Augmenting Warehouse Services with Print on Demand

While Print on Demand (POD) may not be new to the marketplace, it is still often underutilized against its potential value add, either implemented as a standalone program as an alternative to warehoused offset printed materials, or as fully customized collateral.

While both these approaches have their merits, the largest value can be found when POD is used as part of an integrated literature fulfillment program that is inclusive of items that are customized, warehoused, and POD.

The obvious advantages of POD such as reduced obsolescence and zero storage costs are offset against the higher costs of POD per piece costs. Typically POD fits well where customization is high, or usage is low either through high variability, state specific verbiage being a good example, or lower demand, for instance a user manual for a discontinued product.

Where an integrated warehouse and POD program bears fruit is the ability to seamlessly combine shipping of POD with high volume offset literature items and other warehoused materials, such as promotional items and samples. End users are typically unaware of which materials were manufactured between order and shipping. When coupled with a fully automated touchless workflow, turn times on order shipping are comparable to warehouse only orders. Not only are shipping costs reduced through consolidated shipping, but business rules for dynamic decision making can be built into the Warehouse Management System (WMS). This facilitates exciting possibilities such as eliminating backorders, active management of total program costs, and custom kits being built on demand.

Next time you are reviewing your warehouse or print needs make sure you are you are assessing them as a single service, and not looking at them in isolation. Also, rather than focusing solely on overall program cost, spend time understanding how a service provider with all the necessary capabilities across Operations, IT, and Account Management can bring significant value add to your company across the board.

Please contact us if you would like to know more about how POD augmented warehouse services can bring value to your business.

Phone: 800.562.9733.

For more visit: epiinc.com