Case Studies

Challenge: 

“The majority of our housings are black and our vendor did not have the option to print white with its digital technology” —Patrick Oltmanns, CEO

ClickFold established a strong and growing business by meeting their customers’ need for fabricated plastic components requiring single-color text and markings. In recent years, however, the increasing demand for parts with multicolor markings prompted the company to outsource their printing requirements to a local screenprinter. 

“This process can be quite expensive depending on the number of colors,” says company founder and CEO, Patrick Oltmanns. “The majority of our housings are black and our vendor did not have the option to print white with its digital technology.” 

ABOUT THE CUSTOMER

Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP is a law firm with global reach known for solving challenging business problems and resolving sophisticated legal issues for many of the world’s largest companies. Founded in 924, the firm handles matters throughout the United States and worldwide. With seven major practice areas — corporate, energy and environmental, financial services, intellectual property, litigation, real estate, and tax — Sutherland attorneys serve a diverse client base that ranges from small and medium-sized start-up businesses to a significant number of Fortune 100 companies.

CHALLENGE

With 400 plus attorneys and offices in Atlanta, Austin, Houston, New York, and Washington DC as well as available office-space in London and a partnership with another firm located in China, Sutherland Asbill, & Brennan LLP recognized the importance of developing an efficient, standardized records management system to house their vast archive of legal documentation. In 2006, Sutherland moved its Records Management function to report into its IT department. According to the Firm’s Director of Client Information and Records Compliance, “When I took over the records function it was quickly apparent that our records handling had developed in an ad hoc manner. This was a source of frustration for many of our team members and in turn was costing the firm literally millions of unnecessary dollars. We needed to develop standardized records management policies and procedures across the firm’s network of offices.”

In 2013 Apple sold more than 170 million iPads® worldwide. With a reported 500 million iPhones® in use along with millions of Samsung® Galaxy phones and a variety of other mobile devices, it goes without saying this market is hot. Likewise, the ensuing demand for peripheral devices, such as headsets, is exploding.

Fujikon, an award-winning headphone manufacturer for over 30 years, is itself on the wild ride of the headset and speaker market for mobile devices. In a market that’s getting more competitive by the day, innovation is a must. The Hong Kong-based Fujikon is no exception, as they are constantly exploring better noise-cancelling functionality, wireless connectivity and sound quality as well as innovating more attractive products and enabling faster time-to-market. In order to survive, these components are all core demands for any major market player.

In 2011 Fujikon had to take the next step forward; they realized that their 200-strong R&D team needed to adopt new practices and technologies in order to enable faster product development. 3D printing was at the top of the list. So in June of the same year, company executives asked a team to review, test and evaluate all the major 3D printing technologies.

As their business grew, Color Ink’s customers began asking for wide and super-wide format graphics and for more complete, turnkey services. To accommodate these new requests, the company started by outsourcing to a couple of local imaging firms. The problem was that the mark-up on these outside purchases was insufficient to keep Color Ink profitable on those types of jobs. They soon realized that in order to stay competitive, they again needed to bring the printing capability in-house. By owning their own press, they could not only pass the savings on to their customers but also have more control over the results and offer better turnaround on jobs.

VUTEk Quality & Speed

After investigating its options, the company purchased its first superwide printer, an EFI VUTEk QS3200 (a 3.2-meter roll-to-roll and flatbed printer) for its high quality and speed. They also invested in the EFI Fiery® XF RIP to help manage pre-press and print quality.

Color Ink had experience with EFI’s Fiery RIP, which drove their direct-mail printing device. “Some full color variable data projects can contain forty different elements changing on each sheet. The robust capabilities of the Fiery RIP allow us to process files quicker and to continue printing while processing. For example, with Fiery on the front end, job processing of a four-color 1,000-record VDP job has, incredibly, been reduced from four hours down to seven minutes,” said Meissner.