Partner & Customer Solutions
Strategic Document Outsourcing
NPC supplies strategic document outsourcing (SDO) services to both government agencies and commercial customers. We have significant experience helping organizations transition their in-house print facilities to become part of our production operation, allowing them to focus on their core business.
for Shop-Vac®
The Challenge
Shop-Vac®, a large U.S.-based corporation, managed its own in-house print facility to produce all of the legally required materials that accompany its products. It was critical to ensure immediate availability of those printed materials; without the material their production line would shut down.
Shop-Vac® specializes in designing and manufacturing top-of-the-line vacuum cleaners, but a high priority was placed on the print production of their owner and parts manuals — engineers and other key personnel were assigned to keep the print facility operating. Over 1,000 different manuals were frequently updated, and the day-to-day cost to cover the data management, printing and fulfillment of these publications was substantial.
NPC’s strategic document outsourcing solution enabled Shop-Vac® to transition their in-house print facilities to NPC, allowing them to focus on their core business. NPC provides reliable delivery of Shop-Vac®'s manuals every day, with every order guaranteed.
NPC's Solution - Putting our printing expertise to work for Shop-Vac®
Our solution provided immediate value by introducing a cost-effective, print-on-demand model to manage the company's printed products. A disaster and emergency contingency plan was established to ensure constant availability of printed materials. NPC reduced printing costs, managed the print inventory, eliminated a cost center and a number of non-value-added activities, enabled the reallocation of resources, and improved the effectiveness of the company's art department.
Results
The NPC SDO solution made these changes possible:
- Eliminated the need for Shop-Vac®’s art department to oversee print production so they could focus on designing, editing, and creating manuals. The process of receiving, proofing and pre-flighting new or revised manuals is fully automated to enhance the effectiveness of their art department, allowing them to instantly update their print materials in the digital repository to meet ever-changing market demands.
- Improved the efficiency of Shop-Vac®’s procurement office, allowing them to keep in control while managing the version and cost of each individual printed product. Shop-Vac®’s entire collection of documents are stored and managed in a digital repository and can be accessed through a secure Web portal, allowing them to place orders any time of day and know they are getting the most up to date version.
- NPC worked side by side with Shop-Vac® to reduce their costs by offering a print-on-demand solution that included using both digital and offset printing capabilities. By allowing them to switch their focus away from printing, Shop-Vac® was able to streamline their process and gain confidence in their forecasts and revision schedules. And they realized more savings by increasing their average run length. In addition, they could now reallocate valuable resources without sacrificing turnaround time.
NPC’s strategic document outsourcing solution enabled Shop-Vac® to transition their in-house print facilities to NPC, allowing them to switch their focus from publication/print management to perfecting their sweeping product line of top-notch vacuum cleaners. NPC provides reliable delivery of Shop-Vac®'s manuals every day, with every order guaranteed.
for the Department of Veterans Affairs
The Challenge
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is the second-largest of the U.S. Government Cabinet departments, and services an estimated one-quarter of the nation’s population. The VA printed and mailed over 20 million patient medical statements from its computing center in Austin, Texas each year. The print and distribution effort consumed valuable VA personnel, equipment and facilities, and the VA had limited flexibility to improve the process.
In addition, the VA was processing over 13 million departmental reports annually for the Centralized Accounts Receivable System (CARS), Financial Management System (FMS), General Accounting Office/Federal Financial System (GAO/FFS), as well as a wide range of operational, healthcare, patient assessment, loan and registry reports, and their National Payroll reports.
To continue this operation, the VA would have needed to make a large capital investment in the people, processes, and equipment to:
- Handle large inconsistent volumes of multiple products with a less than 24 hour turnaround
- Have 100% accountability that there are no envelope double-stuffs
- Increase physical and data security for handling Personal Health Information (PHI)
- Staff through weekends and holidays
Instead, the VA decided to move the bulk of their National Report printing and distribution from their Austin, Texas computing center to NPC’s facility.
The Solution
NPC provided the people, systems, and services to streamline the delivery of 24 different products for the VA. Printed reports are packaged using our secure pick-and-pack manifest process and shipped via USPS and FedEx to over 200 destinations daily. NPC receives secure Personnel Accounting Integrated Data (PAID) FTP transmissions every two weeks, prints the variable data on special security paper, and seals and mails bulk pieces to the specified VA service centers.
Because the electronic files and the printed documents contain veterans' personal information, NPC instituted stringent security measures, which are HIPAA compliant, to prevent unauthorized disclosure of the sensitive patient information. NPC’s comprehensive security controls include human resources, information technology and physical resources used on the contract.
“All NPC employees that work on this contract undergo a strict government background investigation and must be cleared before working on the contract," says Sherri Steward, NPC's Human Resources Manager. "In addition, they must undergo a security briefing to learn how to process and not to disclose any sensitive information that they may see.”
Finally, the physical space in NPC's production faciltiy where this work is performed is segregated from the other production areas and has restricted access. The production area for the VA patient invoices is isolated within NPC’s facility, where access is controlled by an automated access control system. Physical access to the area is strictly controlled and requires an access card to gain entry.
NPC developed production and quality assurance procedures to ensure that each unique VA patient invoice is on time and accurate. NPC assigns each invoice item a unique barcode identifier, which allows the VA to query names, addresses and time stamps for individual pieces, as well as the contents of each package. NPC uses specialized inserting equipment that automatically detects pattern abnormalities to ensure that no pages are incorrectly inserted. NPC processes 15-20 orders per month, with individual orders ranging from 20,000 to 200,000 recipients.
Results
After successfully transferring the invoice printing function to NPC, “We focused on helping to improve the quality of communications between the VA and their customers,“ says Will Bowser, NPC's Contract Coordinator for the VA. “NPC analyzed the program objectives and suggested that the VA use their largest mailing as a vehicle to distribute other crucial communications. NPC provided the VA with the option to include additional inserts in the invoice envelopes. In addition, NPC was able to include information based on the specific demographics of a veteran, to meet his or her unique information requirements”.
NPC’s solution has dramatically improved the VA’s communication with its customers and saved thousands of dollars in additional printing and postage costs.
Learn more ...
If you would like to learn more about NPC's customized, integrated solutions, contact an NPC representative today at 800-847-5757 or email info@npcweb.com.