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Document Management
Our Customer's Point of View
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Written by Mike Gilleland
President of Progeny Press |
When Craig Shuler stopped by our offices in
2000, we were ready to make the change to on-demand printing,
but we had not found any printer who could meet our quality
demands in a satisfactory time frame. We publish 40- to 120-page
study guides for literature, with some titles selling a couple
hundred copies each year and others selling a couple thousand.
Some of our titles cycle from year to year, moving up and down
in sales quantities as novels' popularity fluctuate, or even as
movies based on novels are released. We needed a flexible
printer who could provide quality printing at reasonable cost
and in short runs so we could better manage our inventory. After
several meetings with Craig and his staff at DigiCOPY, and a few
trial runs, it became clear that DigiCOPY was going to exceed
our expectations. Within a few months we had transfered all our
printing to DigiCOPY.
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In the nine years since we started working with
DigiCOPY, they have repeatedly adapted to our needs and even
shown us how we can improve our own product. At the time we
started working with DigiCOPY, we had around 65 titles, printed
in a looseleaf format. In 2007, we published our 92nd title, but
we also changed formats from looseleaf to perfect bound and
added CD-ROM versions of every title. To add to the challenge,
we had to make the switch from looseleaf to perfect bound at
exactly the same time for every title while keeping supplies to
our retailers running smoothly. Then, to make things even more
challenging, we suddenly realized that our CD-ROM versions (92
titles!) had to be ready to debut at a Florida tradeshow in
June. I don’t know how popular we were at DigiCOPY that year,
but DigiCOPY was very popular with us! What was, in essence, a
complete revision and reintroduction of 184 products went off
virtually without a hitch. By the time our annual catalog came
out in August 2007 (which DigiCOPY also handled for us), all
ordering and printing processes were again running like
clockwork, but with 184 essentially new products.
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I think the only way our company made it through that spring
and summer was because of the DigiCOPY staff's commitment to
quality and their ability to share out work with their other
stores--particularly, in this case, the Eau Claire and Stevens
Point stores--to keep production moving smoothly. We were
impressed at the seamless communication and production between
the facilities. One of the things I like best about working
with the DigiCOPY people is that they are always innovating and
finding ways to make my life easier. When we started working
with them in 2000, we were sending our product files to them on
CD-ROM once or twice a year. With their .ftp site, we now can
update our product files at any time of the day or night and
just notify them by e-mail that we’ve made a change. We never
have to worry about whether we have updated our titles or made a
needed correction when we reprint; we know it's already done.
They currently are working on a procedure that will make our
order fulfillment to retailers a seamless process.
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| Over the years, we have found DigiCOPY so
efficient and economical that they now provide all of our
printing needs, from business cards to advertising, signs to
catalogs, books to CDs. They provide us with design consultation
that has revitalized some of our promotional materials, and they
have helped us branch out into publishing plays and original
fiction, bringing us together with the professionals who can
best help us produce the quality and format that fits our needs.
They truly are partners in our success. |
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