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Time to Toss Your Legacy Forms Composition?
Why Indecision Can Cost You Big Money

By Heidi Tolliver-Nigro

For forms manufacturers, the choice of composition software is a make-it-or-break-it part of the business. In an industry as competitive as forms manufacturing, where just maintaining margins (let alone growing them) is a daily challenge, every minute spent on non-billable work eats away at the bottom line. With forms manufacturers no longer able to charge for composition services, choosing software that will enable you to create forms as quickly and efficiently as possible can have an enormous impact on the profitability of the job.

The irony is that you wouldn’t know it by the high percentage of manufacturers who are hanging onto old legacy software, like Bloc Development’s F3, from the 1980s and 1990s. The argument usually goes like this: “I’m losing money on this area of my business anyway. How can I justify purchasing a $5,000 software program?” While many manufacturers are hesitant to make an investment in a non-chargeable area of their business, they are unwittingly eroding their own profitability every day that they do not make this investment.

There are two reasons for this:
1.	Inefficiency translates into hard dollars.
2.	By not upgrading, they are shutting the door on highly profitable new and much-needed replacement sales opportunities.

History of Inertia
There is no question that, in its day, the old F3 software was worthy of its popularity. Unlike traditional page layout programs, it had a large number of forms-specific tools, such as barcodes, framework grids, and variable box corners, as well as important production features like sprocket holes and perfs.

“As operating systems evolved and production workflows became more sophisticated, forms manufacturers have found it increasingly difficult to keep these systems afloat.”

Although these features are still enormously valuable, when Bloc Development went out of business, it left its users with no support. As operating systems evolved and production workflows became more sophisticated, forms manufacturers have found it increasingly difficult to keep these systems afloat. This has led to untold amounts of time spent trying to create workarounds and patches just to keep their solutions running, and every upgrade leaves them wondering if this will finally be their demise.

Inefficiency Costs Money
Over the years, forms manufacturers have begun turning to alternatives to F3, including Mecca from Amgraph and FormsX from Digicomp, but many F3 users have resisted change. In large part, it comes down to the fact that manufacturers underestimate the cost of their own inefficiency.

In fact, this oversight—which occurs in all areas of production, not just forms manufacturing—has been the Achilles heel of the industry for years. As a general rule, manufacturers have always had a very poor idea of their true costs, so they underestimate how much their inefficiency is really costing them. They look at hard costs like labor, consumables, and presstime, and overlook “soft” costs like the endless, unnecessary hours spent fighting with legacy systems. As a result, they can be much less profitable than they realize. 

Another productivity-killer is the inability of these systems to integrate into new, highly efficient workflows like CIP4 and JDF (Job Definition Format). Part of the Computer Integrated Manufacturing model, these workflows allow printers to create highly automated production lines that allow them to queue, print, and even finish jobs with minimal or no human intervention. These workflows use electronic tags, called “job tickets,” that travel with the file to do automated functions like presetting ink keys on presses, presetting bindery equipment, and monitoring and maintaining color standards through color-sensing equipment inline or offline with the press.

“In an industry in which manufacturers cannot raise prices to improve profitability, even incremental improvements to internal productivity can have strong benefits to the bottom line...”

In an industry in which manufacturers cannot raise prices to improve profitability, even incremental improvements to internal productivity can have strong benefits to the bottom line, especially in short-run operations. This makes the ability to migrate forms production to CIM workflows an important long-term goal. Manufacturers with legacy forms composition systems, however, cannot take advantage of these efficiencies.

These inefficiencies are not limited to users of legacy systems. Many users of traditional desktop publishing software, such as QuarkXpress, Adobe PageMaker, and Illustrator, are also struggling with the inefficiencies of forms composition. Although this software is easily upgradeable and compatible with the latest digital CIM workflows, the process of forms composition itself can be time-consuming and inefficient, since everything has to be done by hand.

Just do the math. If it takes designers two hours to create a form that could be completed in only 15 minutes using forms-specific software, that’s 1 hour and 45 minutes of non-productive time that comes right out of the bottom line. Multiply that by the number of forms you design in a week or a month, and suddenly, you find that you could quickly reclaim entire days from your production cycle.

Creating New Sales Opportunities
It’s not just productivity. It’s also the lost opportunities to generate additional revenue that are profitability killers.

Certainly, manufacturers sorely need additional sources of revenue. It is unlikely that anyone would argue that paper forms are under severe pressure from electronic alternatives. While few people believe that the forms industry will entirely go away, certainly, the number of manufacturers needed to support it will continue to decline.

“How do you make yourself indispensable? By changing the way your customers create forms.”

There are two ways to combat this decline. Manufacturers can make themselves indispensable or they can begin offering the services that most threaten them — e-forms, Internet forms, and PDF forms.

How do you make yourself indispensable? By changing the way your customers create forms.

A huge part of a forms manufacturer's business is called "change repeats." From run to run, the job is 99% the same, but there might be a small change, such as a name or phone number. By using Internet browser-based software, manufacturers can now set up Web sites for each of their customers, enabling them to create forms online using templates, or modifying existing forms. Once the document is created, customers simply log in, personalize the document, make any desired changes, pick the paper stock, set the quantities, and press “order.”

Web-based systems also allow large companies to decentralize the process of creating or modifying forms to meet their ever-changing and widely decentralized needs. Because employees from local departments to regional branches can log in and make changes, these systems can be set up to facilitate a corporate approval process before going live.

For the customer, Web-based forms composition simplifies the process of change repeats and saves them time. For manufacturers, it locks customers into a long-term relationship that is difficult to break. Both Amgraph’s OneForm Designer and Digicomp’s FormsX Enterprise Server offer this functionality.

Then there is the issue of e-forms. Although e-forms are often competitive with traditional paper-based forms, it is because these forms are competitive that smart manufacturers and distributors should consider offering this service. Dr. Joseph Webb, a commentator to the commercial printing industry, is famous for his phrase, “Invest in the technology that can put you out of business.” It is a fact that electronic forms are a serious threat to the paper-based forms industry. Those who can capture that revenue by producing both paper and e-forms are not only increasing their revenue streams, but protecting themselves from customer attrition for the long-term.

Three Approaches
For manufacturers and distributors who are ready to move beyond legacy systems, or who may still be using desktop publishing software, there are two approaches to forms composition software, each exemplified by a different software manufacturer: