Transactional communications remain a critical part of a company’s operations. The future of transactional print and mail continues to evolve as regulations become more complex. There are also changes in customer expectations, rising security risks, and the integration of more sophisticated technology.
The trends shaped the construction, design, and features of our newly opened facility. Future-proofing our industry required consideration of where we’ve been, are, and will be. Here’s what we’re watching and how we incorporated that into our building.
Efficiency Through Automation, Grounded in Lean Manufacturing
We’ve adopted Lean Manufacturing many years ago as the framework for production. It’s been an exceptional guide for our operations. It helped us standardize processes through standard works and continuously audit them. Additionally, it enabled us to reduce waste and gain efficiencies.
We also began introducing automation into our workflows and wanted to elevate that in the new facility. First, we can scale up and down as necessary, so we’re always ready to expand when needed. Lean helps us maintain this.
Second, we made automation a key aspect in the design process. However, being in the transactional communications space means there must be checks and balances to ensure compliance and security. Smart integration provided the structure, so we can take advantage of the newest technology without compromising security or quality.
Our new operations have increased the use of automation, but in a secure and practical manner.
Achieving True Redundancy
What happens when a transactional company has downtime? It’s a risk. From natural disasters to cyber attacks, the threat is real. We’ve always had this model in place, as we have two locations that mirror one another. In addition to our headquarters in Charlotte, we have another facility in Irving, Texas.
With the opening of the new building, we wanted to make redundancy even stronger. A big part of that is migrating to a secure and private cloud for data and applications. It connects to both places. We also added more security layers to ensure that we exceed the requirements of regulatory mandates and those of our customers.
More Data-Driven Insights
Another aspect of the future of transactional print and mail is data! We generate lots of data around operations and production. There are two parts to this.
First, there’s the data we have about our work, including volume, capacity, and the time it takes to run jobs. We use this in several ways. It helps us predict what we expect to have in production in the future. This enables us to staff smarter and understand when and if we need to move some work to the second facility/
Second, we provide a substantial amount of data to our customers in trakPCI, a secure, online portal. On the platform, companies can access reports on just about any metric. These insights allow organizations to better plan themselves in terms of expected volume and costs.
The new facility continues these capabilities and enhances them. With more data, everyone can work more efficiently and effectively.
Accuracy Remains Industry-Leading
We introduced intelligent insertion into the mail workflow long before it became mainstream. It works by scanning 2D barcodes on the bottom of each piece of paper. This tells the inserter which ones to fold into each envelope. Another camera captures an image to verify.
While we’ve been using it for some time, we expanded that further with additional BlueCrest Epic inserters. They are top of the line in this equipment category. Continuing to perfect intelligent insertion has earned us a 99.9999% accuracy rating. No other transactional communications provider is more precise than we are.
Ready to Step into the Future of Transactional Print and Mail?
Innovation sits at the heart of what we do. It’s allowed us to improve and optimize in many ways while maintaining compliance, quality, accuracy, and security. That’s our promise to our customers and the industry. Whether you’re producing in-house or using another vendor, you should think about how that’s serving you now and if it’s sustainable.
You can start by having a conversation with our team to learn more about where transactional print and mail is headed and how we’re navigating and strategizing.
