“All of this started with a business management software decision – named Avanti.”
– Scott Williams, VP, Operations, The Taylor Printing Group
Taylor Printing Group Inc. of Fredericton, New Brunswick is a leading East Coast commercial print shop and Canadian environmental printing leader. In 2007, it replaced all of its pre-press equipment at a cost of $200,000 and installed a chemical-free-process to further reduce its environmental impact. Today, 100% of its power comes from renewable wind energy. The company was FSC certified in the fall of 2007, making it the first commercial printer in New Brunswick to achieve this sought-after recognition.
In 2012, Taylor Printing bought a small, regional wide-format company. The shop's biggest transformation occurred when it installed Print MIS workflow technology from Avanti. To tackle every conceivable in-shop workflow challenge, the company purchased numerous Avanti software modules – but the biggest problems that needed to be solved revolved around waste reduction and cost control, as Taylor added wide-format services.
“The previous workflow software from our OEM was adequate, but it wasn’t integrated with our accounting system and other software,” said Scott Williams, Vice President of Operations, Taylor Printing Group Inc. “Also, workflow software wasn’t their strong point. We had trouble getting real costs out of the system when a job was completed. The whole procedure was just too cumbersome, time consuming and lacked 100% accuracy and verification. Also, it was nearly impossible to get technical support. We simply needed a complete system that could manage every aspect of our shop as we expanded.”
Swift waste reduction and cost centre creation
Williams personally examined each and every aspect of the company’s in-shop workflow in intricate detail for five long months. “We measured the amount of time it actually took to preflight client files, we looked at all requirements for make-readies on different types of presses, and we examined make-ready and spoilage on our folders as well as our stitchers,” he said. “We even looked at cutting times and how long it actually took to prepare and package various jobs for shipping. We examined virtually every aspect of our business management and production workflow and decided to go with Avanti. After only 6 weeks, we’re already seeing improvements such as reduced waste, more accurate pricing of our final printed products and reduced operator downtime. We’re now more efficient in just about every aspect of our shop – and the support from Avanti has been exceptional,” he adds.
By examining all of its various in-shop activities, Avanti and Williams were able to implement some ‘best practices’ that allowed the company to be leaner by reducing the amount of make-ready and spoilage it allowed for jobs at the estimating stage. “Cost centres” were created to further track waste and employee downtime and achieve more accurate costing of all final output. “The Avanti system allowed us to build activities for virtually everything that we did, from start to finish, in our plant,” said Williams. “In building these activities, it forced us to look at exactly how we did things and the amount of time that it took for each activity – while letting us examine whether or not we might be able to do things better. In the end, we definitely did.”
Measurable results
After just six weeks of implementation, results were also measurable. For example, there is already a 10% reduction in make-ready times. “Knowing our true costs has allowed us to make better decisions. Knowledge is, indeed, power – and Avanti has given us that power,” said Williams. “Avanti has streamlined our processes from estimate, to order entry, right through to invoicing. This alone saves us time, money and prevents possible errors. Through the implementation and build process, it caused us to look at every aspect of manufacturing. This knowledge is already giving us the information we need to make better-informed business and selling decisions. And all of this started with a simple business management software decision.”
Williams added that Avanti MIS has made an immediate impact in other areas too. “I know the Avanti platform is going to give us better control over our inventory. We can accomplish more with less and our employees are now more engaged than ever before because they are involved in the process. When that happens, everyone wins.”
Partnering and expertise
The other key factor, according to Williams, was the Avanti team that worked on the project. “The Avanti implementation specialist came onsite and worked directly with me on the ‘build’ portion of the MIS system. He had extensive printing experience – and the people who worked with me on the software side had advanced expertise in that area as well. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give the Avanti team a 10.5.”
Moving forward, Williams sees Taylor Printing partnering and growing with Avanti. “Because we have made so many changes recently, not only with Avanti but with new equipment and expansion, I would like to see us settle in for 9 to 12 months and then begin looking with Avanti’s mailing, fulfillment and web-to-print modules.”
