Experian streamlines processes for complex document production

Overview

A leader in credit reporting and direct marketing, Experian maintains credit information on over 200 million consumers and 14 million businesses, as well as demographic data on most U.S. households.

The organization provides address information for more than 20 billion promotional mail pieces to over 100 million households every year. And with all of that personal and financial data, enters a slew of strict guidelines to comply with.

Business challenge

With nearly 2 billion pieces of mail shipping annually from Experian’s mail processing centers, the company needed to find a solution that would help it simplify a highly complex document production process. In particular, Experian was looking for a solution that would help reduce data programming requirements, increase flexibility in the document generation process to allow for the production of highly customized customer correspondence, and simplify the overall document production workflow.

Solution

Peak process performance with EngageOne Compose

To address the need for flexible and scalable document automation technology, Experian relied on the combined expertise of Precisely and Océ. The partnership pairs highspeed Océ digital printing with EngageOne Compose composition software from Precisely to create a manageable, productive document factory. “We use EngageOne Compose to produce Experian’s personalized consumer credit reports,” said Steve Mears, Experian’s IT Director.

With the implementation of the EngageOne Compose solution, Experian can compose and preview documents on the desktop prior to printing. The company is able to generate Advanced Function Printing (AFP) by unit testing the application fully before executing EngageOne Compose on the mainframe. According to Mears, “Experian also uses the EngageOne Compose post-production engine to handle specific finishing requirements such as Optical Mark Recognition reprints, outsorting and other functions best performed after pages are composed.”

The EngageOne Compose production engine runs under Microsoft Windows and IBM OS/400 and can generate multiple outputs. EngageOne Compose generates AFP, which is sent to the Océ FlexServer systems. In addition to AFP, Océ handles a variety of other print data formats without conversion issues or rewriting of applications. The FlexServer system uses Océ PRISMA document management capabilities to route documents to the appropriate printers.

Experian has nine Océ printers, ranging from PageStream 372 models to four 466 duplex units and two DemandStream models for on-demand output. “The Océ FlexServer lets us transfer data from the offsite mainframe,” explained Mears. “We can bring print images in from the mainframe as soon as they are available, so we have them onsite and ready when we need to print.”

Whether it’s sensitive credit information or personalized direct mail, effectiveness depends on accuracy and quality. Precisely and Océ have brought together best-of-breed components that have helped Experian maintain the highest levels of performance on a daily basis.