Jul 30, 2007
HVTO University: The Course For AFP
Learn How COPI's HVTO University Helps System Programmers, Applications Programmers and Print Operations Personnel “Take the Blinders Off” and Grasp How the AFP Architecture Can Have a Bigger Impact in Your Line of Business.
By Dave Webber, CCNA and Paul Kiel
AFP has been the de facto standard for high volume transaction output (HVTO) for years, and yet during those years there has been a general lack of formal AFP education. Typically, AFP skills are acquired informally either by skills transfer or by reading manuals. Both of these methods tend to result in a very limited view of what AFP can do, a kind of tunnel vision, where opportunities within the output environment of an account are missed simply because they are not explored. It’s gotten to the point where the death of formal AFP education isn’t what’s amazing, what’s amazing is that the AFP industry has functioned so well for so long without it. But, by investing in formal AFP training, provided by individuals with broad industry experience who can share both---the AFP knowledge and the broad experience---these opportunities can be acted upon with significant impacts to cash flows.
As stated, currently most AFP education is very informal and happens one of two ways. One way: Someone new to AFP is brought up to speed is by skills transfer. Either a vendor tech-support person sits with a newly dubbed “output guru” at the account, or at the account there’s a veteran employee who takes a rookie under his (or her) wing and shows them the how things are done.
The other common way to gain AFP skills is to “read the manual.” Unfortunately, all of these manuals, while informative, are hardly page turners. Because they tend to be dry, readers usually just glean what they need for the present from them and then move on to the next project.
Whichever route to AFP skills is taken, there remain two problems:
- These individuals, because of the way they were trained, typically have a very narrow understanding of the AFP architecture and it’s capabilities. They know what is done in their shop, and many times they know it very well, but have difficulty seeing beyond the current implementation. They tend to have tunnel vision since they lack broad exposure to the technology and, therefore, many opportunities for cost reduction or additional revenue never get explored.
- In every organization there is a degree of turnover. New employees almost never arrive with AFP skills or, if they do, they understand what was done at their last shop but not what is being done here. So the learning starts over for them with “read the manual” or skills transfer---this may take longer than your business can handle. Hopefully, your veteran AFP person wasn’t the one who left (and the only one who understood how all this was supposed to work). And, when your new employee is trained, you still have tunnel vision to contend with.
Now consider this: For a single AFP footprint, the hardware, software, maintenance, supplies and related output costs (i.e. mailroom equipment, postage, etc…) easily runs into millions of dollars, if not tens of millions of dollars. How much money is wasted at AFP accounts due to a lack of broad, in-depth, formal AFP education? With the dollar amounts involved in a typical print center, all you need is a small change here, a new opportunity recognized there, and suddenly the bottom line is impacted significantly. But without employees that can spot those small changes and new opportunities, the print shop continues on as it always has, blissfully unaware of the money being thrown out the window.
What kind of missed opportunities are out there? All too often we see accounts that:
- Purchase expensive (sometime 6 figures expensive) formatting software to create output that can be created with already installed and paid for products.
- Send print output to an outside service to be sprayed with postal barcodes for postal savings when bringing this function in house in an AFP shop usually has a rapid payback, sometime measured in just a few months.
- Buy a stand-alone system to create electronic forms in PostScript, not realizing that AFP has been doing electronic forms since the very beginning.
Purchase additional hardware and software to convert AFP to PDF so the output is viewable, completely unaware that AFP itself is viewable.
And the list goes on…
But now imagine a different scenario. An AFP print shop brings has a class taught on-site for anyone in its organization that deals with output. The class is taught by industry consultants, individuals with broad experience across hundreds of accounts. During the class, the full spectrum of AFP capabilities are presented by the consultants while the challenges facing the account are shared by the employees. Suddenly the blinders come off and opportunities for improvement get recognized. Mistakes, like the ones on the list above, are flagged for what they are.
One organization that has recognized the need for formal, broad, easily accessible AFP education is COPI. In its 30 year history, COPI has provided numerous training programs for the major vendors and users in the high volume transaction output (HVTO) industry. COPI’s HVTO University provides modular training programs led by senior level output technologists. HVTO University has helped systems programmers, applications programmers and print operations personnel “take the blinders off” and grasp how the AFP architecture can have a bigger impact in their line of business. The modules span the gamut from high-level overviews to in-depth labs, to workshops where real solutions are created to meet real life output criteria.
With annual dollar volumes in the typical AFP shop counted in the millions, the cost of missed opportunities due to lack of training looms large. And because of the tremendous ROI from AFP training, every corporate output center needs to consider not if AFP education is something that fits the budget, but how soon can training be scheduled. Investing in professional AFP training will have an immediate positive affect on a corporation’s return on investments in high-priced output technology.
COPI’s HVTO University is accepting enrollment for both onsite or offsite classroom training. To find out how Professional AFP Training can benefit your company, contact Kim Loth at kl@888999copi.com or call 888-999-COPI ext. kl.