National Envelope

National Envelope is in a mature but vibrant industry. Growth in the envelope business is most often dependent on differentiating one's company through a superior service platform fueled by improved efficiencies and information. With 16 locations across the United States, ensuring that its manufacturing operations are coordinated and as efficient as possible is a major objective for the company. National Envelope executives must monitor operational metrics such as machine utilization, material consumption, and a host of other items essential to maximize efficiency and provide superior service. Key areas such as machine changeover, waste, and machine rates are just some of the factors that the company must watch as each can significantly impact National Envelope's service platform and margins.

In 2009, National Envelope embarked on a new project to automate its reporting system. Their goal was to enhance the quality and distribution of vital information to those who needed it to allow them to make better informed and timelier decisions. As a company built on both green-field startups and acquisitions, National Envelope uses multiple systems with various programming languages to deliver the reports required to meet the needs of the business. The project centered on Improving reporting efficiencies and performance within the limitations of the existing system. To facilitate their goals National Envelope chose IBM Cognos 8, a market-leading reporting product that already in use by the company in other areas of their business. Essential to the success of the program was the need to help National Envelope personnel became highly proficient with IBM Cognos 8.

National Envelope chose to work with JCB Partners on the implementation of IBM Cognos 8 based on recommendations from multiple sources. JCB is an IBM Premier Partner and a leader in implementing performance management and business intelligence solutions. National Envelope had two primary goals for the project:

1. Create an improved solution for the reporting of key production metrics to enhance the quality, timeliness and distribution of information vital to service and efficiency.
2. Provide the support structure for and the knowledge transfer which would allow National Envelope to utilize the system with the highest level of proficiency.

To achieve these goals, JCB worked with National Envelope to implement two reporting cubes that provide manufacturing metrics across all machines at all 16 National Envelope plants on a daily basis, by shift. The company reporting team allows users access to the pre-built cubes, enabling greater user self-service while still ensuring data integrity and quality. Business users can now create their own views of the data - in a controlled environment - to compare one plant versus another in terms of such metrics as down time, product waste, run speed, and turn times. They can also look at more detailed reporting, such as investigating the reason for downtime - is a machine down for repair or maintenance or is it on a change-over to produce another product?

In addition to the manufacturing reports provided through the cubes, National Envelope is also able to produce daily management reports which give senior executives visibility into the same production metrics available to operations management. Moving forward, the company is not restricting its reporting improvement efforts to just manufacturing. They have also created a sales cube to improve the flow and quality of information to their sales and customer service personnel.

The new manufacturing solution is in place and already proving a valuable tool to National Envelope decision makers. Through the improved reporting platform company general managers are now able to more efficiently and accurately track, compare and analyze key manufacturing production metrics. As a result, National Envelope will is improving its overall manufacturing efficiency and meeting customer demand more effectively.

In addition to the system itself, JCB helped guarantee the project's overall success by ensuring that National Envelope technical personnel were well-trained in the new reporting system. This was achieved through comprehensive training of managerial, programming, and administrative support personnel. The end result provided these people with the ability to take full advantage of what IBM Cognos 8 has to offer. JCB continues to provide post installation support to assure full system utilization.