The challenges before the implementation of Xeproof were many. Primarily the time taken for approval of artworks and to make it print ready was about 3 -4 weeks. The Client followed very stringent review and approval process, spanning upto 6 departments. The amount of volume they handle and frequent changes in the promotional offer, new variants and new product SKUs were mounting pressure on the higher management who signs on the approval physically or via email. Brand Managers who are responsible for the approval, need to chase every departments and their senior team members who are always busy with their responsibilities. This leaves little room for a quicker approval, especially when the regulatory compliance to be ensured by meticulously reviewing the contents and specifications. This often led to delay in supplying artworks to print production firm, derailing the production plan, finally end up in late entry to market. Or delayed delivery of final products in batches or smaller quantities which also put pressure on the supply chain and logistics side, and on cost parameters.
Client wants to have a solution that is seamless across all departments which ensure high visibility when approvals are delayed and wants to speed up review by finding out the bottlenecks. Also want to quickly deliver the print ready files to printer as soon as it is approved. Storage of artworks for re-order or when assigning a new production partner was another set of challenge, where a wrong version of file can create havoc in the entire system.
The Solution
The solution was to implement a robust system for managing the Artwork Ordering and Approval Process connecting all stake holders including the design agencies, Brand team who drives the entire artwork creation and approval process, Design Agencies, Marketing Team, SRA, Legal, QA, Packaging, Public & Corporate Affairs team. It also needs to extend to delivery process and a DAM for all centralized Artwork Assets repository.
Xeproof has been selected to manage the entire challenges outlined by the internal team. The first step was to identify all bottlenecks and to identify the processes and best practices followed internally. Followed by a feature wise mapping of Xeproof with the needs of the stake holders. It is then decided to follow a customized version of Xeproof to suit the processes envisaged by the Client team.
The speed of approval was the primary solution required, the accuracy and no mistakes was the second need, along with visibility and ability to address bottlenecks when an artwork is stuck at any level.
Xeproof is implemented to resolve all the above challenges, and provided extra comfort by ensuring user acceptance because of it’s friendly user interfaces. The UI was extremely simple and dynamic to set the columns based on the user’s preferences.
The Results
The result is visible and helping the brands in more than ways than one. The immediate effect is the reduction in time required to release the artworks from ordering the same. The artwork ordering process became very clear and process oriented, where for each brand and artwork type, there is a pre – defined template approved by responsible team, and same is initiated to designer with supporting documents which makes it easy for designer to prepare artworks. This itself the saves the time of designer and helps to get approval with minimum iterations, saving he reviewers time.
The review and approval became parallel and sequential in structured way. This is helping to complete the approval in minimum time. The features of the Xeproof that helps to configure workflows based on the artwork type, ensure that only relevant departments need to review an artwork. Also ensures that all relevant departments review and gives their approval.
The version control, annotations, department and user wise view of comments, annotations, version comparison features to easily find out mistakes, spelling differences mark up, overlay feature to see the differences are all helping the reviewers. The designer also get clarity of instructions, they see the changes as exactly as marked by the Reviewers. This eliminates the need to communicate the same to designers separately. Reviewers are seeing the annotations and markings exactly from the moment it is done, act as a collaborations tool. The status wise tab views shows the jobs in each status clearly to all stake holders, email notifications are sent out to relevant team members when a status is changed for a Job.
Brand Consistency is ensured through the policies, adopted best business practices across the production cycle of artworks, inefficiencies are weeded out, reduced mistakes in artworks, cost saving and time saving due to reduction of errors. The senior management is spending much lesser time in approval process and spends their time for the core activities they are responsible for.
The number of artworks of Client has increased considerably after the implementation of Xeproof, yet the time taken for approval has come down to one third from earlier. The system helps to manage all approvals without increasing the team for approval. The artworks approved are all available at one place, making it easy to search and share them to printers.