Webinar:
Modern Mail Operations: From Workflow Efficiency to Strategic Advantage

Smaller production runs, tighter labor availability, and stricter service-level agreements (SLAs) are putting real pressure on today's mail centers. In this NPF Delivered webinar, BlueCrest experts share how connected workcells, workflow automation, and real-time production dashboards help you do more with the team you have. Whether you run an in-plant mail center or a high-volume print and mail operation, this session walks through practical ways to cut manual touchpoints, reduce exceptions and rework, and give your leadership the visibility they've been asking for. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN • How to connect print, inserting, mail preparation, and finishing workcells into one workflow • How production reporting and dashboards give you real-time visibility into throughput and SLA performance • Ways to reduce manual intervention, exceptions, and rework on the production floor • How to measure SLA performance and build a more resilient operation • How automation and intelligent operational control prepare your mail operation for future growth PANELISTS Craig Shaeffer, Senior Product Manager, Digital Solutions Joe Eremita, Senior Director, Digital Solutions Richard Smith, VP of Service Operations and Client Success Moderator: Buddy Perry, Director of Software & Print, North America

Transcript

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My name is Kathleen Kaminsky. I'm the director of NPF's delivered program and I'll be one of your moderators for today. We're excited to have you with us

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and we'll begin shortly. Today's session will start in just a moment and um before we do, just a couple housekeeping

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tips. We encourage you to keep this a highly interactive session and welcome your participation. The entire Blue Crest team is ready to answer your

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questions while they present and discuss mail operations. The Q&A chat will remain open throughout, so please feel

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free to submit your questions. And we'll do our best to field and answer any questions in a timely manner. Thank you for taking the time to join us. And now,

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it's my pleasure to introduce Karen McCormack, the executive director of the National Postal Forum. Karen,

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thank you, Kathleen, and hello everyone and welcome to Delivered, the National Postal Forum's year-round education

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platform for mailing and shipping professionals. Again, I'm Karen McCormack and I'm really proud to be the executive director of the National

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Postal Forum and we're very happy to have you with us today. We're very excited about today's education session,

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Modern Mail Operations from Workflow Efficiency to Strategic Advantage.

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Blueest, a well-known leader in the mailing industry, has put together a panel of company experts to share practical ideas on how to make your mail

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operation work smarter. Myself, I was a former mail service provider for over 28

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years up in the Boston area. And having met with the Blueest folks prior to this, I already know that you're going to really enjoy today's session. There's

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just so many important facts they can share with us. I also know personally the importance of trying to scale

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operations to help control costs, build resilience, and support future growth in our companies with greater efficiency.

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To hear more about this, I'll turn things over to Buddy Perry, director of sales, software, and production print at Blueest to introduce his colleagues.

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Buddy, it's all yours. Thank you.

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Hi, good morning. Thank you very much for joining. uh we look forward to chatting with you today and and sharing some uh some best practices and some

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experience that we've gathered over over the years. Um so I would like to u uh uh

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introduce my my team uh before we we go through um let's see next slide there. There we go.

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There they are. Look at those handsome faces. So, uh, guys, if you will, U, Craig and Joe and Richard, if you could

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introduce yourself and just tell us what it is in your daily job that, uh, that

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allows you to, uh, to share advice and and and best practices and ideas with customers that help them run their shop more efficiently.

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Uh, Craig, if you could start with.

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Oh, yeah, sure, buddy. Um, Craig Schaefer. So I'm a product manager in our digital solutions uh area. I work uh

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very closely with our existing customer base, potential customers as well as our uh software development team. Um what

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allows me to be in this position I think is just my years of experience working with mailers um with our digital solutions, our digital products and uh

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helping them through some of their uh challenges uh and helping them to be successful.

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Thank you Craig. Joe, if you could introduce yourself and tell us uh what on a daily basis what you do to interact with customers and help them out.

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So, I'm Joe Arama. Uh on a daily basis, I help solve challenges in the mail production process through software.

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I've been focused on the software side of mail production for for a very long time. Um through uh you know have a lot

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of experience in the the insertion and the sortation and the print. Um, but everything solving problems through software is is what I what I do every

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day all day in a variety of different ways.

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Thank you. And Richard, if you could do the same. Thank you.

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Yeah. Um, good day everybody. Um, my name's Richard Smith. I lead the client success and professional services teams

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for Bluecrest. Um my teams uh engage with clients on a daily basis to optimize the workflow end to end to make

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sure we're getting the best possible value from the technology, the people and the processes within um those uh those factory environments.

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Thank you very much. Um, so just real quickly, uh, before we get into, uh, the topics that we're going to discuss today, I'll give you just a little real

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quick background on Blue Crest for those of you that may not be familiar with us.

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Uh, on the equipment side of our house, um, we produce um, male production equipment, if you will, insertters and

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sortters. Um, and we have the largest installed base um, in the world of uh, of of such such equipment. Uh we also

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have a very large practice uh in the in the graphics space where we provide our well our own as well as our our value

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partners uh integrated equipment into to different uh finishing lines. Um on the software side of the house we have a

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couple of different practices. Joe talked about his part of the business that is with our workflow uh and and reporting tools which we'll talk a

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little bit more about today. We also um BCC software is a blue crest company and they have a number of postal

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optimization products for Cass or PAVE or NCOA or you name it D and data integrity. Um we have a offering uh that

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you see here on the screen but in our vote by mail space. This is an interesting space for Blueest uh because of the demands that are placed on on on

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that particular marketplace. But in this space, Bluecrest delivers everything from uh inserting equipment to the

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software uh to sorting equipment, print uh production print as well, including um our service offerings that are

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designed specifically for that unique space. And then tying all this together, more of Richard's uh uh area that he'll share some information with us today.

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But uh we've got over a thousand individuals in in Bluecrest in our service organization that are out in the field and assisting our comp our

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customers in a number of ways. So if we'll move to the next slide. Uh so today we're going to talk about a about

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six different topics. So the first one is really work cell automation and uh Bluecrest is focusing quite a bit on how

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we can help our customers automate those individual work cells and we've got a number of um processes, procedures,

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technologies that we can we can work with. Um companies are asking for um information to be readily available. We

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deliver that in dashboards and various incundary reports and tools and uh so the whole team here will talk about some

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best practices with that. Um one of the things that um we'll we'll discuss we have a whole uh

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topic of discussion around preparing for the future. What is uh what are we going to do to make sure our organization can scale that it's got the elasticity that

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it needs to scale up and scale down at times of demand or with sudden growth.

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Um and then we'll talk about um something that u a number of customers have come to us lately uh that seems to

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be a uh a little bit of a change from years past. So um they're running uh in in in their production environments.

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They're experiencing uh this phenomenon of many more jobs but smaller um by

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nature. So the the number of jobs are are greater, the volume may be up, but the average length of each job is much smaller. So we're going to talk about

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some ideas we've got to uh uh to address that and and offset the the negative some of the negative impacts that that

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has on organizations. Uh nothing changes here. SLA's going to be a topic of discussion. we've um we've all we're all

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expected to do more and um and quicker and uh and to meet those requirements with ever increasing demands and and um

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and potential penalties that are placed on that if if certain notices don't go out. And then we'll wrap it all up with a discussion about analytics and real

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time uh reporting and and how you you take those metrics to better run your organization. So with that let's move

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into the first area uh of discussion and it's uh it's really about connecting all these uh which can be disparit uh work

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uh areas from from print or production of of the documents to inserting prepar preparing that mail for for mailing

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through that throughout the the postal service. So Craig, I'm going to begin with you. Um uh in in your job in product management,

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software product management with uh with Blue Crest, you deal with both digital as well as physical communications. Um as

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I'm sorry, different topic. We'll get to that one in just a minute. Um so from the technology still still for you. Um

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Joe, if we can slide to you. um from a technologies perspective, what are the um what are the things that we do to

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connect these disparit areas are areas because they are distinctly different yet one um is dependent on the other.

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Well, well, you're absolutely right. I mean one of the biggest challenges we come across and still see today is this notion of department silos right in in

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the mail production space where print is print and it only focuses on print and insert maybe only focus on insert and if

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you you sort maybe it's only focused on sort and then there's the whole you know document creation and other software

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systems upstream and they all seem to be stuck in silos acting independently of of the various other uh departments,

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right? So, we we find that to be a challenge that that's kind of the core core focus to overcome, right? If you're going to talk about an interconnected

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interoperability between um different work cells, you got to break down the silos. And that means

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considering things to do upstream that that can help and make improvements downstream. And there's a variety of

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different activities, but but for now I'm going to talk about is just just don't keep them separate. Consider the

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whole workflow as a whole. Um each work cell is going to have its separate and unique activities or or whether it's

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going to be data needs or workflow management or or reconciliation processes, right? They're going to be separate. But to be able to have an

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overarching view of management of all the different work cells as a collective and then make decisions uh upfront as

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how to optimize the collective and not just each separate process independently, right? That's that's an

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important thing um that we work with many of our clients to to to try to try to overcome. Break down those silos.

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Joe, thank you. Uh Richard, if you could take just a minute and and um a question that I'm curious about. How often do

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customers come to you and and I mean we've got thousands and thousands of customers and your team is servicing most if not all of those, but how often

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do they come uh with questions about and challenges to say, you know, how can you can can you help me with this? And then after we address that, what is what's

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some of what's the impact? What kind of impact does that have when they begin to pull these disparit groups together? So, so most of our our conversations with

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clients tend to start around a particular area in their in their in their workflow, maybe a hot spot that they're struggling with. So, it could

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be, for example, let's let's just say the inserting machine, and they're not getting the best out of potentially out of the inserting machine, but then when you look at that inserting machine in

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detail, of course, everything that goes into an inserting machine has come from somewhere else. you know, whether it's the whether it's the file that's that's

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that's running the processing, whether it's the print that's come from a printer, whether it's material that's come from an external vendor, or even

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the operator is who happens to be on the machine that day, they're all external influences. And and one of the things that we see that that that the customers

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sometimes struggle with to to Joe's point about the silos is there's no point in having the most efficient printing process if the quality of print

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that has been delivered to the inserting machine is then substandard because you're then destroying the next the next level down in the process. And again,

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there's no point in producing the fastest mailing job if your outsource your rejects are are high and then a percentage of those have to be reworked.

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So it, you know, the value really to the customer is is what's key here. And it's about documents that are enclosed complete to the right integrity and

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delivered to the post office on time to meet the the schedule. So from that point backwards is really where all of

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the um connecting pieces of the workflow should be aligned to achieve that objective. And if that might mean at

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some circumstances not printing a job as soon as a file arrives, that might might mean putting actually a job across two inserters because that's the best thing

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to do in order to hit the deadline for the entire factory. And that that's quite a significant mind shift for a lot

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of mailers that we talk to who are very focused on their own individual parts of their business as opposed to the endto-end value stream if you like.

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Thank you sir. So, you know, with that, let's let's shift over to another topic area, talk about sort of visibility, operational visibility, dashboarding,

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reporting. Uh, Richard, let's stick with you. So, my guess is that customers come to you and and they they want more they want more access to more data, they want

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it displayed and provided in different ways. Are they asking for that because they want to reduce costs? They want to

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better run their shop. Is it just visibility or compliance in general?

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What? Maybe it's yes. What what what why are they asking for those things?

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Yeah. So, so you know, likely all of the above, but I think we've seen a real shift in the last 12 to 18 months of

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pretty much all customer segments now looking for more data, more dash, more dashboards, more reporting, understanding what's going on. So, I

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think we're seeing a a shift in the industry from SLA driven. So every customer has always wanted to deliver

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their stuff to their client on time in full. That's a given. Uh and that was for a long time the only sort of metric

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that customers really were were looking for to now that's obviously a given. But how can I do that in the most efficient

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way? How can I do that by reducing waste out of the process? How can I do that?

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By by by potentially creating productivity improvements that might generate more capacity, might might, you

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know, in certain circumstances it might be knockoff weekend overtime. Um, you know, at peak, can I be just as stable

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at peak as I am in a in a in a in a in a quiet period? One of the one of the things that we see customers struggle

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with is it's almost like everybody's 125, you know, percent at peak, but then it's only 55%

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in the quiet periods. You know, the problem with that approach, it's very admirable to get more out at peak and be and be great. But then when everyone takes a breath when it's quiet, it's

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difficult to get back up again for a sustained period period of time, just like an athlete. So, you know, one of the things we encourage clients to do

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when it's quiet is actually to turn machines off, which again is is counterproductive, but turn machines off to keep the pace more consistent. If you

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don't need all your machines, don't run them all. Um, which again, you know, when it's SLA driven, it's like, well, it's there. Let's let's let's enclose it. Let's print it. Let's get it out the

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door. Let's send it out a day early. Why not? You know, something might break down tomorrow. Well, you know, move away from that mentality to a more consistent

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mentality of let's keep that pace all of the time and and that's you know dashboards then that look to measure that type of end to end consistent

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approach rather than we were talking about in in the previous question which is you know I want the best print they want insert I want the best to talk the

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best you know of each doesn't necessarily mean the right value for the customer. So, I think we're in a we're in a dawn of data that that really is I've not seen

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before in the industry and and it's very exciting for us.

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Richard, that leads in great to my next question for Craig. You know, Craig, in your role, you're tasked with um developing these products. Uh many of

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them are are dashboarding and reporting tools. Uh and your audience is wide, right? You've got the uh the operators

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on the floor, the supervisors, the executives, and everybody in between. Uh Richard just talked about how um they

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use this data to make decisions. How do you decide what goes into these reports or um you know because what I need on

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the on the floor may be very different than somebody else needs in the organization.

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Oh sure. Yeah. I mean I think when you think about good visibility uh across those different uh

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roles in the organization it's really providing the flexibility and how those roles can utilize the data. So it can't

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we can't take a onesizefits-all approach. I think you know you look at floor supervisors for example um you know they're making daytoday maybe even

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hourby-h hour decisions all day long. um what's running, what's behind uh what needs my attention right now. Um so

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that's a specific use case for for that particular role. And then you look at executive leadership and they're thinking more in terms of the bigger

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picture. Um you know, are we meeting our service commitments? Are we being productive and controlling costs? Um and

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are we improving over time? So it's a performance, cost and continuous improvement approach. And I think, you know, when I work with clients, they

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tell me they need support in making better decisions. You know, not just looking at data, but but how do I make better decisions as a result of the data

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that I'm seeing? So, um, the data, all the data that we provide really ultimately should support a decision.

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And if it if it's not actionable and it doesn't drive some sort of positive result, it's probably not useful and shouldn't make the cut for our products.

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Um I I think uh one of the things that uh I've spoken with some clients about they said you know interesting data

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isn't enough. You know I need actionable data that helps me uh move the needle in my organization. So we we want to let the users organize the information in

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their way. I mean as we know everybody works different ways. Um they have a role to fulfill. have deliverables for

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their position and um so we need to make products that uh provide that flexibility that can suit you know everyone's purpose. So you know access to all the data don't hide the data.

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Don't put the data somewhere where you can't get to it. You have to have full access to the data. Drag and drop it.

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Move it around. Reorder it. Add and remove fields. Whatever you can do to allow the end user to make the data

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consumable for their role. it's critical. Um, and then beyond reports, I think, you know, uh, it's no longer

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about just dashboards and reports anymore. I think that's sort of a historical, uh, deliverable that we're all sort of used

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to, but it's really about getting the information to the people when they need it. So moving more to an open access uh

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platform providing proactive alerting for example um making APIs available uh so that customers can choose what they

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need and how to uh uh consume that data and where um I think you have to Joe's point you have integrated connective

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connected systems you know from end to end on one common platform that that helps with the data set being consistent

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across all those different um roles and then just flexibility ility in delivering alerts when targeted events occur. So, you know, a platform can that

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can communicate with our customers internal systems to bring the information to them rather than them going and retrieving it. Um, so

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basically if there's a delay or an exception situation, a threshold has been exceeded in their environment, there's a risk to SLA for example, um

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the the sooner that they know that um the sooner that they can act and take a corrective action. So we, you know, ultimately just to wrap it up, we don't

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want users searching for information anymore. We want to deliver that information to them at the right time to the right person so they can take that meaningful action and keep their operations moving.

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Thank you much. Uh I'm going to shift gears a little bit and let's talk a little bit about um optimizing and batching work. Uh we talked a little bit

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about this uh sort of trend uh for uh smaller size jobs uh larger number of

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jobs and smaller size jobs. Even some of the work we used to traditionally run is uh the job size and length has has um

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has begun to shrunk a little bit shrink a little bit. So Joe, if you could tell us a little bit about um um the impact

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that that has and some of the tools that Blueest has for I mean it's one thing to build a role, it's another thing to uh

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to optimize that in in a number of different ways, right? So what kind of impact does that have on on a customer

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and what can we do to uh recover from that?

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Yeah. And and and you to kind of highlight the trend a little bit, right?

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We all know mail volumes are are declining slightly year-over-year for some time now. Um but but the the decline doesn't mean that that different

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jobs are going away. It means that every job and and maybe we're getting more batches, right? They're actually decreasing in size and that's that's

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eroding the efficiencies that we've all been fighting to gain over the years with higher speed printers and higher speed insert really higher speed

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workflows in general, right? The smaller batch size is working against that, right? So, so attacking that um is an

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important step in regaining some of those efficiencies, right? So, so yeah, the the batches are smaller, but this

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notion of combining batches to regain the bigger batch advantage that the high-speed equipment really love to

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process and and you made a lot of that idle time and that change over time and reconciliation time, right? There's a couple different approaches um to that,

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right? One of course is this notion of standardization. Um the more that the more commonality that we can work build

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into the into the work into the jobs whether it be you know paper types or envelope types or file formats. I mean each work cell has its own set of

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characteristics. Um but working towards more standardization um so that more work can be compatible.

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um the more compatibility you have um and we attack compatibility in a lot of different aspects. Clearly the software

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aspect provides a lot of flexibility in being able to reconfigure documents before they're ever printed um in ways

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that make them common with other jobs that may be for different applications.

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Um there are things that we do in the physical work cells to combining different that used to be separate work

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steps like printing in line or or you know dynamic forms overlay for color print. All these new technologies really

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allow for greater and greater standardization. And what does that mean? That means that now we could combine work um and be more flexible and

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build up those bigger batches um to regain uh those efficiencies. And one prime example that you mentioned buddy

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is this notion that we like to call role building right building is a is an is an approach for our clients that do

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continuous form printing. Um they went to continuous form because it was efficient. Um but as these jobs and batches got smaller and they got more

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complex and they and and uh you know they may have different SLAs's and different other characteristics it got it actually started working against them

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to put them all on a roll. So role building is a concept that we've uh that we that we talk about that allows um the

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intelligent combining of jobs and ordering and orientations and various other characteristics to to build a role

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in a in a smart way um in a way that we can regain those efficiencies um by

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printing what I like to call roll size batches. Right? That's the optimal size.

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If I could fill the whole bath, fill a whole roll to one job and feed it to a high-speed inserter as a whole roll um and it produces, you know, one or two

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24 minutes, 56 seconds

pallets of mail that go into the USPS direct submission. All right, that's that's Nirvana and that's what we work towards with intelligent role building

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25 minutes, 5 seconds

as one of those use cases um to try to get that standardization.

25:10

25 minutes, 10 seconds

Joe, thank you. Uh Richard, uh Craig and Joe talked about some some great ideas.

25:16

25 minutes, 16 seconds

Our customers produce work all day every day and they try to do that in the most efficient way that they can and they've got their reasons for doing things the

25:23

25 minutes, 23 seconds

way that they do them. But in a quest to always do better, how do how do you what

25:31

25 minutes, 31 seconds

do you benchmark yourself against? How do you know what good looks like?

25:35

25 minutes, 35 seconds

So there's a there's a number of different lenses that that you can use.

25:40

25 minutes, 40 seconds

Um the first lens I would say is within the your own organization. Um there are

25:46

25 minutes, 46 seconds

many different um operators produ potentially producing work across different machine types. So look at

25:54

25 minutes, 54 seconds

those work types. Categorize work into into different types. It could be format, could be run size, it could be

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26 minutes, 3 seconds

number of inserts. Um and uh and if it's an insert or just from a print perspective, it just could be substrate,

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26 minutes, 11 seconds

you know, print model type. Categorize your work and then look at the variance within your own organization. So um it's

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26 minutes, 19 seconds

very rare that we see an organization where um a spread of 10 operators, the performance is very similar. There's

26:27

26 minutes, 27 seconds

usually quite a spread between the worst and the and and the best. Um, it's a lot lot easier and more practical to make

26:36

26 minutes, 36 seconds

the the poorer performers get towards the average than it is to make an average person the best. There

26:43

26 minutes, 43 seconds

is always it's it's human nature. There are always some standout individuals and those standout individuals usually are always trying to be even better than

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26 minutes, 51 seconds

they are. So, it's identify the lower performers, bring those up to the average is is is a real sort of easy win. So, that's within your own organization.

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27 minutes

Um from a Blueest perspective, we can help you with benchmarking. We have two benchmarks that we will benchmark again.

27:07

27 minutes, 7 seconds

Again, we'll make the same um determination of work type because that's really important when you're comparing. So, we'll look for people who

27:15

27 minutes, 15 seconds

have got similar machines, similar run lengths, similar work types. And then we will benchmark you against the industry anonymously. We don't give away

27:23

27 minutes, 23 seconds

anybody's you know um uh names you know names of companies or anything but we'll find like u like like work like sizes

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27 minutes, 32 seconds

and say same machine type this is the performance that the industry is getting and this is where you stack rank. So we'll stack rank you and you'll be able

27:41

27 minutes, 41 seconds

to see across many metrics could be speed could be stops could be rework or outsorts

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27 minutes, 49 seconds

um could be efficiency. So therefore you can see where you where you stack up.

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27 minutes, 53 seconds

And then then we also have like a final lens, a third lens which is what's theoretically possible. And and we don't mean theoretically as in the machine

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28 minutes, 1 second

will run 100% 100% of speed, but practically using best-in-class because the benchmark of the industry is more of

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28 minutes, 8 seconds

an average in the industry and you'll see where you fit. But then there's like what is theoretically possible with this type of machine, you know, a

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28 minutes, 16 seconds

best-in-class efficiency, best-in-class speed. And again, you can see where the opportunities are. And it might be that you're great at speed, but you have a

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28 minutes, 24 seconds

bad stops, or you might be not stopping very often, but you're just not running the machines fast enough. So, there's always an opportunity to improve using those different types of of of benchmarks and baselines.

28:34

28 minutes, 34 seconds

Thank you very much. And and that brings us right into the next topic. I wanted to talk a little bit about um Excuse me, buddy. Can we just take pause

28:42

28 minutes, 42 seconds

for a second and see if there's any um questions from our audience? Um the the Q&A chat's been pretty quiet, so I

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28 minutes, 50 seconds

thought I'd just interject a little bit and see if anybody has any questions out out there on our on our call here.

28:59

28 minutes, 59 seconds

Yep. Raise your hand. Jump right in.

29:01

29 minutes, 1 second

Yeah, jump right in. We're here to answer your questions. Nothing yet. Um okay.

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29 minutes, 10 seconds

Uh we also um have a quick poll to take which I'm going to pop up. We just would like some feedback on delivered and how

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29 minutes, 17 seconds

we're doing. Um, and please buddy, you can continue your conversation, but I'm going to pop the poll quiz up. It's only a quick five short questions.

29:27

29 minutes, 27 seconds

Okay. Yeah, please do. And please jump in with questions. We'll have some opportunity at the end as well.

29:31

29 minutes, 31 seconds

Oh, we do. Oh, wait. We do. Mark asked a question. Oh, good. Thank you, Mark.

29:36

29 minutes, 36 seconds

What role does standardization play in this discussion?

29:42

29 minutes, 42 seconds

Joe's nodding his head. Joe, you want to take a shot at that?

29:45

29 minutes, 45 seconds

Yeah, I mean, I mentioned that uh you not so long ago, right? Standardization is is an important way to regain those

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29 minutes, 52 seconds

efficiencies as your jobs get smaller, right? If they're if they're standardized um in a way that makes them

30:00

30 minutes

um compatible, then you can regain and combine them to make bigger batches, right? It's all it's all a play about removing those those reconciliations, those starts and stops um along the way.

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30 minutes, 13 seconds

um because the the equipment has come a long way from from a from a high-speed efficiency perspective. Um and you want to make sure you you get the best out of

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30 minutes, 22 seconds

that. Um so yeah, the more standardization you could do, obviously there are limits based on the applications, but the more it's a you

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30 minutes, 30 seconds

know, it's a scale. The more you could do, the better the closer you get to that that ideal situation.

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30 minutes, 36 seconds

Richard, did you have anything you wanted to add on to that?

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30 minutes, 38 seconds

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean I you know as a lean six sigma black belt you know it's standardization is is is close to my heart and and it's what you you

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30 minutes, 47 seconds

you strive for and it's where the consistent performance will come from that I talked about earlier. So we see many examples of you know you'll look at

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30 minutes, 55 seconds

a you'll look at let's say an insert a work cell and it'll be running 6x9 work and then you'll look and say well the next job's 6x9 the next job 6x9 but then

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31 minutes, 5 seconds

you'll look at the change over and there's quite an excessive amount of change over time. Well, it turns out it is a 6x9 envelope, but it's got a different flat dimension or it's

31:13

31 minutes, 13 seconds

actually a different size of envelope and the barcode from job to job is in a different position. Now, I've got to move the camera and I've got to do this and and there's a different insert and

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31 minutes, 22 seconds

this insert goes in that hopper and that's got to go in this and and that type of variation is what kills mailing organization. So, you could also almost

31:30

31 minutes, 30 seconds

flip it on its head and say that the the the variation in print and mail is what kills efficiency. Uh, and you know, I I

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31 minutes, 38 seconds

was a client for many, many years. I've been in the industry 30 years. I'm not naive enough to think that everything can be exactly the same. But you can go

31:46

31 minutes, 46 seconds

back to clients and have conversations about certain products in certain ways and explain that the, you know, the reason that this barcode is in this

31:53

31 minutes, 53 seconds

particular position is causing us an issue, which means we're getting more outsort. And if we're getting more outsorts, that's putting pressure on SLAs's, putting pressure on quality. you

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32 minutes, 2 seconds

know, it'd be really great if you could just move it over a little bit or or do whatever. Um, but that type of standardization approach and trying to

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32 minutes, 10 seconds

find those 10 or 11 different product types and you can put everything into those will really help along the the the the efficiency journey for sure.

32:18

32 minutes, 18 seconds

Yeah, I would agree and and Mark, thank you. That was a great question. I I I think sometimes our customers don't appreciate the impact of certain

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32 minutes, 26 seconds

decisions they make. So when we go when we go back to them and we discuss that with them, they're more than willing to make some changes. Some they can, right?

32:34

32 minutes, 34 seconds

But those that they can have a huge impact downstream. So let's talk about um uh the the next topic and I want to

32:41

32 minutes, 41 seconds

talk about um the manual intervention and that exception work that we all have to do and then the rework. Right? So um

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32 minutes, 50 seconds

we've got all these jobs combined together. We've taken many jobs and and and now we're producing fewer jobs and we've got fewer job setups and

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32 minutes, 58 seconds

everything's good. Now all this stuff is mixed together and and um and and things go bump, right? We have to we have to

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33 minutes, 5 seconds

rework some some material. It doesn't always necessarily go through. So, Richard, with that in mind, when you

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33 minutes, 12 seconds

talk to customers, is the is the manual intervention where you would think it would be, or is it hiding in in uh in

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33 minutes, 20 seconds

places that uh would surprise some of us?

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33 minutes, 23 seconds

No, I I still I still believe there's there's there's a lot of manual intervention. Some of it, I think, in the industry is is a little bit like we

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33 minutes, 31 seconds

accept it. Um it's it's the norm, so therefore it, you know, you almost walk past it. Um, so for example, modernday

33:39

33 minutes, 39 seconds

inserting machinery, um, whether it's a Blue Crest or or or another vendor, they're all very capable of collecting

33:47

33 minutes, 47 seconds

significant amounts of information in the work cell. Um, but typically you'll walk into that work cell and you'll see an operator writing things down. They'll

33:55

33 minutes, 55 seconds

write down the job name. They'll write down the quantity. They'll write down the amount of good ones, the amount of bad ones. All of that's written on some documentation and that's taken out of

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34 minutes, 3 seconds

the work cell and somebody else keys that in. All of that, most of that information for most vendors and certainly all of it from a blueest perspective is captured inside the

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34 minutes, 12 seconds

machine and can be utilized and that's one of the areas where we see humans being involved in a in a in a very basic

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34 minutes, 21 seconds

admin task that that that could be automated and and you know to that point the reprint automation. So it's not unusual to go to a work cell, even a

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34 minutes, 29 seconds

sophisticated work cell, and see record numbers being written down and then passed to somebody else to go generate a reprint. Again, that can be automated.

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34 minutes, 37 seconds

So yeah, I I think it's still a little bit a lot of things are accepted in our industry that maybe

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34 minutes, 45 seconds

actually um could be automated that that it's it's it's a misunderstood, you know, misnomer almost.

34:51

34 minutes, 51 seconds

Right. Right. That's for sure. Well, with that Craig, uh, from a software perspective, I'm sure some customers, you know, that you pick up, you get the

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34 minutes, 59 seconds

voice of the customer directly from, uh, from the customers or through the sales organization. Um, what are given a

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35 minutes, 6 seconds

couple examples if you could of, um, challenges that customers had with reprints or reworks or whatever it might be, and how you address that with with software.

35:16

35 minutes, 16 seconds

It's it's funny hearing Richard explain it from his uh, vantage point. Uh, I can completely relate. Uh, first off, I I'll

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35 minutes, 24 seconds

just say we don't want to wait for a problem to come find us, right? We want to get ahead of it. Um, and I would say

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35 minutes, 31 seconds

that I had a funny um sidebar here where my wife and I were out for dinner recently and um the reservation system,

35:39

35 minutes, 39 seconds

the the system where they take the the party names and the number of of folks for the wait times was down. And so the host and hostesses were all writing it

35:47

35 minutes, 47 seconds

down on receipts front and back of receipts. And the host and hostesses were were coming and going from the stand to seat people. And then the the the receipts were being passed around.

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35 minutes, 58 seconds

And my wife mentioned to me, you know, are we going to get seated anytime soon?

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36 minutes, 3 seconds

I said, you know, I got to say this process doesn't really drive a whole lot of confidence on my my part. I'm not sure we're ever going to get a seat. But

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36 minutes, 10 seconds

um so I'm I'm the reason I bring that up. It's not a complete direct relationship to this issue that we see,

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36 minutes, 17 seconds

but um you do see some mirroring of that as far as the manual data entry errors that we we come across often in customer

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36 minutes, 26 seconds

environments. Um there might be changes to the environment, right? Just one system or or or one area that there's a

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36 minutes, 33 seconds

change made and it kind of uh branches out, impacts some of the data flow um across the environment. um and uh on-site on-prem system outages, right?

36:44

36 minutes, 44 seconds

Common common cause of problems um when data stops flowing uh or maybe it flows differently. These are unanticipated

36:53

36 minutes, 53 seconds

things that come up uh they come up fairly regularly on occasion. Sometimes depending on the environment, but nobody

37:00

37 minutes

notices right away. What happens is everything seems to be running normally.

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37 minutes, 5 seconds

Operations are going along and the first sign of trouble isn't the problem itself. It's it's actually like looking at the data later, looking at a

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37 minutes, 12 seconds

reporting discrepancy. Maybe you get a call from your customer. Hey, you know, I've questioned this issue uh this data that I got this report. Um something

37:21

37 minutes, 21 seconds

doesn't look right. And now, you know, you're going back and and asking questions retroactively and you're saying, you know, what happened? We have to look into this, investigate it. A lot

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37 minutes, 30 seconds

of time spent corrective actions, explaining it. You basically you're on the defensive. So our focus is more around bringing that information to the

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37 minutes, 39 seconds

operations staff before it becomes that bigger issue. So for example, workflow monitoring, establishing uh expected

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37 minutes, 46 seconds

service level goals to Richard's point about consistency um and uh standardization. If you if you have that standardization, you have a

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37 minutes, 55 seconds

standard platform and you have uh you know what's expected. Now you can alert based on that uh on exception

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38 minutes, 2 seconds

situations. um what do we need to know so we can get ahead of it. We want to monitor it. We want to detect it and we want to alert it. Uh we don't want users

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38 minutes, 10 seconds

hunting for problems. Uh we need to notify them when something changes. And then lastly, I would just say that the recovery process is is matters as well.

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38 minutes, 19 seconds

Um once an issue is identified, users have to have the ability to make the corrections in a controlled manner within the system of record. They need

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38 minutes, 27 seconds

to maintain auditability and audit trail of what was done by whom. Um, and that all preserves uh compliance and allows

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38 minutes, 34 seconds

for uh more rapid recovery. So, fix it, track it, stay compliant. That's our goal. Um, we strive to identify that

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38 minutes, 42 seconds

something's changed the moment it happens. And we don't want to find out about it days later when someone discovers it. So, the sooner you know, sooner you can act, less rework,

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38 minutes, 51 seconds

disruption, and and customer impact is created.

38:54

38 minutes, 54 seconds

Greg, thank you. Um, I could we we could talk about this topic all day, but I'm I'm going to switch gears and talk a little bit about SLA because Craig, you

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39 minutes, 3 seconds

just led perfectly into that if you will. So, um, and we can go back one slide. So, Joe, if you could um,

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39 minutes, 12 seconds

what are there's so many companies that have highly regulated uh, space that they they deal in and the demands are

39:20

39 minutes, 20 seconds

are very exacting and communications are are critical. it must go out you know um

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39 minutes, 26 seconds

as as are demanded. Um so what does um what does SLA performance actually

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39 minutes, 33 seconds

actually mean and how in the world can software help them uh ensure that they are compliant?

39:40

39 minutes, 40 seconds

Yeah. Well, I mean a couple of a couple of points there, right? I mean the main one I'm going to talk about is identify before it's too late, right? that and

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39 minutes, 48 seconds

one of the greatest things that that software could do and and Craig kind of tied on this a little bit is all the devices all the systems out there um

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39 minutes, 57 seconds

have gotten very rich in the amount of data they collect um and and using that planning for exceptions automating the

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40 minutes, 5 seconds

process and collection of that data allows us to take it to well what do you do with it right one of those things is is now you could start tracking where

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40 minutes, 14 seconds

things are in the process and understanding what the characterist istics are like when it's due and which what other steps it's got to go through

40:22

40 minutes, 22 seconds

and start alerting early that things might be late right so so the identification is is step one right

40:29

40 minutes, 29 seconds

planning and scheduling tools are important as well um I I still see a lot of you know whiteboard based um you dry

40:39

40 minutes, 39 seconds

erase marker um planning tools out there while while that's great for for relaying institutional knowledge

40:47

40 minutes, 47 seconds

um it it's not great from an automation perspective um and and in a lot of cases can be you know a cause of either

40:56

40 minutes, 56 seconds

something that's not identified or an error right so planning and scheduling tools using those those data feeds to drive a an automated plan or scheduler

41:05

41 minutes, 5 seconds

or or other you know overarching view of the operations again tying my earlier points it's not just print it's not just

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41 minutes, 13 seconds

insert right it's it's the whole end to end and where things are. Um, right.

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41 minutes, 18 seconds

Those are important aspects and you got to measure it and monitor it otherwise you can't manage it.

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41 minutes, 24 seconds

Joe, thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to the last topic for the day and we've talked a lot about u all day every day and the things we have to do

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41 minutes, 31 seconds

on a daily basis to make sure that uh we produce uh the work that that that we need to. Let's talk a little bit about the future and uh how we prepare for

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41 minutes, 40 seconds

that. So Craig, if you could in a couple of minutes, um I'll go back to that question I almost started you off with.

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41 minutes, 47 seconds

So physical as well as digital mail, our customers um are are are

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41 minutes, 54 seconds

required to produce both. When you look across our customer base, what separates those that are ready for the future?

42:02

42 minutes, 2 seconds

Yeah, I think it's adaptability. I mean, u male operations today, I mean, they're not just dealing with, we talked about

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42 minutes, 9 seconds

it earlier, more volume. They're dealing with more change, uh, more complexity, new regulations, customer requirements,

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42 minutes, 16 seconds

uh, new systems or organizational operational complexity, uh, within their environment. So, those that, um, seem

42:24

42 minutes, 24 seconds

best positioned for growth, in my opinion, they have a few things that I think are are, uh, commonalities. Number

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42 minutes, 32 seconds

one, I think they have the visibility into their own operations. They understand what's happening. um they trust their data and they execute

42:41

42 minutes, 41 seconds

against their processes and um I think that visibility creates confidence and then the second thing is they use the

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42 minutes, 48 seconds

data so um they don't just collect the data just to report on it um they use it to run the operation so they review it

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42 minutes, 55 seconds

regularly um that might be you know a daily standup meeting that's not just a discussion just conversation but also a

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43 minutes, 3 seconds

structured uh review around the data that they're all working from the same sheet of music, so to speak. Um, and

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43 minutes, 10 seconds

then they're able to, you know, identify trends, uh, as a result of that, uh, and expose some things that maybe need some focus in their environment. And, uh,

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43 minutes, 18 seconds

they're also exposing opportunities for improvement and they're making decisions based on that data. Um, so data really

43:26

43 minutes, 26 seconds

becomes part of their culture in that regard. Um, and then thirdly, they adapt quickly. So when something changes whether it's customer requirements,

43:34

43 minutes, 34 seconds

postal requirements, business priorities, they can they can respond quickly. They can see it, decide and adjust. I think when organizations

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43 minutes, 42 seconds

struggle uh they tend to get stuck uh in an operating like reactionary mode in their operations. So they might be

43:50

43 minutes, 50 seconds

chasing issues, investigating after the fact. Um they're fighting fires. They they sort of get accustomed uh and used

43:57

43 minutes, 57 seconds

to always reacting. And then in that regard, they're exposed to sort of like a hero effect, if you will, like uh

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44 minutes, 5 seconds

becoming dependent on a handful of people who really know how everything works. So then you're exposed to tribal knowledge, manual processes that have,

44:14

44 minutes, 14 seconds

you know, high risk of error. We talked about that a couple times. Uh workarounds that may be a workaround today and it's applied so many times

44:22

44 minutes, 22 seconds

that it ultimately becomes the norm. Um and then institutional memory of how things work. So the hero may know, the group of heroes may know but the

44:30

44 minutes, 30 seconds

organization doesn't and that can work for a while but you can't scale that. So from our perspective uh the goal is to

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44 minutes, 38 seconds

manage complexity without increasing your complexity and uh operations that are positioned for growth and ready to

44:45

44 minutes, 45 seconds

scale are the ones that can absorb the change without disrupting their business. um when that new a new

44:53

44 minutes, 53 seconds

requirement, a new regulation, some change in the USPS comes along or customer communication change comes along, they can adapt quickly because

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45 minutes, 2 seconds

they have visibility, they trust their data, and there's confidence in their processes.

45:06

45 minutes, 6 seconds

All right, so to leave a little bit of time for some some questions uh and then just a little wrap-up, uh I'm going to ask each of you one last question. Same

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45 minutes, 15 seconds

question to all of you. If you can answer it in a minute or less, if uh if everybody on this phone could do go do one thing differently um starting Monday

45:24

45 minutes, 24 seconds

of next week, what would that one thing be? Joe?

45:30

45 minutes, 30 seconds

Yeah. So, my role in looking forward in the world, right, there's a lot of disruption in the software space. Um a lot of new technologies including, you

45:38

45 minutes, 38 seconds

know, AI applications, cloud computing, APIs are the top three that we see, right? My my my one advice quick advice

45:46

45 minutes, 46 seconds

would be be open to adopt some of these new use cases where appropriate, right?

45:52

45 minutes, 52 seconds

AI where it makes sense to um cloud computing is is really a powerful way um

45:58

45 minutes, 58 seconds

to to to process and and prepare work for for production mail, print mail, and then APIs are the new way to drive that

46:06

46 minutes, 6 seconds

interoperability we've been talking about this whole session. Let the systems talk to each other to provide that interconnectivity. Thank you, Richard. Same question.

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46 minutes, 14 seconds

I'd say empower and motivate your operators to be problem solvers. Um,

46:22

46 minutes, 22 seconds

every single opportunity that we find uh in a customer is either hidden within the operation through talking to

46:30

46 minutes, 30 seconds

operators and understanding what their problems are or it's hidden in the data.

46:33

46 minutes, 33 seconds

And even if it's hidden in the data, it's often the operators knew about it but just sort of didn't realize that anything could be done about it if if if

46:41

46 minutes, 41 seconds

you know what I mean. So that I still believe operators are a huge untapped resource. Um that a lot of companies really don't don't engage enough and

46:51

46 minutes, 51 seconds

give them the tools and power to be problem solvers. And then obviously when they come to you with those problems, you have to have the resources available to go fix it. Um there's no point in

47:00

47 minutes

engaging them and getting them to give you a load of issues and then doing nothing about it. That's the worst thing you can do. So go and empower those operators. That's what I would say.

47:07

47 minutes, 7 seconds

Couldn't agree more, Richard. All right, Craig, take us home. First thing I should do Monday morning.

47:13

47 minutes, 13 seconds

Yeah, I would say, you know, look at how you can spend more time from an operations or excuse me, how you can

47:19

47 minutes, 19 seconds

look at spending less time collecting data, all those manual uh uh processes,

47:26

47 minutes, 26 seconds

all those writing down information and submitting it to someone else for manual entry. Look at where those can be reduced and instead spend that time

47:35

47 minutes, 35 seconds

focused more on the actual data and and understanding it. uh linking it to your operations and using it to make decisions on a day-to-day basis.

47:44

47 minutes, 44 seconds

Okay, we've got a couple of questions that have come in. Um I think we've got time. Yes, we do. Is that right, Kathleen?

47:50

47 minutes, 50 seconds

Yes, buddy. Uh both questions are from Mark. And before we turn it back over to Karen, u I'd like to address these questions and please feel free anybody

47:59

47 minutes, 59 seconds

in the audience to go ahead and submit questions in the Q&A. We do download these Q&As's and we will upload them in the lobby if we don't get to your

48:07

48 minutes, 7 seconds

question and we will have the Bluecrest team answer those before we post them.

48:11

48 minutes, 11 seconds

Um the first question for Mark, do you find that your customers understand the options or are they too focused on quote

48:20

48 minutes, 20 seconds

the way they have always done things unquote?

48:26

48 minutes, 26 seconds

All right. Uh yeah, I can take that. I think I I think you know it's one of the key it's one of the key things if you're going to

48:33

48 minutes, 33 seconds

embrace continuous improvement then you have to you have to challenge the past you have to challenge the way I mean we

48:40

48 minutes, 40 seconds

I've been into mailing environments in both sides of the Atlantic where we've seen job sizes of 5,000

48:48

48 minutes, 48 seconds

um envelopes uh and then you challenge and say this job looks very similar to that job over there why is it 5,000 envelopes and the answer is because

48:57

48 minutes, 57 seconds

that's the way it used to be present printed when the machines were very small and the file sizes were were quite quite large and you can only get so many

49:05

49 minutes, 5 seconds

on a car. Yeah. And then now it's on a roll and there still jobs of 5,000 and there's no reason why they can't be merged back together. So it's that type

49:13

49 minutes, 13 seconds

of thinking sometimes that really does has to be unpinned and having someone in your organization who's not from the industry who's willing to challenge

49:22

49 minutes, 22 seconds

giving them the license to go out there and challenge is a is a real good catalyst sometimes to improve. So I think it's a great point. We still

49:29

49 minutes, 29 seconds

suffer very much of this is the way it's always been done around here.

49:33

49 minutes, 33 seconds

And we have a uh question also from Mark. Uh has the industry adopted or accepted the touchand toss practice to make operations more stable and

49:42

49 minutes, 42 seconds

repeatable? Joe, I know you've got some uh some technology that addresses that.

49:47

49 minutes, 47 seconds

I I mean touch and toss is is a high integrity process that we have been um you know motivating our clients to move

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49 minutes, 54 seconds

towards for for many years now right and and and um in practice we we do find some some

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50 minutes, 3 seconds

resistance or some some falling back to a manual process and this ties into something Richard said earlier right if

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50 minutes, 10 seconds

if you're I if you run touch and toss it's great if your reject rate or your your error rate is reasonable, right? As

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50 minutes, 19 seconds

soon as you you run the devices and your eject rate gets somewhat unreasonable, touch and toss gets harder to manage,

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50 minutes, 26 seconds

right? Um and there's some some workflow aspects that need to be considered as well when you deal with a touch and toss

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50 minutes, 33 seconds

approach. So my advice is that not every application needs pure touch and toss, right? those that are important from an

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50 minutes, 41 seconds

integrity, from an accuracy, from a from from an exactness perspective, yes, but some other applications maybe maybe not not worth that process.

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50 minutes, 52 seconds

So, um uh yeah, it's a great process where where it applies.

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50 minutes, 58 seconds

Uh on behalf of Blueest, uh in absence of any more questions, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your time and your attention today for for the

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51 minutes, 6 seconds

questions and the interaction and we appreciate it very much. Reach out to us if you have any questions you think of later on.

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51 minutes, 12 seconds

Karen, yes. I I I just want to thank you all, the entire Blue Crest team for I mean

51:20

51 minutes, 20 seconds

this was amazing personally for me. I just love this kind of talk and I mean and and and Richard talking about the

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51 minutes, 27 seconds

operators and just trusting them and relying upon them. They know how these jobs are run. Those machines are their babies every day and they take great

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51 minutes, 36 seconds

pride in producing good work. I loved thinking about um you know how do you know what good looks like? And I know that was something on the plant floor

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51 minutes, 44 seconds

that we asked each other every day with all the jobs particularly where it was the same 6 by9 as last time or so we

51:50

51 minutes, 50 seconds

thought right and it was just a rounded corners versus square corners on those flaps. So, we all know what it feels

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51 minutes, 58 seconds

like, but the importance of working with your customers, your clients came through quite clearly. The Blue Crest team is there for you. Um, and

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52 minutes, 5 seconds

certainly, um, we appreciate all of them and the great information they shared.

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52 minutes, 10 seconds

So, um, with that, I want to just mention that, um, Delivered will host its next education session on Tuesday,

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52 minutes, 16 seconds

November 10th at 1:00 Eastern time. Um, why direct mail still delivers for nonprofits. We're very excited to have

52:25

52 minutes, 25 seconds

Kathy Civiver bring some members from the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers with her and they're going to share the latest in nonprofit mailing trends, why

52:33

52 minutes, 33 seconds

direct mail remains a successful choice for nonprofits and tips on crafting successful nonprofit campaigns using the

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52 minutes, 40 seconds

mail. And lastly, we will all be in Orlando. I hope I know the Blue Crest team will be um May 16th to 19th and um

52:49

52 minutes, 49 seconds

beautiful Orlando very soon. Everything is open. Early regge is still open. The hotels are open and certainly call for

52:56

52 minutes, 56 seconds

papers, exhibit hall, sponsorships, lots of opportunities to be involved at MPF in May. Um the deadline for uh

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53 minutes, 4 seconds

presentations is scheduled for this um Friday, but um stay stay close to your your email and your social sites because

53:12

53 minutes, 12 seconds

we probably will be extending that for another week or so. Um and we've been getting so many submissions. we could use some more in the shipping area and

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53 minutes, 21 seconds

the direct mail area. Um, that would be terrific if people could think about those particular tracks. Um, and please just go to mpf.org to learn more about

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53 minutes, 30 seconds

what's happening in Orlando this May. So again, buddy and your team, thank you so much. We appreciate you.

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53 minutes, 40 seconds

Okay.

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53 minutes, 40 seconds

Thank you guys. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye.