See what the initial test sites for the Xerox® Versant Press found as they put it through its paces. Located in Tampa, Florida, Gunn Printing & Lithography, Inc became one of the fi rst installs. Gunn is known for catering to discriminating print customers and specializes in 4–6 color high-end, diffi cult and imaginative jobs. They purchased their fi rst digital press about four years ago. Vice President Mike Gunn talks about why they decided to invest in the new Xerox® Versant Press.

The Xerox®

Versant™ 2100 Press Industry leaders put it to the test

A Reluctant Adopter“We were familiar with digital proofi ng,” Mike explains. “But our high-end Heidelberg® presses were the core of our business. Over time though, we found ourselves sending customers to our competitors for short-run digital work that wasn’t cost effective to produce on offset. We jumped into digital production work to keep those competitors from grabbing our offset volume.

“While we bought our fi rst digital press to preserve market share, digital turned into a nice profi t center for us. It’s helped our bottom line way beyond our expectations. I estimate digital’s grown to be 25 to 30 percent, or maybe more, of our gross sales in under fi ve years.”

Redefi ning High-End QualityMike recognizes that his shop is in transition. “Gunn does boutique, high-end color. Up till recently, digital color wasn’t good enough. Our print buyers are very savvy people—tough about image quality. For instance, we do a lot of menus for national and regional restaurant franchises with very high corporate standards.

“The technology fi nally caught up. Our production digital volume is growing while the offset side of the business continues to shrink. With the Xerox® Versant Press, digital can mimic the matte quality of offset ink. And the color gamut goes way beyond offset. When I saw samples of Versant output, I thought ‘Wow! This is going to be a good match for our business.’”

Gearing Up for Profi tThe acquisition dovetails into Gunn’s business in a variety of ways. “We wanted a second digital press to add capacity and redundancy. I expect the higher speed of the Xerox® Versant Press to help us keep up with demand. The quality is appreciably enhanced.

“We want new business, but know we need margins that are high enough to make the work worthwhile. As I said earlier, we’re fi nding good margins with digital, in part due to the quicker turns compared to offset.”

Then there’s the labor component. “While we’ve seen some recovery from the Great Recession, we’re still dealing with an inconsistent workfl ow. Staffi ng is a juggling act; we use moonlighters and temps when we have to. Digital helps because the machines are more intuitive to operate and don’t require as much skill to produce quality output. With offset, you’ve got plate making and the experience level it takes to run an ink press. Plus you’re dealing with dirty technology, like ink, alcohol and press wash. And those chemicals can add up to chew away at your profi ts.

“In comparison, color digital is clean, with quicker turns and image quality. It makes it possible for us to produce short-run, high-end work at the margins we look for. A fi nal plus is that we’re adding XMPie® variable data capabilities to our workfl ow with the Xerox® Versant Press. That will give us the opportunity to do one-to-one printing and get our feet wet in the direct marketing side of things,” concludes Mike.

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“The Xerox solution is helping us drive forward our integrated logistics strategy, which is central to the success of our business.”

– Luca Maragnani, Head of Material Service DeliveryAgustaWestland

Fast document digitisation keeps AgustaWestland flyingWhether they’re military or commercial organisations, the customers of Anglo-Italian helicopter company AgustaWestland can’t afford to have their helicopters on the ground when they should be flying.

AgustaWestland’s Customer Support & Services organisation may have only hours to resolve an aircraft-on-the-ground (AOG) situation for a customer. It can’t afford to be held up by inefficient processes; that’s why its Material Services Delivery division, located in Lonate Pozzolo, Italy, decided it needed to tackle the vexed problem of document management.

The division manages the distribution of spare parts for AgustaWestland’s fleet of helicopters. Every component is subject to rigorous airworthiness checks, signified by official certifications. Together with other information such as test reports, log cards, invoices and transportation records, these form a set of documents that is essential to the proper management of every part. When a part needs to be shipped, it’s vital to be able to locate the relevant documents as quickly as possible.

This couldn’t happen while it was taking an average of 15 days for parts documentation to be sent in batches for scanning and indexing, sent back on CD and uploaded for online access. Now, thanks to a new Xerox solution, the digitisation and upload process takes less than a minute. The solution is fully aligned with AgustaWestland’s integrated logistics strategy and complies with aviation authority data requirements.

It includes security features that ensure that only authorised personnel can digitise documents.

From acquisition to archive: access to documents transformedXerox started by analysing the types and volumes of documents acquired and generated by the Material Services Delivery division. They looked at how, when and by whom documents were processed, distributed, read and archived; and how much it all cost. Using the Lean Six Sigma methodology, the Xerox team worked with AgustaWestland to re-engineer the document flow to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

The new process takes advantage of the programmable interface of Xerox multifunctional devices(MFDs), which Xerox has integrated with AgustaWestland’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and with the Xerox DocuShare document management system.

When the Material Services Delivery division receives a new part, it produces a bill of material (BoM) from its ERP system. The BoM, which has a unique identifying barcode, is immediately scanned together with all the part’s documents using a Xerox MFD. The MFD automatically uses the barcode to query the ERP system and retrieve a set of metadata for the part.

Each MFD has a display area that shows the user both the scanned documents and the retrieved metadata. The user checks the metadata and the readability of the

scanned documents. Once the user confirms that everything is ok, the documents and associated metadata are instantly uploaded to the DocuShare system. The paper documents are placed in a box and sent to an external storage site; the metadata includes a box identifier so that the original documents can always be located.

Results that matter on the ground

There’s no longer a danger that documents will hold up a response to an AOG. From scanning to document upload, it can take less than a minute to process an average of six pages. The quality of metadata extracted from the ERP system is better than it used to be using optical character recognition to extract metadata. As a result, it takes 80% less time for people to find the documents they need.

AgustaWestland intends to extend the Xerox solution to other areas of its business. To make this easier Xerox has defined a ‘base module’ for the solution, which gives a fixed price per year for a specific combination of MFDs, licenses and professional services required to implement the solution.

This gives AgustaWestland an efficient and secure centralised solution that can be rolled out in a distributed manner to different operational areas. It’s an ideal way for the company to support the integrated logistics strategy that is central to the success of its business.

About Xerox Services. Xerox Corporation is a world leader in business process, informationtechnology and document outsourcing services. Our unique combination of industry expertiseand global delivery capabilities helps you reduce costs, streamline operational processes andgrow revenue while clearing the way for you to focus on what you do best: your real business.http://www.consulting.xerox.com/case-studies/

“ Digital can mimic the matte quality of offset ink. ”

StaplesRick Lively manages the Staples Digital Copy Services Center in the Texas region. They serve a mix of retail Staples stores, contract commercial customers including professional teams, national food manufacturers and retailers, as well as fulfi ll Web orders from staples.com customers.

“I give the machine two particular thumbs up. One for the inline booklet fi nishing. Being able to fold, saddle stitch and face trim from 11 x 17, 11 x 14 and A4/letter-sized sheets saves us a ton of hand work. Second is for the quality of the color on the page. It’s got a nice, matte fi nish as opposed to the shininess you see with normal color copies. Much more like offset.

“Anybody who’s ever been a test site knows to expect a couple of bumps along the way. Still, three months in now, we’ve run a total of 1.29 million impressions. Originally, the Xerox engineers asked us to shoot for 150,000 pages per month. That tells you something about what the Xerox® Versant 2100 Press is capable of.”

Allegheny CountyWhen David Jesih became manager of Allegheny County Printing Services last year, he wanted to be proactive about new technology. He jumped on the opportunity to test the Xerox® Versant 2100 Press in his busy government print shop.

“We’ve been using the Xerox® Versant Press to produce color booklets, in particular, sensitive internal annual reports. We use all sorts of media —cover stock, glossy stock, laser paper—printing from three spreads up to 60 pages, square folded and edge cut. We’ve also had success with color posters, fl yers, business cards, post cards. We’ve produced about 20 different trifold brochures for the HR department.

“I think the media stock library is a strength of the Xerox® Versant Press. We can fi ne tune settings so that the printer adjusts to give us a more accurate print on a given stock. This contributes to the better print quality we see compared to our other color machine.”

Chris Irick is the Worldwide Product Marketing Manager for High Entry Production Color at Xerox Corporation.

Chris.Irick@xerox.com

Rick Lively

David Jesih