Fine wedding invitations and stationery specialist William Arthur Fine Stationery, a US subsidiary of Hallmark Inc, has integrated Enfocus Switch automation technology to streamline operations and meet stringent deadlines in its production process. The company is based in Kennebunk, Maine.
The company wanted an automation process that would more efficiently handle PDF files, with fewer people touching each job. Given its sales message of superior quality and service, the solution had enhance the process while not impacting on quality.
The company ‘does not jump at big changes quickly,’ according to J Saunders, manager of amending and box goods manufacturing.
‘We were looking for a single-process solution; automation that could deliver improvements and leaner manufacturing, while integrating with the systems and workflows we’d already established,’ Mr Saunders said. ‘We looked at several big workflow products on the market to assess how we would streamline our operations both for the present and to take us into the future.’
The system chosen was Enfocus’ Switch. This is modular, open automation platform for printers, publishers, ad agencies and other companies. It allows users to accomplish repetitive tasks by receiving, sorting, and processing files automatically. This automation standardises processes, reduces errors, and frees up time and resources, which can give substantial savings in time and money.
‘We started investigating, testing and preparing samples and quickly became convinced that Switch was the ideal tool for us,’ said Mr Saunders. ‘And it’s done a great job, getting us to our goal of removing 80% of the manual steps from our workflow – and even beyond. We’ve reached 100% relatively quickly, without entailing an exorbitant financial investment.’
The metaphor of a ‘hand-drawn’ workflow in the Switch visual user interface has proved very helpful to the William Arthur production team. They can now easily ‘draw’ any workflow they need, and allow Switch to test it in rapid simulation phase, with no errors.
William Arthur has alredy seen a return on investment within a six months, and is now in stage three of Switch implementation, integrating everyday orders, and putting core templates in for the hundreds of orders the company processes daily. Switch allows the company’s typographers to automatically generate PDFs for multiple output devices, reducing the time it takes to process orders by 40%.
‘We’ve found that Switch is very scalable,’ Mr Saunders said. ‘It fits in perfectly with our phased approach. It lets us get in it, get it happening, see some dollar savings, and ultimately plug in any workflow we’re looking at. Enfocus Switch has exceeded our expectations. We’re very satisfied.’
Contact: www.enfocus.com and www.williamarthur.com
