Compart System Integration news from the real world:
A noticeable number of Print Service Providers have chosen DocBridge Pilot- why?
Even we were surprised at the rapid adoption rate of DocBridge Pilot in Europe. Although Compart has a traditionally strong position in this vertical, the success is due to a couple of very practical reasons. This news from the real world explains what the common motive was.
The difficult starting position
The Service bureau and print service provider's business has changed significantly in recent years. Only a short time ago it was possible to require precisely how the datastreams were to be accepted. However, competitive pressure has turned this situation around completely: Clients now present their output to the provider with the implication that if they cannot manage it, then the competition will.
In order to best manage composed output, the main requirement is flexibility for both the input and processing of document datastreams and the support for all the other output delivery channels required by the market.
Customer documents are received in a variety of formats including PDF, PCL, PostScript, AFP, Xerox Metacode and LCDS, SAP's ALF and OTF, and also various Office document formats. In addition to the format, the size of the output files can also be an issue, with ranges from a single PDF file containing a single document to very large AFP files encompassing millions of pages. All have to be processed according to their individual requirements for extraction, splitting, sorting, stamping, modifying, converting, co-mingling and optimization.
Desperate Attempts at a Solution
Many providers attempted to get control by programming their way out of this situation. This programming based approach quickly leads to a dead end. As the required scripts grew in number and complexity, it quickly became apparent that the manpower, quality control and maintenance problems overshadowed economic viability.
Furthermore, a commonly used "unification strategy" for normalizing all input types often didn't make sense either. In this workflow, input documents are automatically converted to a single company standard like AFP for all further processing to be done in one common format. In the final stage of processing, those documents often must be converted back to their original format. A solution that avoided the redundant and time consuming steps was clearly preferred.
The Solution
It quickly becomes obvious why print service providers turned to DocBridge Pilot to resolve their formidable production issues.
DocBridge Pilot completely separates the document import function and the mail (or web) output function from one another: On the input side, all documents and output streams are first analyzed, and all relevant metadata is extracted. Information contained in the NOPs and TLEs from AFP datastreams, customer numbers, page information or barcode content is typically the source of the meatadata, which is then stored in a relational database. At this point, DocBridge Pilot assigns each document to a centralized document piece pool.
All further processing steps can be fully automated or manually initialized to run at a selected time by the user. For example, the user can enable the intelligent bundling of documents from different sources and formats into a single mail pieces as well as creating jobs based on any criteria and optimizing them for multi-channel dispatch.
When defining the outgoing mail piece requirements, a set of functions are configured for each job such as, white space management, sorting and conversion of documents into the required format, page enhancement with barcodes and the addition of logos, while also managing the finishing and insertion requirements. As this solution is not limited to production print, DocBridge Pilot's multi-channel capabilities can be utilized, so any job can serve all output channels including distributed delivery, e-mail, archiving and web portals.
Available for the most common platforms (Windows, Linux, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Unix, zLinux, zOS UNIX System Services) DocBridge Pilot offers a modular, structured toolbox where those required modules can be tailored for the specific customer solution.
With DocBridge Pilot, Compart has developed the solution architecture and functionality to meet the most stringent requirements of the print service provider. As it turned out, that was the simple explanation for the rapid adoption of DocBridge Pilot by service bureaus and PSPs.