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Customer Profile: Direct Technologies, Inc.
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Summary
SwiftView helps this full service fulfillment company to
automatically manage incoming files, including converting the format and reporting each file's page counts.
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The Company
Direct Technologies, Inc (DTI), based in Suwanee, GA, is a leading full service direct
marketing production and fulfillment company. Services include Electronic Print and Mail (such as invoices, account
statements, collection letters, transactional correspondence, policy assembly, print on demand, and materials management);
Direct Mail and Fulfillment Services which includes campaign and program management, assembly and kitting, variable data
laser and inkjet imaging, OCR and bar code generation and printing, and postage expense management; Cards and Integrated
Card Products (card manufacturing, retail packaging, magnetic striping and encoding); and Database solutions incorporating
database development, file convergence, audience segmentation, list acquisition and management, and OCR scanning and data entry.
DTI delivers all kinds of information accurately and on-time.
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The Challenge
DTI receives data and information in various formats and is often asked to convert one file format to another.
"PCL conversion is infrequent," says Shelley Massey, Senior Programmer at DTI, "usually occuring in 'one time' projects.
However, a new project for an existing client required PCL conversion on a daily basis from various client locations. Not only was output quality
important, but the ability to determine the number of pages in each document was critical for processing and billing."
"After printing, the letter would be folded and inserted into an envelope. The envelope size and postage is based on the
number of pages in the envelope. In order to maximize folding, inserting, and postage rates, the number of pages per
document needed to be determined before it was printed. Also, since the client was being billed per page processed, page
counts were important to keep billing accurate. Finally, the process needed to be automated as much as possible."
"Since the requests were coming from various client locations all over the nation, it would be easier for DTI to find a
suitable tool for conversion than to change the client's current process. The desired conversion from PCL to Postscript
was the goal, since depending on printing schedule; Postscript could be printed on whichever printer was available.
That's why we began searching for conversion packages and downloaded trial software for testing."
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The Solution
"Once we had tried SwiftView, we saw many reasons why it stood out," says Massey:
- It is easy to use,
- It converts to many different outputs, so we can use it with other clients,
- It preserves graphics,
- It could be automated using the command line or programmatically,
- An output log showing needed information is produced after conversion,
- On-line manuals are easy to reference, and
- DTI got excellent customer support during the trial period."
Using the trial software, DTI was able to automate the conversion and extract the number of pages from the output log quickly
and easily.
"Currently, an Account Manager in our Client Services area handles the daily conversion," says Massey. "This allows the
Account Manager to stay in the loop on the daily processing, contact the client if files do not arrive or are missing, and
handle reporting and billing. A main program takes the files sent by the client and converts them to Postscript.
The number of pages is extracted from the log after conversion. The Postscript file is renamed to include the number of
pages in the file, so the files can be sorted and printed by the number of pages. The number of pages is also uploaded
into a table to produce daily, weekly, and monthly production and billing reports."
"The output is printed Postscript and is seen by the Customer in hard copy format. Obviously, in this business the
conversion had to be absolutely accurate; the quality of SwiftConvert's Postscript output is excellent! Some pages
incorporate a logo in the top corner and it converts just fine."
Due to the available online manuals, SwiftConvert trial software, and technical support, DTI was able to integrate SwiftView
within two days. Once the license was purchased, processing was shifted from the local PC to a dedicated server, but
no changes needed to be made from the testing to production process. Since DTI currently only has one dedicated printing
location, a single application server license was perfect. DTI has now also implemented the Directory Monitor portion
of the software for more automated PCL to Postscript conversion.
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Results
"DTI receives 4 to 400 PCL files a day, and each file is a separate customer contact," says Massey. "These are
processed and go to external customers. Our client is very impressed that we can take PCL from all these different
locations and process them with high quality, quick turnaround, and great reporting accuracy. The automation reduces
conversion time dramatically (since it automatically converts via a program) and the automatic extraction of the number of
pages per document allows quick flow through the warehouse (printing, folding, inserting, and mailing). It also
allows ease of production and billing reporting."
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