Sometimes a simple request from a customer can lead to major new opportunities. In April 2006, Litho Craft, a Seattle-based color sheetfed printer, decided to satisfy one customer’s request for a web-based print-on-demand service. The print provider implemented Press-sense iWay, a customer-driven print-on-demand workflow and management system, and an HP Indigo 5000 digital press. The dramatic result was the gained the ability to compete for short-run high-quality color jobs, and a workflow solution that boosted revenues nearly 15%.

“It opened up another revenue stream that we didn’t have before,” enthuses Kurt Bischoff, Technical Director, Digital Print. “There was no way we could compete for short-run on-demand color with our big offset presses, so just putting in the press was huge. The combination of the digital press and iWay meant capturing income that we never would have gotten before. It opened a lot more doors.”

Litho Craft is a mid-sized commercial printer with average gross sales of between $5 and $7 million a year. The family-owned printer, founded more than 50 years ago, provides sheetfed printing to mostly graphic design firms and in-house designers. Their clients include T-Mobile, Microsoft, and the University of Washington.

In early 2006, one of its customers (a corporate trucking company) turned to the printer for assistance: it wanted its sales reps to have access to all of the company’s marketing collateral on an on-demand basis. The large international shipping agency, that provides trucking throughout the U.S. and overseas, wanted its sales reps to be able to order online just the amount of printing that they needed for a particular meeting or tradeshow.

“The client wanted the material to be customized based on geographic regions,” explains Bischoff. “For instance, a shipping rep in Hawaii wouldn’t want pictures of Alaska. They wanted to be able to customize, on the fly, and have the sales rep’s information placed on the file based on whoever logged in. And they wanted it printed and delivered quickly. We couldn’t do any of that prior to purchasing our web-to-print solution.”

Litho Craft realized that if one customer was looking to build a branded website from which to order static items, then other customers probably did as well. Therefore, the print provider implemented Press-sense iWay for its streamlined print-on-demand workflow. The system enabled Litho Craft to set up the company’s website, create templates, and offer an automated workflow from price quoting and job ordering to printing and delivery. Simply stated, “They’ve been very happy,” notes Bischoff.

In addition to constructing branded websites for its customers, the print provider established its own digital store front, called Litho Craft Xpress. Now customers can order jobs online.

“We wanted to have a pretty robust quoting system online so a customer could get a quote on a job before placing the order,” explains Bischoff. “Our customers want to order different sizes such as 2x9 or 11x14 -- anything that would fit on our press -- and we needed to be able to figure out automatically how many of those would fit on a sheet and how many colors are going to print, while still providing an accurate quote.”

In the company’s traditional printing cycle, it could take four to five days to provide a customer with a quote, schedule the job, generate proofs, and go to press.“With the iWay/digital press paradigm, it could all happen in 10 minutes,” states Bischoff.

“Typically, the job is uploaded as a PDF, quoted, and if customers like the price, they view the PDF on screen as the final proof. Then they submit the job, which is paid for upfront with a credit card, and the job goes right to the press. That could all happen easily within 10 minutes. Clearly, the time savings is huge.”

“The cost savings are huge too,” he continues, “because there are not many touch points in the whole operation. There’s no sales rep calling the customer, there’s no proof being generated, there’s no CSR working on the quote. Other than me seeing the job coming in, and maybe adjusting the imposition before it goes to press and the pressman running it, that’s it. So the cost savings is substantial.”

Now the company has acquired 300 registered users, with about 200 of them regularly requesting quotes. A typical order consists of around 300 to 400 8.5x11-inch sheets. “The system has brought in more revenue from existing customers and new clients --people who are needing jobs faster,” concludes Bischoff. “iWay does what we wanted it to.”