21st Century Chooses IPS for Improving Printed Customer Communications

Business Wire, June 18, 2007

New End-to-End Document Management Solution Improving Operational Integrity While Lowering Print Run Time and Costs at 21st Century Insurance

BOULDER, Colo. -- 21st Century Insurance Group has implemented an end-to-end document workflow management solution from InfoPrint Solutions Company. (IPS), the new joint venture between IBM and Ricoh.

Based on the IPS InfoPrint Workflow (IPW) offering, the solution has significantly improved printed customer communications integrity by tracking each individual mailpiece through the complete print/mail process and providing the automated reprint of any documents lost or damaged during inserting. Additionally, by helping to replace cut-sheet printers with high-speed continuous forms printers and outdated inserters with new file-based inserters, it has reduced print run times by 75% while automating the tracking and reporting of each step of the entire operation.

These process improvements have enabled 21st Century Insurance Group to increase its already high customer satisfaction levels, and to meet future state and Federal communications compliance requirements as well as reduce overall costs.

"We are extremely pleased with the solution that InfoPrint Solutions Company designed and built for us," said Jim Chalker, Director of IT at 21st Century Insurance Group. "The InfoPrint solution enabled us to replace a number of existing systems, improve operational efficiency and increase our printing speeds. Better yet, the solution can adapt and grow to meet our future needs."

21st Century used IPW to fully implement IPS's advanced InfoPrint 4100 Advanced Function Printing System as well as Kern's Multimailer 2500 high-speed inserters. IPW takes care of converting print data from the proprietary Xerox Metacode format to AFP, the industry standard for high-volume transaction print; adding 2-d barcodes to the pages; and generating the necessary inserter control files for "file-based" Kern inserters - all without any modifications to existing mainframe print-generation programs.

"Because 21st Century Insurance Group is a direct-to-consumer insurance provider, its mass printed communications are a critical customer touch-point; but like many fast-growing companies, internal print/mail operation had not grown in sophistication as the company's customer base grew," said Jay Robinson, Senior Consultant at InfoPrint Solutions Company. "We designed and delivered an end-to-end document workflow and output management solution that moved them in a few weeks from the traditional 1980's mainframe-driven operation with 'clipboard and whiteboards' as their primary management tools to a leading edge 'automated document factory.' Their IPS ADF gives them a more sophisticated customer communication infrastructure than that found in insurance companies many times their size."

About InfoPrint Solutions Company

InfoPrint Solutions Company, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, will bring to market the advantages IBM and Ricoh have in development, manufacturing, marketing and building strategic solutions for customers, creating a growth-oriented global enterprise that is strategically focused on the output market.

The InfoPrint Solutions Company portfolio includes solutions for production printing for enterprises and commercial printers as well as solutions for office workgroup environments and industrial segments. The company offers customers the highest quality output solutions that optimize productivity by providing efficient workflow and, at the same time, delivering low cost of ownership and high return on investment. Please visit www.infoprint.com for more information.