PRODUCTION LIMITATIONS
Our unique service is provided with huge technical challenges.
A standard magazine`s pages are individually designed and then positioned in software to ensure that the pages will print and bind in the correct sequence.
Graphic designers do the artwork for each page. A magazine of 148 pages may have 3 graphic designers working on it during a month before it is ready for print.
The Homecare project is unique. CSE Services, an IT company with unique development abilities, developed advanced software that design one page to be printed once!
8 Page personalized magazines
CSE Services developed the software so that it can be used to source leads from people who visit companies in their reception areas as well. We haven’t included this section on the website as part of our lead sourcing strategies, but it will be implemented on a smaller scale to provide CSE a legal point on why they can only support a small team. CSE can explain that the total production limitations force them to plan well. They might need to increase production on the 8 page magazines to support the other businesses in the network and the patients better. It is not only the challenges to print magazines for motor companies that needs to be looked at.
A client/company receives only one magazine. The magazine consists of 8 personalized pages. The software is programed to print up to 60 000 individualized magazines per month.
The CSE software will design 480 000 individual pages when 60 000 individualized magazines are required to help the Homecare Foundation.
This project evolved over a four-year period. The CSE IT team started with smaller projects and eventually were able to build software with the latest advanced features. (CSE started their software development to support the motor industry)
You can approach any media company today, possibly anywhere in the world, and they will not take on such a huge challenge.
There has never been a need, to manipulate media into such a well-planned structure to help only a certain number of companies per industry.
CSE also include Google map technology into their software that make the service really advanced.
We want to explain just a few examples. This will give readers a better understanding why we make our statement… This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!
Cover page
Cover inside left page
Page 03
Page 04
First 4 cover pages
Followed by latest magazine content in middle
Followed by last 4 cover pages at back of magazine
Page 177
Page 178
Cover inside back page
Back cover page
We explain technical challenges on 4 pages. Remember, magazines consist with up to 8 pages and each of the 8 pages per magazine differs. This service is not humanly possible. Every page has technology functions specifically programmed to support the content.
The following pages are explained in short:
Cover page
The software was originally developed to support individualized photos with content pertaining to a specific industry. At a later stage, CSE developed a function where they can print a corporate picture of a motor vehicle if the client wasn’t photographed when he/she took delivery of his/her vehicle.
CSE’s latest upgrade is to use the original magazine lay-out (exactly the one that is distributed by the magazine companies into outlets nationally) and to add a heading printed on the cover where the Homecare Foundation inform the readers that the company they are visiting supports bedridden patients.
Example: Cape Pillars Boutique Hotel supports bedridden patients.
Inside left cover page
The original software was designed so companies can print personalized letters to their clients, thanking them for their business.
The latest version of the software use Google map technology with data about the companies who receive the magazines.
The front page supports an “editorial” page where the Foundation informs the reader that the personnel working at the company are involved to help bedridden patients. Remember, we need to sell the people/individuals as human beings with a kind heart.
In this example, we designed an editorial for a magazine to be delivered to Cape Pillars Boutique Hotel.
The editorial starts with “The Home Care Foundation is proud to be affiliated with Cape Pillars Boutique Hotel. It is people like Samantha Strause and her team that make the Foundation’s task so much easier to fulfil.”
The editorial also explains the services of the Homecare Foundation and we mention the partnership with the fuel station in the company’s area.
The software was designed in such a manner that the business who receives the magazine will have options to choose graphic lay-outs on which the editorials can be printed. There will be numerous lay-outs and the business owners can choose a lay-out they prefer for a specific month.
This makes the software development into the front-page section really complicated. CSE need to print one magazine for the specific business, and they also need to be able to print all the business owner’s names in the editorial.
Inside back cover page:
CSE’s initial software only catered for a “static” advertisement of the company that ordered magazines for their clients.
CSE needed to find a way to advertise the fuel station and the fitment centre in their local areas. CSE use Google map technology to determine which accommodation companies should receive media content of which fuel station and which fitment service centre.
The software also needs to print information about the employee of the month on behalf of fuel station partners. Some fuel stations have other businesses on their premises as well (example: Wimpy, Steers etc.).
The Homecare Foundation provides unique services to the fuel station partners. The Foundation helps them to encourage their staff so that the staff will provide exceptional service. The staff can compete in National competitions where they can win holiday trips.
The Foundation also rewards the staff member per fuel station with media recognition into companies surrounding the fuel station. The staff member might be working at the Wimpy and not at the forecourt. Al these options need to be managed by software.
Back cover page:
CSE’s original code only supported a static advertisement of the company that ordered a magazine.
They changed the software to print an advertisement on behalf of the Homecare Foundation. It would have been a small change if they only printed a static ad for all the magazines nationally.
The Homecare Foundation offers marketing support to estate agents who also work in smaller areas. The partnership with estate agents is beneficial to the Foundation and towards the fuel station owners. (These people spend large amounts on fuel for their work)
The Foundation helps estate agents to secure “sole mandates”. The magazines are essential to provide media coverage for sole mandate properties.
Challenges of printing the back cover page ad: The Homecare Foundation may perhaps receive 15 sole mandate properties from one estate agency. The Foundation may have 30 business partners (different companies in other industries) that receive personalized magazines in the estate agency’s marketing area. The business partners may order 65 magazines in total, and the 65 magazines is a combination made up of 22 different magazine titles.
The 15 sole mandate properties are marketed between 7 estate agents. If you open the back-page ad you will view a picture of one property, with relevant detail such as price, area etc. You will also see that an agent (with his photo) needs to be contacted to arrange viewing.
The CSE software will have to plan that the 15 sole mandate properties are advertised into all the partnering companies’ magazines, and that it is spread amongst all the magazine titles.
To print 8 individualised pages into one magazine and ensure everything is related is a HUGE HUGE challenge….
Other magazines produced to source funding for bedridden patients:
Motor client’s magazines
It is worth explaining some of the technical challenges regarding the designs. The software is designed to support motor Sales Executives. The Foundation relies on the motor industry to provide for caretakers.
CSE only print four cover pages for motor industry clients. There are numerous focus points on the four individual pages per magazine. (Cover page, inside front page, inside back page and the back cover page)
We don’t want to involve you with all the technical detail, but if we give you an overall view, you will have a better understanding why services can’t be offered to unlimited motor companies.
For example, there are literally hundreds of vehicle models. The content (press release detail) of the vehicles will be valid for short periods. New models are introduced regularly. CSE have to include pictures (that the manufacturer supplies) with the editorial detail about the vehicle. They also have to print a write-up about the Sales Executive. (All on one page)
The write-up about the Sales Executive also needs to be updated on a monthly basis. For example, if they write about the Sales Executive’s little daughter Amy, who is 9 months old, they need to update it in the following month’s magazine that Amy is 10 months old!
CSE is gearing up to support +1 400 motor Sales Executives nationally selling all the major vehicle brands. CSE therefore needs to manage 1 400 editorials about the Sales Executives. Those editorials must be linked to hundreds of vehicle models that are available.
Production challenges
CSE Services prepare to print up to 60 000 individualised magazines within a 5 day window period!
It is one thing to prepare the artwork for the covers; it is another to actually print the cover page and to put it onto a magazine!
It is laboured intense. Software makes most of the work possible. You must realize that each magazine CSE produces also needs hand labour.
To print a normal magazine, the printers include in their setup planning what they refer to as waste. They will for example print 1000 copies more than ordered. The printers need to get the colour balancing of their printing machines in order, before they start to print the content on paper on a large scale. They must also align the binding machines so that the covers line up perfectly with the content pages inside the magazines. Thereafter they can start with the binding process.
Strategic business partners
CSE use two strategic partners for the project
C2 Digital Printers
CSE supply C2 Digital Printers with all the artwork of the individualized magazines. C2 Digital Printers print one cover that must be glued and bounded onto one magazine. The magazine thereafter needs to be trimmed.
It is specialized labour intense work and one binding machine with an operator is only able to produce + 350 magazines per day.
C2 Digital Printers use different binding companies in the Western Cape for the project. It will be pushing all the companies to their production limits when the Foundation needs to print and bind 60 000 individualized magazines in one week.
Bernard Hendricks and his team at C2 Digital Printers are truly special people with a passion to help the patients. They are tasked with the most challenging part of the project.
C2 Digital Printers also offers 2.5% on quotations that they receive via the Homecare infrastructure to the Homecare Foundation. Management of CSE has been working with the printing industry (other projects) since 2006. Although most of the printing companies offer excellent services, it is not often that you meet a team as dedicated as the people working at C2 Digital printers.
The Homecare Board can without any doubt recommend the company. We will also appreciate it if companies might need business cards, flyers or any other print related work, to ask for none obligated quotation. Please send a mail to C2 Digital via the link. C2 Digital Printers will deliver nationally.
The Homecare Foundation will appreciate the additional income. Remember, that every little amount we can raise will help us in future. We work hard to earn as little as R10 per action.
The motor industry and the property industry’s magazines will in future be produced on a daily basis, except during one week’s printing schedules that are earmarked to support the other business partners. The magazines to be delivered to other businesses needs to be completed within a week, to ensure that Courier IT deliver the magazines to the companies on the same day the magazines become available in outlets for the public to purchase.
The production process will reach its critical mass during 2017. The motor and property companies’ magazines will be put on hold during the week that we produce magazines for business partners.
Courier IT
There is also a huge infrastructure needed to ensure that the individualized magazines reach their destinations. (One magazine to one client) Our service will not be possible if we can’t rely on Courier IT to deliver the magazines at their destinations.
We would like to use this opportunity to thank Giovanni Contaldi and the team at Courier IT for their support. Without their help the entire project would have been impossible to do.
Conclusion
CSE developed the software to make the impossible possible, but even with the software we will have to plan very well to be able to support a limited number of companies to increase business.