Document Projects. Marketing & Customer Communications Management

The Automated Document Factory – Maintaining Mail Integrity September 25, 2008

The Automatic Document Factory (ADF) as a concept has been around since at least the mid-90’s. In it’s truest sense, it has been slow to gain ground.

The idea of the ADF is to provide a file oriented check in which the integrity of document factory operation can be assured. In a properly managed ADF, documents should always mail to the individual that they were intended. There should no embarassing errors such as placing another individuals statements in envelope’s. It also ensures that everything is finished and posted. In it’s most advanced state, this tracking then continues into the postal service.

In theory therefore, a individuals document can be tracked from the data inception stage right through to the moment it arrives at the customers letterbox.

Pitney Bowes and Kern, both providers of the large envelope inserter platforms probably have the most significant capabilities. Due to its investment in software companies, Pitney Bowes is likely the most advanced of these two companies.

How is the ADF achieved?

First lets consider the steps in the process in a banking organisation with a print job where the print file is generated by a composition engine.

1. A core banking application kick’s off a batch job, lets call it April Statements. This batch job produces the data necessary to generate 100,000 statements.

2. Using a factory / process workflow tool, the data job is collected and registered as a live job within the ADF. The data job is passed to a document composition engine in line with the factory schedule.

3. On receipt of the data file, the composition engine then recognises the job and starts the process of creating the document print file. Following a set of rules, the documents are generated whilst at the same time, a side file, or integrity file is generated. This is usually a 5 – 7 field file that contains information about each individual mailpiece. Importantly, the composition engine will also apply a mark such as an OMR mark to the document so that downstream hardware is able to recognise the mailpiece utilising camera technology. As each document is generated, the side file is populated.

4. Upon completion of the composition step, the file is then passed to a print server together with it’s side file. The ADF Workflow control software kick’s off a print job. The printer with camera attached checks off each item as it is printed, verifying number of pages printed for each mail item. The side file is checked off to confirm that individual mail pieces have been printed.

5. Once printed, the physical job is then passed to an envelope inserting platform. The job is started within the workflow system and then by using camera technology on board the inserter, each mailpiece is recognised and understood. By understood this means that the inserter recognises the mailpiece and what needs to be done with it. The questions that the inserter will be resolving will be things such as: Do I need to outsort this? What inserts need to go in this mailpiece? How many pages in this mailpiece? With various checks and controls in place, the inserter then processes the job, again doing exactly what the print job was doing evaluating it’s processing of every mailpiece and recording it’s actions in the side/integrity file.

With a big job of say 100,000 mail pieces it is likely that some items will get spoiled. The inserter will know this and will record this in the integrity file. At the end of the job or during the job, those items that haven’t been completed will then be passed back to the start of the process, the documents re-generated, printed and re-inserted. This looped process continues until the ADF software is satisfied that every item has been completed.

In actual fact this integrity can continue either through internal post sorting systems or via the mail. In reality, many postal service providers do not yet have the technology to execute in this area.

The company is assured of reliable delivery of mail whilst there also remains an audited process so that customer complaints and other issues can be identified, verified and resolved.