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© January 12, 2009, WhatTheyThink.com. All rights reserved. Reprinted with Permission.

ViaTech: Managing the Print Supply Chain to Support Customers in a Recession

In a difficult economy, anything that a print service provider can do to help reduce costs resonates with the client or prospect. Today’s customers are seeking partners

that can help them link demand for printed materials as closely as possible to the actual need to eliminate print inventory, reduce costs, minimize business risk, and better meet end-user expectations for performance and quality. This is a time when the cost-conscious executive is looking for partner to outsource print management so his company can increase its focus on core competencies while simultaneously reducing the total cost of ownership of print products and processes. There is a renewed willingness to make the print service provider an integral part of the supply chain, but that partner needs to come prepared. The services and support that savvy print buyers expect include:

Providing supply chain planning to ensure availability of printed materials while minimizing or even •eliminating inventory on hand

Providing electronic interfaces with customer systems to minimize manual processes and maximize •availability of information

Managing the procurement of kitted materials (including binders, printed content, and ad specialties) as •well as their production, assembly, and shipment

Fulfilling orders by picking, packing, warehousing, and shipping products•

ViaTech: The Right Value Proposition at the Right Time

ViaTech Publishing Solutions serves the publishing community with technologically driven digital print and Web-enabled solutions. It provides more than 4,000 publishing customers with printed materials on demand. A key portion of the company’s value proposition is that it can provide global services for clients. ViaTech has 10 manufacturing locations in the U.S. and the U.K. and as well as partners in Europe, Asia, and San Francisco.

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By Barb Pellow

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ViaTech Publishing Solutions was incorporated in New York in 1961 and initially provided binders to its clients. The business evolved and its focus shifted from producing binders to producing the printed content contained in the binders. Today, ViaTech’s primary mission is changing the way that publishers provide content to customers or provide materials to classrooms. Customers rely on ViaTech for its expertise in offset printing, print on demand, CD/DVD duplication, media packaging, custom tabs, translation, e-commerce, and localization. ViaTech focuses on providing training materials for software firms, training companies, hospitality firms, and consulting organizations. Clients include SAP Education, Achieve Global, DuPont, and Hilton Hotels.

From a business perspective, ViaTech has gone back to the basics in delivering and communicating value to customers. When digital printing was introduced in 1990, the message was that companies could print what they needed, when they needed it, in the exact quantity required. Additionally, through the use of communications technology, materials could be distributed electronically and printed anywhere in the world. The basics haven’t changed—digital print is designed to eliminate the obsolescence and overruns associated with traditional offset printing.

Just-in-time manufacturing is at the core of what ViaTech delivers to clients. It produces what clients need, when they need it, and delivers the materials at the point of need. ViaTech places extreme emphasis on the simple concept that on demand is the most resource-efficient printing method ever conceived. According to Vice President of Marketing Dixon Rauch, “The message to clients in a difficult economy is a simple one. Traditional thinking states, let’s print a pallet load of materials just to get the price per unit down.

Then we won’t feel so bad when it becomes outdated and we throw it out. Large batch printing encourages waste; requires energy to warehouse, inventory, and track; and often falls victim to obsolescence. The irony is that for a company with ongoing print needs, on-demand printing is less expensive when you consider the total cost of getting printed materials into the hands of readers.”

ViaTech also tells clients that its distribute-and-print reduces the overall cost of doing business. Real-time distribute-and-print systems are in place. ViaTech’s Global Network takes clients outside of the focus on regional plant production. It prints simultaneously in multiple locations for the publishers served. ViaTech has branded this Destination Printing™. The firm has company-owned print facilities worldwide with 10 locations in the U.S., all working as a single unit, so the client creates and proofs his/

her documents locally, but materials are printed at or near their final destination. The benefit to the customer is that these materials arrive faster. ViaTech clients are trimming their print budgets by as much as 30% based on reduced shipping costs. ViaTech also has a strong “green message” for its Destination Printing™ services. The company’s distributed print network is environmentally-friendly because it produces a fraction of the carbon emissions associated with airfreight, tanker, or overland shipping. According to Rauch, “Destination Printing™ is economic as well as eco-smart.”

Chief Operating Officer Ron Simmons stated, “Global support is more than just distributing and printing. We provide translations into 7 different languages for our clients. We also do format localization on the fly. People forget that only the U.S. and Canada use 8 ½ x 11. We format jobs based on the destination for our clients.”

ViaTech has gone back to the basics in delivering and communicating

value to customers


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Underlying this distributed business model is ease of use with customer facing ViaTech-enabled, Web-based tools. These Web-based interfaces speed production and eliminate transactions for many publishers. According to Rauch, “Clients like Sony have seen production times reduced from four days to two hours for completely customized books. Our Web-based ordering systems are available 24/7 to customers.”

ViaTech’s online ordering tools are segmented into two offerings:

Find and Print• is a catalog of corporate documents and supplies for direct ordering by users. The user simply selects from the available items in the catalog and orders products for delivery at a specified shipping address.

Create and Print • is a Web-based document-building program where users upload PDF files and create new customized documents. These can be ordered and shipped from the client’s computer. Documents can also be reordered from the user’s personal library of saved documents.

Customer-facing Web-based interfaces are linked into Just-In-Time (JIT) production facilities. While JIT methods have been around for decades, COO Ron Simmons notes that “ViaTech has embraced, refined, and implemented Kanban techniques. Our online customer-facing Web tools are part of a pull system that determines the supply or production according to the actual demand of the customers. The system creates a bill of materials for the shop floor. It describes specific requirements for the document. When production is complete, printed materials are automatically forwarded to logistics. An address label with an appropriate bar code is generated; the shipping company is notified and the customers are told via e-mail when to expect delivery. Human intervention can be interjected as appropriate. We’ve taken JIT well beyond the production process and into all phases of our operation, including management and customer service.”

Simmons went on to say, “The customers we deal with also have specialty items that they want shipped with printed materials. Each of our facilities has about 20% of its space dedicated to ad specialties. Between our JIT print production and fulfillment capability, the promise we make to our customers is that within 12 months, we can convert them to an inventory-free environment. In a challenging economy, that’s a message that resonates. It means less people, no carrying cost, and no obsolescence.”

It’s Back to the Basics for Customers and Print Service Providers in Difficult Times!

ViaTech is proving to customers that the cost saving for outsourcing training documentation and promotional items is undeniable, at a time when the true objective is getting the company focused on its core business operations. For many large enterprises, printing operations are becoming a distraction. It’s not that internal print operations don’t add value, but the costs (in terms of time and energy and associated human and physical capital) are taking time away from exploring revenue-producing business opportunities.

ViaTech is capitalizing on the need for organizations to be more flexible and agile by responding with printing what customers need, when they need it, in the exact quantity required…anywhere in the world. In a difficult time, the organization is focusing on getting back to the basics and the fundamental value proposition associated with JIT digital printing.


1440 Fifth AvenueBay Shore, NY 11706

631-968-8500800-645-8558

FAX: 631-968-0830

European HeadquartersUnit J3 & J4,Kingston Business ParkKingston BagpuizeOxfordshire, OX13 5AFEnglandPhone: +44 186 582 2170FAX: +44 186 582 2175

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