Heeter partners with ePS to support their ‘simplify and automate’ strategy

The company has been especially successful in increasing output with a workflow that allows for accurate and effective management across the plant. Because of the fast-turn nature and high level of personalized print in Heeter’s digital department, the company manually enters data into the Pace data collection module.

The data capture process will allow for even greater efficiency following a planned upgrade at Heeter that will add the Suite’s PrintFlow dynamic scheduling component to the workflow. 

Heeter recently added PrintStream Fulfillment and Process Shipper components to the company’s Suite. “Our previous fulfillment solution was a standalone cloud-based offering that we couldn’t easily customize or integrate with anything else, and it
couldn’t efficiently handle print-on-demand orders,” Schlecker explains. “It simply didn’t give us the flexibility and integration we were looking for. 

Now with PrintStream Fulfillment, orders come in a variety of formats and are managed as programs by our newly formed Fulfillment Coordinator role. “Before,” he adds, “CSRs would write up job tickets when orders came in, and they were treated as individual jobs. Now we can treat them programmatically, with one job number per month encompassing all the different individual orders that took place during the month. That has really helped.” PrintStream Fulfillment also serves as the company’s centralized inventory management tool.

“One of the biggest advantages is the ability to allocate parts to a kit, whether they are print-on-demand, off the shelf, or highly customized just-in-time books,” Schlecker says. “It helps us more effectively manage a wide range of storefront and programmatic offerings.” 

Heeter employees are especially pleased with how fulfillment is handled in the company’s workflow. “All our shipping staff has to do to close out a job or order is scan a barcode and click ship,” Schlecker says. “The system looks up the job or order, whether it originated in Pace, PrintStream Fulfillment, or Digital StoreFront; captures the necessary data; looks up the most effective shipment method; and interfaces with the shipping companies. This makes it easy for our shipping staff to get jobs out the door fast.” The overarching Midmarket Print Suite architecture simplifies the company’s ability to manage and continue improving. “That’s another key reason we continue to add to our ePS solution set,” Schlecker says. “The Suite gives us certified workflows. We wanted all our applications to talk to each other without having to do the integration ourselves, and the Midmarket Print Suite has lived up to that promise.” 

In addition, Heeter has the Pace API toolkit, which allows the company to do further additional integrations without paying for custom development.