Manish Kapoor, EDP

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Digital Printing Automation

• Manish Kapoor, EDP
• New England Business Service, Inc.
• mkapoor_at_nebs.com

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This Session

• About NEBS - its digital venture
• Why did we need system power?
• Search for the front-end and why Mecca won
• Automation using Mecca 2000
• Our experience with Mecca and Amgraf

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About NEBS

• Leading manufacturer and direct marketer of
  personalized products and services for small
  businesses
• Over 2.6 million active customers worldwide
• Over 586 million in sales
• 24,000 products
• 12,500 short-run orders per day

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Digital Printing at NEBS

• Print production using a balanced mix of digital
  and conventional technologies in satellite
  facilities
• Distribute and Print Model to save on shipping
  costs
• Longer Runs Printed Conventionally
• Short Runs Over 2 Million documents are printed
  digitally every 24 hours

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Distribute and Print
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Technical Requirements Team

• Task Technical Definition Team Members IT/IS,
  Engineering
• Understand the existing workflow
• Conceptualize the front-end design
• List preferred platforms and data streams
• List front-end requirements and define weight for
  each

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Front-End Research Team

• Evaluated Vendor Solutions
• Tested each in production environment
• Rated each against our criteria
• Criteria Rated Level of Importance
• CRITICAL (Products not fulfilling these are
  subject to elimination)
• HIGH (Very important)
• SOMEWHAT (Important, could be deciding factor if
  given 2 equal choices)

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Front-End Research Team

• Criteria Rated Level of Importance for NEBS
• Non-proprietary Critical
• Industry Standard package High
• Off the shelf Profile High
• Input Data stream Critical
• Output Data stream Critical
• High speed variable PostScript Critical
• Level of Automation Critical
• Throughput performance and stability Critical
• Flexibility and Scalability High

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Front-End Research Team

• Criteria Rated Level of Importance for NEBS
• Ease of maintenance and support High
• Platform preference Somewhat
• Ease of Template Creation High
• Simple Training requirements High

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Mecca 2000

• Amgrafs Mecca 2000 won over competitors like
  GMCs Print Net, XL Prints Paris, Atlas
  Printshop Mail, Banta Quark Xtensions . . ..
• The only criteria it failed was platform
  preferenceNEBS IS does not support FreeBSD.
  But Amgraf pledged full support.

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The Amgraf Experience

• A focussed team of highly skilled professionals
• They understand the forms business
• They delivered what they promised
• Outstanding support and future enhancements -
  Kudos, James !!