For over 130 years, the Kennickell Group has been a company of firsts. Located in Savannah, Georgia, the company was the first in the area to switch from letterpress printing using metal type to offset lithography. Decades later, the company became the first in the area to install a four-colour offset press, receive ISO 9000 certification, expand into wide format printing with the purchase of a UV digital flatbed printer, and extend services across a fulfilment network that spans the globe.
The same forward-thinking propelled the company to make investments amidst the uncertainty of 2020 to stay at the forefront of print technology. The Kennickell Group added a high-speed inkjet cut-sheet press and equipment for digital embellishment. These additions allowed their clients to differentiate their offerings through higher visual impact and faster turnaround times based on digital processes. Even with these technology improvements, one area remained challenging — the sorting required for inserting outbound jobs into the mailstream.
One part of the Kennickell Group’s diverse operations is direct mail. Direct mail requires precision timing for production since clients are targeting specific dates to coincide with their marketing activities or campaigns. Direct mail can also have peak periods based on the seasonality of the client, like before end-of-year holidays or during a political season. The technology investments meant Kennickell could easily print tens of thousands of oversized mailers, often using a combination of offset for the shells and digital printing for the side requiring variable content and addressing. However, the manual processes in place for sorting and mailing were taking up to three times longer than the printing. Until the sorting was completed, no other work could be printed, sorted, and mailed.
The existing processes were time-consuming, stressful for staff, and caused anxiety for the sales team. The company needed a solution to optimise sorting and mailing operations to ensure quick turnaround, expand capacity, and reinforce client satisfaction. They found the answer to their production challenges with Solimar Systems. Company President Al Kennickell reaffirmed the value by saying, “Solimar software made my 7-figure-plus investment in high-speed inkjet significantly more valuable. Our business is now far more efficient and competitive.”
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