Analyze This: A Data Review Will Uncover Operational Patterns

My wife announced the other day that our family has a new “preferred” office supply store. We had been trying to patronize a particular chain, but in shopping on the Web she found significantly better pricing, free shipping and next-day delivery from another. As her logic in switching our loyalty demonstrates, the best IT system wins.

In so many cases, attributes that used to be critical to decision making are being challenged, or changed, through the application of technology.

In printing, the Internet has diminished the importance of location. Competitive pressures have forced printers to add services to expand their role beyond print. It is increasingly difficult to determine where to best focus and to define exactly what competencies are critical to build for future success. Choices on strategic direction are abundant while resources are stretched ever so thin. Margins can't tolerate a strategic misstep or time spent heading in the wrong direction.

In years past, equipment replacement decisions were simpler. The pace of change was slower and the degree of uncertainty around the business was less. Nowadays, decisions around how to equip your facility and when to upgrade are more complex, given the myriad of choices available and the speed at which technology moves.

Some firms are finding help from an existing partner—an old name taking on some new directions and offering new analytical tools: Heidelberg.

To aid printers' decision-making process, Heidelberg has created a business development program. For a fee, it will analyze your work mix and present results in the form of a “Machine Room Audit.”

Already, several dozen U.S. printers have used this auditing service, providing data from their job costing or estimating systems via a confidential, Heidelberg-supplied spreadsheet. The data is analyzed and recommendations are sent back to the shop floor for consideration, from operating efficiencies that should be gained on existing equipment, to ROI justifications for equipment replacement.

The scope of recommendations is comprehensive and can include a range of ideas, from better color management with improved interfacing between prepress, press and postpress, to where training might benefit a firm. Details on varying levels of customer profit contributions, or job typification, are included.

Benchmarking data from industry associations as well as from the press builder's extensive installed base is used to tabulate results for presentation back to customers. While Heidelberg's focus to date has been in the pressroom, it plans on continuing to roll out this service to all areas of print production.