| IWCO Direct Case Study |
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Client Offering a wide range of services, IWCO Direct provides a total package solution that focuses on project management and customer services. “We do everything in house – commercial print, envelopes, personalization, bindery and lettershop functions, and mailing, logistics and transportation,” says Jim Leone, IWCO Direct’s vice president of value creation, business and product development. “But the real value we can deliver is in our ability to provide a very efficient postal stream for our customers. That’s our main differentiator.” Challenge IWCO Direct has been meeting the needs of direct mailers in North America for 35 years. In 2005, with the acquisition of direct marketing production services company, Fala Direct Marketing, Inc., IWCO Direct expanded its production capacity, products, services and geographic presence. To support its growth strategy, IWCO Direct wanted to expand its output operations and capabilities. “We were looking for reliable, high-quality equipment that complemented our existing equipment,” says Leone. Solution IWCO Direct considered solutions from a number of printing providers, including IBM. “One of the reasons we decided to explore an IBM solution was we felt IBM understood what our obstacles were and what we needed to do to maintain our market leadership,” says Leone. “Plus, we were intrigued by the high-speed and high-quality personalization capabilities that the IBM equipment could provide.” IWCO Direct worked closely with IBM to implement the IBM InfoPrint 4100 HD5/HD6 Advanced Function Printing System that included magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) capabilities for printing checks. “IBM did a tremendous job of being responsive, setting up and integrating the InfoPrint 4100 system in our existing environment and getting us back up and running with minimal downtime,” says Leone. Results IWCO Direct noticed improvements immediately after implementation. After working with IBM to configure the InfoPrint 4100 printer to work with the company’s existing heterogeneous output equipment, IWCO Direct reports that the solution was literally plug and play. “The productivity and speed of the printer were a big advantage,” says Marc Hacker, an operations manager IWCO Direct. “We were able to improve productivity by up to 12 percent and consistently output 10 million feet per month.” The flexibility of the IBM InfoPrint 4100 printer enabled IWCO Direct to automatically switch from 300-dots-per-inch (dpi) jobs to 600-dpi jobs, without changing toner, helping to further boost productivity. IWCO Direct was also pleased with the print quality on the IBM printer, noting that the printer’s MICR capability signal strength was consistent from first statement to the last. Additionally, IBM’s service support mirrored IWCO Direct’s existing environment. The IBM team worked closely with onsite technicians assigned to IWCO Direct’s existing equipment to integrate the InfoPrint 4100 system into the direct mailer’s output environment. “The speed, productivity, reliability and quality of the InfoPrint 4100 printer are top-notch and really complement our existing output equipment so we can better meet the needs of our clients,” says Leone. “And we are very satisfied with the level of service we get from IBM.” Visit www.infoprint.com for more information. |
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