Interform & First Move Direct handling the entire document workflow

Macfarlane Packaging is a market leading packaging company. It is focused on the distribution of a wide range of packaging consumables and the design and manufacture of bespoke transit packaging.

Joseph Fostervold Enterprise Solutions Manager at Macfarlane Packaging was looking to replace their windows print solution.

Their current solution was no longer supported. The product did not offer PDF facilities and had limitations to their needs. Macfarlane wanted a product that resided on the IBM Power i as they had existing hardware and in-house skills. They were unaware that such a solution existed until they contacted Spacetec.

Joseph contacted Spacetec who specialise in IBM Power i (AS/400) software, providing leading solutions for all requirements including Intelligent Output Management.

Spacetec offered InterForm400 which handles the entire document workflow of the IBM Power i.

InterForm allowed Macfarlane to use their existing hardware and in house knowledge for their print management solution. The biggest interest that Joseph had in InterForm software was the fact it was a solution on the IBM Power i . This gave Macfarlane the ability to have total control of their printing application. The initial install was on an IBM 520/7452 operating V5R2, they have since moved to a 520/8350 operating V6R1 and have recently upgraded to their latest ERP System, no changes were required on InterForm and the software transfer was seamless.

First Move have over 200 years of combined direct mail marketing expertise, state of the art mailing software, experience with IBM i platforms, large printing facilities, 1000 pallets of storage and much more.

Every day First Move download data from Macfarlane SFTP website. By 1:15pm the data is received as a single PDF for each document. The data is then split into invoices, reminders and statements.

A job record is raised and the PDFs are analysed in order that they can ascertain the number of PDFs and the number of A4 images received.

The individual PDF documents are maintained in order then run through Xerox free flow software to produce print files, which are stacked, sorted and formatted.

All the printed documents are then allocated into envelopes ensuring that they minimise postage costs. All documents are dispatched at 4pm via Royal Mail downstream access supplier.

Macfarlane underwent a six-month project to install, develop and implement the InterForm solution. Document design knowledge is now in-house and amendments to documents can be made quickly without any reliance on external resources.

Joseph Fostervold states; The introduction of Spacetec and First Move to Macfarlane has significantly improved our printing and mailing solution. As a market leading packaging company our focus needs to be on supplying packaging solutions to our customers not the printing and mailing of documents. The InterForm product resides on our i-series, reducing hardware costs and network traffic, First Move reduces our printing and mailing costs by managing this activity at the First Move premises.