That was the enviable position for the management team at Capita Document & Information Services when the operation was given the go-ahead to proceed with a major investment in a new transactional print facility in Mansfield.
With such freedom – no technological baggage, no existing kit to move or to have to work around – come some pretty hefty responsibilities. There could be no excuses if the layout or choice of equipment were to be subsequently found wanting.
The challenge
Divisional director David Lockie explains that Capita’s print operations grew out of its shareholder services division. It subsequently took on Birmingham City Council’s print requirements, and created a print management division. More council inplants followed.
Lockie, who took over the division five years ago, could see there was a bigger opportunity for Capita. “The majority of our turnover, via the print management business, was outsourced to other providers such as Communisis, Orchestra and DST,” he explains. “You can only have so much control over suppliers, and I wanted us to be in total control for our clients. That was key to us, especially for things like data protection.”
In addition, for Capita’s very large group sales bids, such as for TV licensing, the document aspect had also been outsourced.
Lockie spent the first 18 months of his tenure improving quality and print integrity at the Birmingham facility, which has mono and colour cut-sheet facilities as well as Pitney Bowes and Neopost kit. “We didn’t do 2D barcodes at the time,” he recalls. The site also gained APACS accreditation.
But the volume of work was too great for the Birmingham site to be able to handle everything, so in late 2011 Lockie decided the firm needed to either acquire an existing business, or build something of its own.
Potential acquisition targets were rejected, either due to inflated expectations over valuations or other issues in the business, says Lockie.
As a result the business case was made for Capita to set up a new white paper facility of its own.
The method
When it came to Capita’s ambitions for the facility, the bar was set high. A ‘white paper in’ solution for printed documents does away with the need for the storage and management of pre-printed header stock, and this type of solution has already been adopted by a number of transactional printers.
However, Capita’s plans also extended to doing away with the need for separate envelopes, as well.
“We needed to be state-of-the-art and innovative. We wanted something that had differentiation in the market,” says Lockie.
Operations director Richard Hooper was tasked with looking into every aspect of the new plant in minute detail.
As the choice of equipment supplier was narrowed down, Capita’s interest in the Xerox Impika inkjet engine necessitated a trip to the US, as there were no European sites using the Impika kit in a way that would be a relevant comparison for its planned implementation.
“Reference-ability was an issue. But when we went to the States we saw lots of interesting things, including robotics,” Lockie recalls.
After narrowing down the potential suppliers to three, then two, Capita finalised what it considered to be a “best of breed” solution: two Xerox Impika print engines, a Reference and an Evolution; with CMC JWR 30K paper wrapping.
The main difference between the two Impikas is speed, as both are capable of full-colour duplex printing. The Reference prints up to 1,024ppm, the Evolution up to 2,048ppm. Both can also be upgraded to run even faster.
Conversely, one of the important aspects of the system is that it can also run slowly – advantageous when it comes to reducing waste. “We can creep along at one metre a minute if we want to,” Hooper says.
A GMC workflow drives the system and Capita has also deployed an Ironside management information system that monitors every mail piece produced, from composition to the point when it goes out into the postal system.
The lines also include Hunkeler paper handling and dynamic perforating, a high-speed Tecnau cutter, and Hunkeler WI6 web inspection.
“It is checking colour integrity and 2D barcodes front and back, so every piece is a good mail piece and 100% accurate,” explains Hooper. “It is also checking the content within the letter, for example the correct address and the correct amount on the bill.
“It is a vitally important piece of kit for us.”
A Lake Image Systems scanning system photographs every completed pack, which is time stamped.
Additional Impika heads are used for printing custom details onto business reply envelopes, which are fed in along with other inserts via nine selective insert hoppers.
The company’s house stock is 90gsm Mondi DNS, chosen for its slightly bulkier feel and the quality of the end result.
Configuring the entire system, which effectively enables ‘lights out’ printing, was a highly complex task. “The hardest bit was engaging the software with the machinery. That involved six months’ of development work with our engineers and GMC’s,” Lockie notes.
“There was a rigorous testing period, before we went live,” he adds. “We printed hundreds of thousands of pieces to test the integrity of the system. I don’t think they expected us to test it as much as we did – Xerox said it was the most arduous deal they’d ever done!”
The total investment of some £17m also included equipping the site (an existing industrial unit that was refurbished by Capita) with the necessary fencing, security gates, CCTV and physical security staff to meet the exacting IL3 standard required by central and local government.
The result
Capita went live at the new facility in October 2014. Earlier this year it successfully negotiated a major landmark – completing all the annual billing work required by its local authority clients.
The solution is functioning as envisaged, giving Capita the highly automated, flexible production options it had envisaged. Data lies at the heart of the system, and the firm can co-mingle jobs, for example by ‘injecting’ a short-run job into a long-run one, rather than having to wait for one run to end, or interrupt it manually. It can also produce hybrid mail products.
A single pack takes less than 30 seconds to go through all the production stages, with 100% integrity, reports Hooper.
The paper wrap allows the firm to ‘nudge’ people to look at relevant documents by personalising the outers. And by coding the BREs, the firm can know what is in the envelope being returned without having to actually open it.
“The only difference between a paper wrap and an ordinary envelope is that it has no seams. There is very little hand involvement here, the machines do the work so we are removing the potential for human error,” he notes.
Capita has also developed a flexible workforce to go with its flexible print set-up. “We have a multi-skilled workforce. The people who run the Impikas can drive a forklift, and the people who run the CMCs are being trained to run the Impikas, and vice versa. We are not creating pigeonholes for people.”
There’s more to come. Hooper says the firm’s digital roadmap is “quite far advanced” over the next couple of years and Capita has the potential to expand the capabilities of the existing set-up. “We didn’t want the technology to have reached the end of its life in a couple of years. This has been built with the future in mind,” he notes.
And with only around a third of the 8,450m2 space in Mansfield currently occupied, there is plenty of room for further expansion. “I’m keen for this facility to be a one-stop shop – it will have an inbound document facility as well (the Bell & Howell system can also sort incoming mail), and a warehouse for managed print services and logistics.
By the end of the year Capita aims to have migrated all of its previously outsourced document production into its own facilities.
“Where possible we’re trying to transform the work to create savings and efficiencies, and that’s where it will come into this factory,” Lockie concludes. “We are here to be a bit of a game-changer.”
VITAL STATISTICS
Capita Document & Information Services
Location Mansfield, Nottinghamshire
Inspection host Divisional director David Lockie
Size Turnover (of division): £115m; staff (at Mansfield) 50
Products Transactional print, bills, certificates, transpromo
Kit Xerox Impika Reference and Evolution high-speed inkjet webs, Hunkeler paper handling and web inspection, Tecnau cutter, CMC JWR 30K paper wrapping, Bell & Howell Apex mail sorter, GMC workflow, Lake Image Systems reporting, Ironside management information
Inspection focus Setting up a ‘white paper in’ transactional print facility
TOP TIPS
Capita decided to install the first Xerox Impika webs in the UK at its facility, which could have been a risk. But it only did so after a rigorous testing and evaluation process.
Think about possible future requirements. With such a significant investment, it was important that the equipment’s performance could be upgraded in future and would not be obsolete in just a few years.
Cross-train your workforce. Avoid creating a situation where people only work in pigeonholes by having a multi-skilled workforce that can work flexibly across different tasks and operations.
When setting up a new facility, build in space for future expansion even if you don’t know what that expansion might be just yet.
Make sure your chosen site is appropriate if the operation will require special features such as security fencing and secure access.
Plan in sufficient time for rigorous testing before a new system goes into live production.
