowing your clients to submit their orders 24 hours a day. And also they are checklists for your account managers and sales staff to submit orders on the client’s behalf.
Your clients need an easy way to submit artwork artwork and files. And then your workflow and systems need to be efficient and automated. The client’s artwork and data files also need documented methods for submission. Using email, FTP, or online file transfers is inefficient since your staff must locate, download, and transfer the files into your print production workflow. A better option is to use software solutions that are secure and can insert the client’s files into the workflow for further processing and automation. Web to print solutions are designed for this type of job onboarding. Other workflow management solutions, like RICOH ProcessDirector™, can also monitor network locations to pick up files for routing and processing.
Does your workflow look like an underground or metro map? With multiple job entry points with the ability to automatically route work to the final destination via multiple processing stops, some common and some unique, based on the requirements of the application. So that your jobs always reach the right destination.
Streamlining and automating job onboarding decreases the costs associated with receiving client orders and the likelihood of introducing costly errors (and dissatisfied clients above all). It also increases the amount of time your account managers and sales staff have to focus on serving your clients – a key to building a workflow that is future proof.
Be sure to register for our multilingual live webinar on December 7 on the Input, Manage, and Prepare stages of production printing workflow, which is part of Ricoh’s Unravel Your Print Workflow series.
www.ricoheurope.com