Is Your Document Production at "Factory Scale"?

The good folks over at What They Think, the leading Website devoted to commercial printing, introduced me to a new concept this week, the “Automated Document Factory,” or ADF. Doc loves factories, and he loves automation.  So, of course, this concept piqued my interest. Automated Document Factory (ADF) solutions are designed to be vendor-neutral, closed-loop systems that can automate and control your entire print and mail operation (mostly, it seems, for transactional statements and the like).

With an ADF solution you can:

• Make the best use of every dollar you spend on mailings

• Prove that every envelope is mailed with accurate customer information

• Maximize throughput and asset utilization at one or more sites with centralized management

• Improve mailroom integrity

• Lower postage costs

• Achieve comprehensive output management

And according to research-giant IDC, the largest provider of Automated Document Factories is InfoPrint Solutions, so I sauntered over to the company’s Website and discovered quite a few interesting things. Chief among them is that the company has a free ROI calculator that helps you determine if ADF is right for you. Here’s a bit more information from the company:

InfoPrint Solutions recently unveiled its ADF ROI Calculator, a simple, intuitive tool that instantly highlights the significant cost savings companies can realize by integrating a comprehensive ADF workflow.  The calculator comprises an online questionnaire focused on analyzing the customers’ current environment, and provides results tailored to specific customers. The ROI calculator is the first step in a multi-level study that InfoPrint Solutions performs on each engagement. IT Managers and mailroom operators can visit the InfoPrint Solutions YouTube channel for a tutorial video on how to use this ADF ROI Calculator. First deployed in the US market, the calculator is being translated to Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

At the site, you can also sign up for a free Gartner study and find out a whole lot more about transactional printing and the Automated Document Factory concept. Just be sure when you install your ADF, you invite Doc for a factory tour, and I expect free samples at the end!