Over the past 18 months, business agility and flexibility have become the best way to survive and even thrive in adverse market conditions
Long-standing Flex4 clients, Flexpress have experience and expertise when it comes to staying ahead of the curve to gain market advantage, even in the most challenging of circumstances. This Leicester based print business has grown successfully over recent years, operating as a friendly, efficient, and highly competitive trade supplier of print services.
For over 5 years, Flex4 and Flexpress have worked closely together to continually develop and improve the OPS implementation used by Flexpress. This has included multiple bespoke developments aimed at both increasing revenues and improving administrative processes.
A key enhancement has been the development of an integration between Flex4’s OPS and the Enfocus Switch platform. This third-party integration is available as a modular addition to OPS packages and offers a multitude of advantages for the printer.
In these days of tightly squeezed margins, it’s become ever more important to invest in workflow automation. Many find it impossible to profitably handle a significant volume of relatively low margin print jobs with a traditional labour-intensive approach. Steve Wenlock, Managing Director and Owner of Flexpress, advises “Online print is competitive, so efficiency in terms of being able to handle files quickly and cost-effectively is crucial.”
Workflow automation frees up time and staffing resource within businesses. Fewer and fewer clients are willing to pay more for print jobs completed manually, when they can order online at more competitive prices, due to the benefits offered by automation. Where several employees were once required to do mundane and repetitive tasks, automation reduces this type of work – allowing for a management of tasks by one person, rather than tasks needing to be handled by multiple people. With regards to the Flex4 OPS to Enfocus Switch integration, Steve highlights “the solution is scalable without the need for further cost. Handling an increased workload, no longer means a higher wage bill.”
A key element of this integration is that Enfocus Switch can take XML data from OPS and use this data to make pre-determined decisions. In effect, the integration allows the business to use machine led intelligence to replicate human decision points, again saving on unnecessary burdens on staffing resource and allowing for efficiency within the process.
An online order for a flyer or leaflet can be checked for common file issues, proofed, imposed, and routed to the correct destination without any involvement from a staff member. Print jobs can pass through various pre-press processes without the need for human intervention, effectively eliminating human error from the print process.
For more information on the benefits of workflow automation and the third-party integrations offered by Flex4’s Online Print Solution visit www.onlineprintsolution.co.uk.
