PPBGHelping ENTERPRISE DATA CENTERS

Stay Competitive

C U S T O M E RT E S T I M O N I A L

Creating the plan

“I came from another company where I had agreat experience working with Ricoh, so I knewwhatever solution we decided on, Ricoh wouldbe a part of it,” said Rodney Snider, IT directorfor Blue Bird Corporation. “We had a severalinitiatives from an IT perspective. The systemswere good, but they were legacy systems andwe wanted to move to more automatedprocesses.”

The IT team, led by Snider, looked at every-thing, from its legacy applications, to its leasingprocedures, to the functionality of its lineprinters. When it came to analyzing theproduction printing environment, Sniderunderstood the importance of streamlining thissector of business. He wanted to find the mostcurrent technology available to handle thevolume and the complexity of the documentsthat were a part of the current workflow, as

well as prepare for what would be expectedgoing forward. Snider asked Ricoh’s PPBG tohelp set up a production environment for thevariety of tasks charged to that department.

PPBG’s discovery phase showed that Blue BirdCorporation needed a new comprehensiveprint job manager tool to control workflow,route jobs, and manage print destinationsacross the entire enterprise, based on themigration from an IBM OS/390 Mainframe toa new Client/Server environment with imple-mentation of a new ERP System.

Putting the plan into action

The company decided to install two Ricoh colorprinters, the MP C6000 and the MP C7500and two 1356 black and white printers, aswell as an MP9000 and MP C6000 for tworemote locations.

Setting Industry StandardsLocated in Fort Valley, Georgia Blue Bird Corporation isone of the world’s leading bus manufacturers, deliveringthousands of school and activity buses to the market eachyear. For more than 80 years, Blue Bird Corporation hascontinued to set industry standards with its innovativedesign and manufacturing capabilities.

This includes ensuring the company follows best practicesfrom the front office to the back. So it’s no surprise thatwhen Blue Bird decided to enhance the company’s overallIT production workflow, it turned to Ricoh’s Print ProductionBusiness Group (PPBG) for help.

Blue Bird Corporation

With new workflow

solutions in place,

it became easy to

find ways to enhance

productivity.

�

Ricoh digital printers

make it possible to easily

meet mass-quantity,

high-quality

production demands.

�

The ability to print

near-press quality

makes it possible

for Blue Bird to literally

cut print costs in half.

DATACENTER

w w w. r i c o h - u s a . c o m / p p b g

700 L an i d e x P l a z a • P a r s i p pan y • New J e r s e y 0 7 054 - 2 7 0 5 • 8 77 - 2 1 2 - 6 0 6 4

P R O D U C T I O N P R I N T I N G B U S I N E S S G R O U P

Customer Driven Printing Solutions

At Ricoh we know documents are essential for business. For your business to succeed, and to keep up,

you need to deliver cost-effective, high quality, secure document services. Additionally, you must evolve as

business needs and technologies change, while effectively reaching out to clients with new services

and workflows—and rarely can you do this alone. Call us today at 877-212-6064 or visit us at

www.ricoh-usa.com/ppbg to find out the many ways we can help your business grow and profit.

Think Production. Think Ricoh.

DATA CENTER

C U S T O M E R T E S T I M O N I A L

Additionally, it implemented Solimar® PrintDirector™ Enterprise (SPDE), a client-server-based enterprise output managementsolution to enable host-to-printer connectivity,data stream transforms, and job queuemanagement. PlanetPress software byObjectif Lune was also deployed to enhancethe printing of time sensitive missioncritical documents.

With the new workflow solutions in place,it became easy for Snider to find ways toenhance productivity. The Solimar PrintDirector system enables device compatibilityby connecting host computers with productionprinters that under normal circumstanceswould not interface with each other. Thesystem also allows for incoming data streamsand other resources to automatically convertinto compatible printer languages so they canbe accepted by the target printers and otheroutput destinations.

The PlanetPress Suite adds to this workflowby enabling easy creation, printing, anddistribution of time sensitive mission-criticaldocuments. This includes transactional docu-ments and business forms that integratevariable data, as well as support for advancedautomated workflowmanagement capabilities.

Combined with the upfront solutions, thehigh-speed print engines and robust finishingcapabilities of the Ricoh digital printers makeit possible to easily meet mass-quantity,high quality production demands.

“One of the biggest benefits of the Ricohequipment is the way it is engineered. We areable to do a number of things differentlyand more cost effectively,” notes Snider.

“For example, we have been able to redesignour invoices to eliminate the need to buypre-printed three-part forms. With the Ricohdigital printers, we can now produce and printthree-part forms with colored logos, shading,and other graphic elements using plainwhite paper.”

The cost savings continues

Additionally, Snider was so impressed withthe color quality of the Ricoh color digitalprinters and their ability to actually do bleeds,he offered his department’s services to themarketing department.

“Because the output quality of these machinesare so good, we offered to print the colorbrochures for our marketing and financialservices departments. The ability to printnear-press quality makes it possible for us toliterally cut our company’s print costs in half,”notes Snider.

Satisfaction all around

Snider is equally impressed with theresponsiveness of the PPBG services team tohelp meet the company’s aggressive businessobjectives. “From a service perspective, I havedealt with many printing manufacturers. Ricoh,by far, has the best quality of service and thatis the primary reason we selected them,” saidSnider. Ricoh helped us construct a solutionthat truly meets the needs of our business. Wecould not have accomplished this initiative assuccessfully without them.”

CS-009-01 *All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.