The QMC Group

A full-service commercial printer that has expanded organically and through strategic acquisitions, the QMC Group needs to ensure that production always runs smoothly across a variety of project types and print technologies, even as new talent joins the company and new customer opportunities come their way. The secret to their success: powerful workflow technology from Kodak.

The QMC Group's offerings cover a range of print technologies and substrates to produce direct mail, marketing collateral, and many other commercial print applications. In this competitive market, customers expect consistent high quality and an easy experience, regardless of a job's complexity. To stay competitive and continue to grow, the QMC Group needed a workflow solution that could drive a variety of processes—from their most complicated offset production to simpler digital jobs—and seamlessly unify customers, agencies, and the entire production team. After trying other vendors, they settled on Kodak for the versatility and structure they required.

A package of Kodak prepress software gives the QMC Group tools to streamline their workflow all the way from job onboarding to final delivery, across all their equipment and outputs. Using KODAK PRINERGY Workflow Software and its Rules-Based Automation (RBA) feature, they set up rules to automatically route different job types through the appropriate prepress paths and even archive completed work. This automation establishes consistency and frees staff of many manual tasks. KODAK INSITE Prepress Portal simplifies customer engagement because it lets QMC customers and their agencies upload, proof, and approve jobs on their own, through an easy-to-use, always-available online platform. The portal guides customers through job management so they rarely need help from the production team, and automation rules further speed up the process. The company is continuing to explore new ways to apply RBA, as well as streamlining their offset workflows by transitioning to KODAK SONORA XTRA Process Free Plates to eliminate processing time, effort, and costs.

As the QMC Group has grown, their established workflow infrastructure makes it easy to integrate both new hires and new customers. The INSITE Prepress Portal has proved so successful that today about 90% of their customers use it, many opting for the portal's soft proofing option—bringing the company a 60% reduction in physical proofs and the associated costs. Other resource savings come from the Ink Optimizing Solution of KODAK COLORFLOW Pro Software, which has reduced their ink costs by 30%, and from their shift to process-free platemaking. By standardizing and automating prepress processes with Kodak's help, the QMC Group has freed up staff time and realized productivity gains that can be invested toward continuing to grow the business.