Looking for new product offerings or ways to increase efficiency? Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida's print and mail facility in Jacksonville can provide some valuable ideas. "When it comes to technology, we stay on the leading edge," explains Director Gene Rauch.

 

Tips on Variable Data Printing

The totally digital shop has tried to automate all jobs in-line as much as possible even though a little binding and folding has been added into the mix. "Everything we do is variable data printing," explains Rauch, who has learned a lot about the process. "You have to match the equipment to the job." For example, if you need to print multiple substrates inline, consider cut sheet printers. Even though continuous printers are 3-10 times faster, they limit everything to the same paper or substrate. He goes on to say, "When purchasing continuous forms printers, buy in at the lowest speed that you need. If you need more capacity, it is far less expensive to purchase upgrade speeds than to buy an additional box. It's also better to purchase two slower printers (if space allows) than to buy one fast printer. If a printer goes down, you can still run at 50%, but you're not dead in the water until it is repaired."

 

Tips on Creating ID Cards -- "Our bid was lower than any other vendor's bid."

A few years ago they took a giant step by taking on the production of tamper-resistant digital teslin ID cards. "We print these using a 4-color laser digital press, laminating, die cutting and encoding the magnetic strip." When the decision was initially made to move from a paper card to a plastic card, an RFP was created. "We had to bid against leading industry vendors. Our bid, which consisted of the cost for equipment, labor and supplies was lower than any other vendor's bid and justified purchasing the equipment on the initial mailing (2 million) alone."

 

A year after implementation the BCBS Association changed requirements, which required another mass mailing. "Since most of our cost was sunk," explains Rauch, "the true cost of the second mailing consisted of labor and supplies only which saved BCBSFL well over $1 million." He goes on to explain. "BCBSFL initially said that they were only going to have one card graphic. Four years later we have created over 100 templates. It takes us only 20 hours to create a new template. Vendors would have charged $150-250/hr for professional services, plus the unit cost for each card."

 

Add Color to Traditionally B&W Pieces

In addition to ID cards, they routinely produce member health statements, explanation of benefits statements, checks and other support materials. They recently changed the explanation of benefits (EOB) statements from black/white to color. Even slight changes can make a big difference. "Customers love it because it is much more user friendly." This year they hope to replace current printers with one that does color, color with MICR, black only and black with MICR all in the same box.

 

Create Your Own Automated Document Tracking Tool

Among their long list of accomplishments is the creation of their own automated document job tracking tool. Rauch says they are blessed to have a talented technical staff. "We started using Excel spreadsheets to track jobs. We were approached by several vendors peddling their tool." What did Rauch learn? Mail vendors tracked mail well, but couldn't track print very well. Print vendors tracked print well, but was lacking in the mail process. "We then looked at who had created their own ADF for in-house use. Their tool did a much better job of tracking work through the entire print/mail process."

 

Maintain as Much Data as Possible 

Rauch liked the idea that it was created by people who actually used it. "Since we already had the talent on board, we decided to build one ourselves. Although we borrowed some ideas, we built our ADF on what we believe is a much more robust platform. Our tool is directly integrated into most of our equipment. Data is fed directly from the equipment versus using cameras on the input/output. "When vendors ask what data I need, I tell them that I want everything that they track. We gather as much information as we can and hide what we don't use in the database." The reason? Although they know the data needed today, they never know what will be needed tomorrow.

 

Set a Service Level Goal - They Have Met or Exceeded Theirs 99.99%

Plus they have achieved an unbeatable service record. "We met our service level agreement (SLA) goal 99.99+% of the time this year." He advises, "The right way to create an SLA is to come to an agreement with the job owner and negotiate when it should go out based upon how much processing time is needed and how important the job is." SLAs begin when jobs are received since you cannot be responsible for upstream issues. "Naturally time-sensitive jobs have less time than those that are not time dependent." Rauch says, "For our commercial work this is exactly what we do. Our SLAs range from same day to three days. However, most BCBSFL jobs have been around for decades and nobody knows who owns these jobs so we have self-imposed SLAs. Financial documents, such as invoices (money in) and checks (money out) have a next day goal. They are printed and inserted the same day as received, but we need the next day to comingle with other mail to achieve postal discounts for barcoding/presorting." All other jobs get a three day SLA.

 

Their ADF tool, which is used to report monthly SLA goals, takes all of the active jobs and sorts them by closest to the SLA, regardless if the customer is internal or external. "We do this because, these are the jobs that need the most attention at the time," Rauch says. "Since we keep a history, it allows us to go back and research data when issues arise."

 

A few years ago their SLA goal was to complete jobs on time or ahead of schedule 95% of the time. They bumped it up to 98% a couple of years ago. Today it is 99.5%. "In 2011 we exceeded this goal by meeting/exceeding SLAs 99.99+% of the time. It wouldn't have been possible without our tool, which we are constantly improving."

 

ADF Tool Proves Essential

Their ADF tool is used to track equipment downtime, monitor repair activity for both in-house service technicians, as well as vendors. "We've built in escalation alerts to technician and management's PDAs. We use it to track financials. Every print mail function has a rate associated with it. We use JPNG (our tool) to keep track of all of these costs for chargeback and reporting."

 

Create 2D Codes for Tracking

They have also been a frontrunner in including 2D codes in window envelopes for tracking purposes. Each document has a 2D code which gives their inserting machine instructions on how to process each package (contents within the envelope) and is used for tracking every sheet throughout the print/mail process using JPNG, with the exception of the barcode sorting area. Every job is closed out manually after it is sorted. "We also add another 2D code beside the address field, which shows in the window of the envelope. As envelopes pass through our MLOCR barcode sorter, we capture this data, allowing us to track individual envelopes all the way through barcoding."

 

Combining Small Jobs into Families

Each year, the print/mail team produces over 330 million printed images and 56 million envelopes. About 20% of their volume comes from insourcing projects from external sources, generating $1.5 million in revenue annually. The mailing side of the operation is equally productive managing about 12,000 jobs monthly. To increase efficiency, the mail center has created family jobs. "We combine small jobs (children) into family jobs by concatenating or linking together like jobs. By creating these family jobs, an average of 8 minutes per job has been eliminated. That can add up to a huge time savings!

 

Money-Saving Energy-Saving Tips  

• LEASE. Every 5 years you can upgrade to the latest technology and it keeps your monthly to annual cost steady. If you purchase, it is harder to replace equipment because there never seems to be money in the budget once you depreciate your equipment out.
• Use a central vacuum system to collect all of your trim which can then be recycled along with cardboard boxes.
• Change your lights to brighter more energy efficient bulbs and then put the lighting on a schedule (timer) on your production floor.
• Install motion sensor lights in storage areas to save money and energy.
• Convert 3 oz. mail from flats to 6" x 9".
• We recycle our teslin substrate for use in our C900 cut-sheet color printer.