Linney Direct

For many, Digital Print is merely a means to an end. For the Linney Group, it is an integral part of many of the solutions that we provide.

Our long expertise in this arena and our deep technical partnerships with leading suppliers provide us with a unique perspective and leading edge abilities that ultimately deliver world class solutions to our clients.

Our focus is across three areas: Print on Demand, Variable Data Printing and Direct Mail.

Printing on demand can be different things to different people, whether it is printing daily orders or printing publications.

Our flexible production facility and strong MIS allow us to provide a Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing approach to your collateral, often realising cost savings and time efficiencies. We currently operate several bespoke iterations of this for 75% of our client base.

More than just names and addresses, variable data is the common thread through all our digital print production that allows us to achieve what many others in the marketplace think is unachievable.

Whether you wish to vary text, imagery, pagination or paper, our unique and proven techniques can bring your wish to fruition.

Variable data printing techniques are utilised in 95% of all our mono and colour digital printing. Our techniques can efficiently handle simple applications (name and address) to the most complex, requiring the ability to handle an infinite number of possible permutations in all elements.

It seems a little obvious to say that the key here is accuracy and consistency. Our system is built around good standard operating procedures that are implemented well, audited regularly and treated with respect. Our success depends on the fact that these are used in all areas of the business, managed by dedicated staff.

A key resource is our stock management system Scorpion, which we use to manage all our daily transactions and report on current activity for us as well as our customers.

This system is very well suited as we move into the bar-coded warehouse to increase accuracy and remove the jobs which add no value to the task of looking after the customer’s stock. Our use of hand-held computers will increase over the next few years as will our ability to track items both in our warehouse and remotely, using radio frequency identification.

Our customers need to react quickly to demand and require their products in store quicker than ever, which means that two of the key factors making a successful distribution are co-ordination and teamwork.

This applies to the whole chain from the printer through purchasing, print management, order assembly and the customer, working together to achieve the in-store date. This will certainly involve the printer producing in an order to match the despatch sequence in order assembly that has been specified by print management and agreed with the customer. We are continually working on introducing improved methods and techniques to eliminate operations that add no value to the despatch and look to make the whole chain as lean as possible.

I can see in the future that these distributions will become even more focused on either regions or personalised to each store and be driven by technology. I can imagine the store managers will be able to order online for their requirements to match demands in their particular area and be able to display that POS within hours rather than weeks.

Despatch processing forms the link between our operational areas and the distribution network that feeds our customers. Our despatch teams are handling in excess of 500,000 parcels per year and 15-20 million pieces of mail. Much of what we do is on a same day turnaround. Orders received today have to be processed, picked, packed and despatched today. The Despatch teams co-ordinate all the customer despatch requirements with our Carrier partners to ensure all orders are routed into the despatch networks on time.

In the event that customers have special or bespoke delivery requirements then our despatch teams can identify the right solution to meet the customer needs on a local, national or international basis. This capability covers large and small-scale mailings, the pre-planned campaigns and the inevitable ‘you’ve just got to do it’ emergencies that our clients have from time to time.

Items for distribution through the Royal Mail network are despatched either unsorted, for despatch at standard tariff, or as pre-sorted mail, to enable clients to take advantage of the Royal Mail discounted services such as Press-stream and Mailsort. Linney Direct offer clients a full order data preparation service so these very sizeable discounts can be realised.

Over the years we have developed a number of unique despatch processing systems to enable the carrier documentation to be processed automatically within our own systems to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the order data. For the future, Linney Direct will be extending and developing our internal software to enable all orders to be processed via a fully integrated despatch management system. This will enhance the management of data, improve our flexibility and further enhance our ability to react to changing customer requirements.

Here in the Customer Response Centre we pride ourselves on being different from the rest and would invite you to come and see us for yourselves and see who is behind that phone, because you find more than that!

Yes, we will have teams of staff, manning the phone lines, using the latest technology in call handling systems, with bespoke databases offered as standard – all our customers are individuals!

But, please don’t expect a call centre; ‘Customer Service’ is our speciality, from tracking a parcel, data capture, order processing, payment handling, responding to emails and of course inbound and outbound call handling.

Our staff are given ownership and responsibility for their work, variety of tasks, support, monitoring, training and ongoing coaching by professional team leaders to enable them to offer an exceptional service. A dedicated and committed team who want to resolve your query, who want to make your customers feel important, quickly and efficiently but without rushing them off the phone to get to the next call.

What makes us different and what is our strength – quite simply our people, we treat them, as we would expect them to treat you – special!

Linney Direct offer clients multiple routes for processing theirs or their end customer order requirements into our fulfilment processes.

Our systems can automatically collect client data files via the Internet and import them directly into our bespoke systems ready for our print and fulfilment processes. We 100% guarantee data integrity and security and this offers a streamlined method of providing core information to us with no human interaction or intervention. This data can also be imported manually if required and we can provide solutions to automate your systems for the future. Saving time and money.

We operate a 50-seat Customer Response Centre that can be made available to clients for the processing of individual orders. Orders can be placed directly with the team by fax, email, telephone or via the post. Progressing and tracking of any orders is offered via a comprehensive suite of standard reports detailing order types, volumes, despatch information, stock and order history.

Our current fulfilment activities operate out of 60,000sq ft of warehouse space. This enables us to respond flexibly and quickly to changing demands without impacting our client deadlines. This is supported by the availability of 20,000 pickfaces for the provision of daily orders from stock on a same day turnaround.

These fulfilment areas translate our client’s order requirements into discreet packages of stock to meet the exact requirements of their customers. These can be individual orders processed in our daily order pick pack areas or elements of a bespoke multi-tiered campaign for some of our large retail or educational clients.

We can provide support to clients in the design of bespoke packaging combined with tailored fulfilment methods that ensure the security of goods throughout the fulfilment and despatch process. These fulfilment processes can be linked via our stock and despatch management IT systems to provide clients with an online and real-time status of their orders and stock.

We continue to develop our fulfilment processes through our continuous improvement programme aimed at enhancing security, accuracy, flexibility and speed of picks from our bulk stocks and daily pick pack areas. These areas have been organised, and continued to be developed, utilising best practice operational techniques linking into improvements in our warehousing and despatch processes.

Linney Direct are at the forefront of carrier management, shipping in excess of half a million parcels and 15-20 million mailing items a year via our Key Carrier partners. We link into their domestic, European and global networks, providing a total logistics solution through the use of the latest software systems. We are able to key into our carrier’s logistics capability and expertise providing our customers with an unrivalled service in terms of on-time delivery, quality of service and cost.

The world seems to be getting smaller and the demand for speed, security and low cost, drives our distribution thinking. The infrastructure that has been put in place by our Carriers is unrivalled and enables Linney Group to provide a service covering the despatch of large scale promotional campaigns through to the hand delivery of special items.

For the future, Linney Group will be extending the integration of distribution processes into our own operations, enabling us to automatically provide Carriers with traffic volumes as goods are despatched,increasing accuracy and real-time data processing at lowest cost. These opportunities extend to mail processing as we take advantage of the alternatives to Royal Mail and capitalise on the processing technology now available.

No matter how hard the major software houses try, how much more you can achieve with IT than ever before, your standard software package rarely does exactly what you want, when you want it. That’s not unusual, in fact it’s quite normal, but we believe you shouldn’t have to live with it.

Often your requirements, desires, imaginations and ideas are just so special that a standard off-the-shelf solution simply won’t do the trick. We’re not going to straight-jacket anyone with our systems, some of our best achievements have been designing, developing, collaborating, and helping our clients to be the best in their field through the effective use of IT. We have an extensive on-site software development facility for two reasons.

Firstly, it gives us the opportunity to say ‘yes’ when our competitors are saying ‘no’, to help our clients keep improving what they do. Secondly, it gives us the opportunity to keep improving everything we do internally, which can only help us and our clients.

There’s no such thing as an IT solution, only a business solution. A key part of our company’s history has been in manufacturing; the key to succeeding in manufacturing is to constantly improve everything you do – identify bottlenecks, solve the problem, and move onto the next bottleneck.

The key to a successful IT facility in the business is to follow exactly the same principles. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about real-world IT-based business solutions it’s that they’re a bit like a movie – the best solution isn’t necessarily the most expensive, the newest, the most popular for the masses, the most critically-acclaimed, or the one following the most predictable plot. It’s simply the one that’s right for you. The key word for any successful IT-based solution is ‘relevance’, it has to work from day one, and it has to keep improving.

Of course large amounts of data require the right infrastructure choices, to ensure compliance, security, business continuity, and to provide an ever-improving performance in an ever-increasing world of data.

But data management is not really about the size of the disk drive – the volume of information stored is increasing exponentially, but is the value of information following suit? We believe data management is about understanding the real world, finding out what is important and relevant to our clients and their customers – the people, the processes, the performance, and the practicalities; then the decisive bit – modelling all this in a database. Using a combination of experience, understanding, a whole suite of tools, and the expertise to make sense of the data, the principle is: get the model right, get the real-world solution right, help our clients improve their offering.

Space is usually the second highest cost to a business. Therefore it is imperative that the capacity of your buildings are maximised to the full.

Companies have more recently recognised that if they need more space it is cheaper to go upwards rather than outwards. With this in mind we are seeing equipment getting taller, and thinner too, both in respect to the storage and the handling of products.

Companies who are reliant upon storage are now looking to move to purpose-built sites and to build their own buildings preferably as tall and as thin as possible or at least to the height of the current equipment that is available on the market today. In actual fact we have already started to see buildings being developed way higher than the current capacities in anticipation of technological advances in storage handling. Linney Group is no exception to this and are consistently looking at alternative means of storage.

But the amount of ‘physical’ storage we have really isn’t where we excel the most, it is our ‘digital’ storage capacity. With the age of digital print comes the ability to print and change products as and when it is needed, thus reducing the amount of ‘physical’ storage our customers actually need. Other than Linney Group, very few warehousing and storage companies offer this facility, even today.

The term ‘warehouse’ has evolved into a multitude of descriptions over the last few decades that it is now difficult to give it a genuine description of one kind or another.

People’s expectations of wanting things ‘now’ has meant that companies have had to respond quickly and recognise the importance of developing this once neglected area of its business.

New forms of warehousing techniques and the evolution of technological advances in this area have helped warehousing become an integral part of any business that needs to move its products from one area to another whether it be from department to department or from customer to customer.

As our customers also expect things quicker and cheaper, warehousing has been recognised as one of the most fundamental parts of improving both the time and cost to deliver your product. The introduction of more and more automated equipment into this area is occurring year on year. Today, products no longer need to touch human hands.

Linney Group’s high commitment to customer service has meant that we have had to excel in the investment into this improved technology and maintain our constant policy of continuous improvement in such a demanding area.

The principle of basic stock management is simple – what is it, where is it, and how many? Every logistical action we take in the warehouse (stock coming in, stock being moved to the most appropriate place, stock going out to fulfil customer orders) need to accurately record these 3 simple things; and there you have it – a working stock management process.

We believe the key to making a difference in the supply chain is in the added value. Can we help our clients make sound decisions based on instant, automatic and accurate notifications when stock arrives, when a minimum stock level is reached, when an item goes beyond its expiry date or is left unsold for a given time, or when a batch is not received at the date and time expected?

Can we help you, our clients, to predict the right time to reorder in a seasonal market? Can we provide a full live 24/7 online audit trail of every event in a stock item’s life? Or can we just take care of all that for you if stock is not really your thing? We can (to all of the above).

The Linney Group continues to invest in warehousing facilities, with further capacity made available during 2006 and 2007, and now operates 75,000sq ft of fully racked space. Storage capacity has been increased to 10,000 pallets through the reconfiguration of the bulk storage areas into modern, narrow aisle warehousing utilising state-of-the art articulated trucks for the rapid receipt and put away of stock.

We will be further adding to our fleet of 16 vehicles during 2008 with the investment in specialist picking vehicles (Man-up Trucks) that will further improve our capabilities in the bulk warehouse areas through increased picking speeds.

This investment in equipment and capacity will be underpinned by the development of bar-code solutions within our warehouse areas enabling our logistics teams to further improve stock management and stock accuracy. This technology will enable our warehouse teams to put away, pick and distribute stock to our fulfilment areas, updating stock records whilst on the move and in real time.

This in turn will enable the warehouse and fulfilment teams to respond more rapidly and flexibly to changing customer demands.

Mainly with the introduction of the web this is another area that has also evolved dramatically in the last few decades. Improved mail order lead times and online ordering has meant that goods naturally may be delivered next day and in some cases ‘same day’.

Consumers actually now take it for granted that the goods bought today will be delivered tomorrow, should they so wish. This would not be possible if it were not for the advances in picking and packing technology.

Today we see building upon building and row upon row of products stored within a number of different types of equipment. This equipment is now designed to fit the purpose of the product whether it is the size, the value or the amount, that is required on a daily basis. Conveyors now transport products to the next stage of the process again to improve the speed of which they are despatched.

But it is not just about the equipment, it’s also about the packaging. A box is no longer just a box. It can be a tray, a wrap, a tube, an envelope; it can also be designed ‘bespoke’ to the product to ensure that the product arrives at the cheapest cost and at the highest quality.

Whether it be run lengths in excess of a million pieces or smaller, more targeted mailings, we can produce these items with confidence, allowing our client’s business goals and strategies to be reflected in the solutions that we provide. We provide services at either end of the spectrum from FMCG companies as well as to SME companies.