As part of their Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operation, Data One Services Sdn Bhd (DATAONE) is the leading print-to-post service provider in Malaysia by volume, producing over 60M envelopes annually. DATAONE offers a wide range of managed services from data capture, document composition, transactional, transpromo and direct mail print production and management.
In 2008, Data One Services, in collaboration with Impressive Communications SD Bhd, won a major contract with Telekom Malaysia (TM) to take over the print and mail assets and operations from TM Cyberprint, a unit under IT Shared Services Operations of Telekom Malaysia. A key condition was to ensure the contract delivered ongoing operational improvements and associated cost savings. This is where DATAONE's proven track record in delivering cost effective and innovative solutions, tailored to fully meet TM's business needs was a major competitive advantage. In 2012, DATAONE transferred TM's document production to their new, purpose-built document factory.
Once assuming full responsibility of managing TM's transactional data, print and mail operations, the DATAONE's Team, led by Mr. Ahmad Faridun bin Hamzah, Director of Operations, set to work in driving the overall effectiveness and efficiency of TM's document production.
The production of documents outside TM's premises introduced fresh challenges for DATAONE. One was the need to collect accurate, real-time production data of all pages, envelopes and jobs produced at every step of the production process. Critically, TM needed a detailed audit trail file by job, confirming the number of pages printed and envelopes handed over to the Malaysian Postal Service - POS Malaysia. In addition, TM wanted to load this data into their Call Centre system for managing customer queries relating to missing or delayed telephone bills. This audit data would be the basis for invoicing TM and so it was paramount that an effective, low-cost solution be found.
Another was an issue related to TM's Telephone bills. Occasionally, a payment barcode printed on the bill (normally scanned at TM's Payment Kiosk) could not be read, resulting in payments being delayed and negatively impacted customer satisfaction. The problem was traced to the printers, where an inkjet-head problem could cause the barcode to have marks and streaks, rendering them unreadable.
Many of the solutions Mr. Ahmad Faridun investigated required significant capital investment in buying new printer and inserter hardware as well as implementing sophisticated MIS data management software. Mr. Ahmad Faridun turned to a number of bolt-on vision based systems providers but only Lake Image Systems was able to fully meet all their requirements. With over 20 years of experience in providing high speed document integrity and print quality inspection systems, Lake Image quickly understood the requirements and proposed a solution that would not only meet DATAONE's immediate requirements but also those in the future as markets change.
The Discovery System from Lake Image provided all the components for a cost-effective solution that DATAONE needed. The Discovery MultiScan bolt-on, vision based system was installed on all printers and inserters for scanning each and every page for integrity or print quality issues. All these MultiScan systems were networked to a Discovery Enterprise Server which tracked and traced all jobs, across all devices end-to-end and took appropriate actions to divert suspect items at the inserter and flag them for reprinting. More importantly, Enterprise maintained a detailed database providing an audit trail for every job. This enabled DATAONE to create audit reports required to invoice TM accurately and on a timely basis. Additionally the data was fed into TM's CRM systems to support their call centre operations. The payment barcode was also read and inspected at the printer, and if unreadable Enterprise would track the failed piece and divert at the Inserter for closer inspection and reprint if necessary.
Meeting TM's requirements enabled DATAONE to take on more work from this important client but also gave them a platform to expand their service offerings, helping them to win an impressive list of new clients. The solution also brought significant efficiencies to their operations such as workload balancing of jobs across multiple inserter lines reducing overall processing time and improving their SLAs. As Mr. Ahmad Faridun puts it "The Lake Image implementation of Discovery Enterprise streamlined the production of critical documents – reducing our SLA from 6 to 3 days. We are now able to process the same amount of volume with fewer people and resources."
Going forward, Mr. Ahmad Faridun is already scoping out his next improvement project - Return Mail. With over 5% of mail being returned, Lake Image is evaluating an automated electronic return mail tracking and reconciliation solution, to replace a manual process and deliver further operational efficiencies and further increase bottom-line profits for DATAONE.
