We are now processing our mail volumes in less time and getting the mail in the mail stream faster, so we are hitting our 24-hour SLAs with plenty of time to spare. We are also saving substantial sums in postage, paper and labor, and the closed-loop processing system vastly improves accuracy.
— Dave Scicchitano
Vice President
IT Service Delivery
PHEAA
PHEAA Sets a New Standard in Higher Education with Pitney Bowes Solutions
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The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) is a 40-year old organization that is a powerhouse in its industry. PHEAA is the nation’s fourth largest guarantor of the US Department of Education’s Federal Family Education Loan Program, the third largest student loan agency, and the ninth largest student loan holder.
In an effort to better serve its students, and to avoid potential problems, PHEAA needed to streamline and consolidate their processes and upgrade their technologies. By doing this, PHEAA could capture the full benefits of their emerging enterprise-wide approach to running their business and managing customer messaging.
The Challenge
Get Out of the Silo
PHEAA and its print/mail finishing operation were hampered by the silo structure. The company operated two separate production sites, one for print and one for mail finishing. This silo approach only added complexity to the job of effectively communicating with clients and customers.
Variety is Not Always Best
In an effort to please multiple customers with a variety of offerings, PHEAA tried to be too many things to too many people. For example, PHEAA inventoried scores of different outgoing envelope styles. This only resulted in application change-overs, production stoppages, mailpiece errors, and deadline struggles.
Assistance is Critical
Operating three shifts a day, five days a week, and processing more than 100,000 mailpieces daily across more than two dozen applications, PHEAA needed expert assistance to overhaul their entire customer messaging operation.
Seven Factors to Success
PHEAA identified seven goals that were key to their improvement effort.
- Customer Intimacy — know our customers’ needs completely
- Enterprise Service — serve all of our customers as one organization
- A Common Culture — collaborate with each other, challenge the status quo, and focus on the ultimate goal
- Flawless Execution — get it right the first time
- Entrepreneurial Mindset — value motivation, be nimble, and take calculated risks
- Unyielding Tenacity — focus on the business and maximize ROI
The Solution
Advice from the Experts
PHEAA turned to a team of messaging specialists from Pitney Bowes, who helped design and implement a highly-coordinated solution encompassing software, application, and workflow expertise, along with hardware from multiple vendors.
A Successful Mix of Hardware and Software
PHEAA’s innovative solution consists of a coordinated mix of hardware and software from Pitney Bowes. The customized solution consists of Inserting Systems equipped with state–of–the–art Direct Connect file-based processing reporting and control system, high-tech printers, automated paper handling systems, StreamWeaver print stream engineering software, and Finalist software for address cleansing.
Under One Roof
For PHEAA, combining the print and mail finishing operations into a single, climate-controlled building instantly bolstered performance by eliminating the delay and cost of trucking printed materials between two sites.
The Benefit
A Fresh Look Reaps Big Rewards
After a thorough analysis, Pitney Bowes Workflow Solutions specialists recommended more than three-dozen specific improvements. PHEAA accepted virtually all of them and has boosted their overall performance by roughly 25%. Two key improvements — the need for better security for incoming mail and the relocation of the reprographics unit to achieve a more streamlined workflow — emerged simply because PHEAA took a fresh look at the entire operation from start to finish.
Reducing Errors and Saving Money
PHEAA assured mailpiece accuracy and dramatically reduced errors through the combination of StreamWeaver print stream engineering software and the Direct Connect file-based processing reporting and control system. Plus, the closed-loop process accommodates last minute changes, enabling PHEAA to save money–and bolster customer relations — by omitting redundant mailings.
Cleansing One Address at a Time
PHEAA is gaining immense dividends from its use of Finalist postal software for address cleansing. Now, the address of every mailpiece is cleansed, the entire volume is shipped to a presort service, and PHEAA saves an estimated $2 million a year in postage costs.
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