Blue Octopus Partners with Aleyant and P3 Software for a Unique Print Management Solution

Blue Octopus Printing Company (Blue Octopus) is an affiliate of the Anthony Wayne Rehabilitation Center for the Handicapped and Blind (AWRC), a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) company located in Indiana. Other affiliates include Post Masters, a full-service mailing and fulfillment company housed under the same roof as Blue Octopus; DOMA Document Solutions of Indiana, a document conversion division; and Highway Safety Specialists, providing equipment related to highway safety. A key mission of AWRC and its affiliates is to create employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities, including disabled veterans.

Blue Octopus is a printing operation serving AWRC, parent company Benchmark Human Services, and the private sector. It prints for the organization, generates revenues, and provides jobs for disabled workers.

External customers span a number of vertical markets, including hospitals, marketing agencies, insurance companies, and universities. Combined, Blue Octopus and Post Masters employ 100 people, print more than 10 million impressions, and mail more than three million envelopes per month.

Blue Octopus was looking for a robust print procurement solution to support a project with a Midwestern state. The solution needed to efficiently handle fast turnaround work submitted through a web-to-print catalog, as well as custom printing, from a single, user-friendly interface. It needed to be able to manage an extensive list of catalog jobs, as well as transparently manage vended-out work that fell outside of the defined set of standard products. Vended work required three quotes to meet the State’s requirements.

Solution

In doing the market research that enabled Blue Octopus to respond to the State’s Request for Proposal, the company was not able to find an existing solution that could affordably meet all its needs. By creating a joint development project with Aleyant (Booth 11245) and P3 Software (Booth 11739), however, Blue Octopus was able to put together a unique, automated, and streamlined solution that could meet all of the RFP requirements. This included:

P3Expeditor, a software-as-a-service system that establishes a connected workflow for custom print jobs, from job origination through supplier selection, pricing, proposal, order, and tracking key production dates.

Aleyant Pressero web-to-print for printing from an online catalog.

Aleyant PrintJobManager to house the pricing and quoting engine driving the storefront, and automate workflow based on business rules.

“The State project was a significant business opportunity for us,” says Joe McKinney, director at the Anthony Wayne Rehabilitation Center for the Handicapped and Blind (AWRC). “Our existing system of tracking work via email and Excel spreadsheets was clearly not going to be adequate, considering the volume and complexity of work the project would entail. Over the two-year RFP period, we were able to source expertise from Aleyant and P3 Software to create a unique solution that met all of the State’s requirements.”

McKinney explains that there are contracted prices for a number of items that can be ordered through the Pressero storefront. “Anything contracted out, outside of that catalog,” he says, “requires three quotes to comply with State regulations, designed to avoid nepotism or unethical behavior. By integrating Pressero, PrintJobManager, and P3Expeditor, we have been able to automate that process. Anything not in the catalog that is submitted as a custom job is handed off to P3 without human intervention in an automated process. Once quotes are returned, the State determines who will receive the award, and the job is then tracked through Pressero. This gives us an audit trail and the ability to generate the detailed reports required by the State.”

Pressero is the consolidation point for all of the data. “PrintJobManager houses the pricing and quoting engine that drives the storefront. “This gives us the capabilities to align resources and set up business rules,” McKinney adds. “For example, if we have multiple business lines or printers, we can automate the process to always send a certain job to a specific press without preflight or manual intervention.” Also important to Blue Octopus is the support provided by Aleyant. “The associate that manages the storefront is tech savvy,” McKinney notes, “and he gets on the phone with Aleyant to kick ideas around and solve problems, or improve the system.”

“The State implementation is unique in the way it prices things so we needed some customization to comply with that,”  McKinney  says. “Aleyant has been very dedicated and open, and scheduled weekly meetings during the implementation process to get us up and running. We need less support now, since it is easy to add new items, or copy and modify an existing item. But if we do need help, they are always there for us.”