- Hallmark Cards, Inc. -

Hallmark Cards. Inc. says it best with a Fujitsu scanner

Hallmark Cards, Inc. is a goliath greeting card company whose cards are sold in more than 42,000 stores around the United States under brand names such as Hallmark, Shoebox and Ambassador. Currently, Hallmark employs over 18,000 people.

Problem

Hallmark's large size requires that it continuously pay close attention to operational efficiencies to ensure that its content management, business process automation and other processes interconnect flawlessly to ensure that the business operates as it should.

In its ongoing mission to improve efficiency, Hallmark found that the capture, processing and storage of its reorder tickets-recurring customer requests for a standard order-were problematic and inefficient. At the time, Hallmark was using an expensive $250,000 solution that required seven computers and considerable staff involvement. In addition to being expensive and cumbersome, the old system only permitted the scanning of reorder tickets if they were placed face up and properly oriented. Any errors occurring during this process had to be manually corrected, thus reducing productivity by pulling staff away from their other duties. The age of the scanning equipment also rendered it expensive to maintain.

In addition to updating its aged system, Hallmark needed a system that could process the 5,000 to 15,000 reorder tickets that the greeting card company receives daily. In addition, the implemented system would need to be able to capture and process these reorder tickets, which are printed in varying shades of green and are intermittently covered in glitter and dust. The solution also had to be able to capture all of the data and "read" a variety of formats, including check boxes (OMR), machine print (OCR) and hand print (ICR).

Solution

Hallmark realized that it needed to implement a document management system to improve efficiency. A goal that it achieved through the help of Cutting Edge Solutions (CES), a Kansas City, MO based system integrator that Hallmark chose for its reputation for providing efficient imaging solutions while having the best price, experience and reputation.Together, CES and Hallmark set out to create an answer to this problem that would replace Hallmark's aged system with a lower cost, higher accuracy solution. This was accomplished by implementing a Fujitsu fi-4860C scanner based solution that cost less than $70,000. The fi-4860C scanner was chosen for its outstanding paper handing, ease of use, color scanning abilities, high quality, extremely low error rate and value. The scanner's ability to scan both sides of a document in a single pass was also very attractive and this feature enables Hallmark staff to scan 63 pages-per-minute (ppm) and 125 images-per-minute (ipm) in color, grayscale or monochrome at 200dpi. Additionally, the fi-4860C's 500 page automatic document feeder (ADF) is capable of accommodating a wide range of document sizes and the scanner is equipped with ultrasonic double feed detection.

CES also utilized an optional VRS configuration from Kofax for advanced imaging processing technology that includes functions such as automatic cropping, deskew and brightness regulation. The brightness regulation functionality was instrumental in helping Hallmark address reorder ticket shading problems that they had with their previous solution.

Application / Results

The new system proved to be much more efficient and allows one person to do the same amount of work that used to require three people. In addition, the ability to process tickets that are torn, taped, crumpled or not placed in the proper orientation, greatly speeds up the scanning process. Use of Datacap capture software to quickly and accurately read and store information after scanning enabled Hallmark to achieve speedy, high quality images and achieve a 100% return on investment in less than six months. Since implementing its new system, Hallmark has experienced a marked improvement in its turn around time, significant reductions in errors on order entry and a huge decrease in employee time allocated for document functions.