To automate... Or not to automate? You must first start with the three T's. (Continued)

By Ed Sweeney, Information Technology Manager

If you can reduce the three T’s, you will make your process more efficient. This is exactly what our IT staff did with our POD process. First, we eliminated all paper manifest for the POD portion. So, once the customer service representative processed orders that contain POD material, no paper manifests are generated and no delivery of manifests to the print department is needed. We used our internal development staff to create a software service to run that automatically watches for new POD orders to arrive, then pulls the appropriate print ready file from a repository, appends a job header and drops the file in the print queue. One added benefit that we took from an end user complaint is the job header seamlessly integrates with our Xerox iGen4 and other Xerox printers by containing all print spec information that gets pulled in by the printer, such as what tray to pull from, number of copies and finishing specs.


In addition to the above paper and process elimination, the print operator (end user) now has a 26” touch screen monitor to use that tracks all POD orders and where they are in the process at all times. The touch screen monitor also contains an interface for the print operators to use a new dynamic inventory on-the-fly filing system that is used to store print jobs as they are completed, which now eliminates manual sorting and searching. Once a print job is completed, another dynamic status screen is used in the picking area for the picking personnel to see what POD orders are complete and ready to be pulled, and what orders are still in process. This eliminates unnecessary steps and keeps the order process seamless.

This summarized version gives you an example of an automation project that when executed by involving the end user and eliminating the three T’s, most any system or business process can be improved. For all you IT staffers out there, be sure to listen and watch before you build.