LUMBER PRODUCTS PRESORTS ITS WAY TO OVER $12,000 IN ANNUAL SAVINGS

Published 18th September 2008

Founded in 1938, Lumber Products is an employee-owned, wholesale distributor of quality hardwood lumber, plywood, and door and millwork products to the Northwest and Intermountain States. Lumber Products has committed itself as a company to providing quality hardwood products and building materials at a fair price while providing excellent service. It was a search for excellent service in a mailing solutions provider that led Lumber Products to Neopost, Inc.

The third-party vendor challenge:
Roger Hanks, manager of accounts payable and imaging for Lumber Products, oversees these operations for the entire company. Each day, his department sends out up to 1,400 customer invoices in separate mailings. “On average, we also mail about 100 accounts payable checks daily. Our direct mail marketing pieces are mailed seasonally, and add to the significant amount of mail that we’re processing annually.”

He recalls the challenges faced as the company employed a third-party vendor for presorting: “We initially utilized a vendor because we thought it would generate some savings for us. However, we ended up facing certain issues. For example, the vendor might not show up some days, or in reviewing the bill, we might notice some questionable line items for presort documents considered non-qualified.”


An integrated approach to in-sourcing:
Lumber Products worked with Neopost to install PrintMachine Office Plus, a powerful mail output management software solution. PrintMachine Office Plus is an easy-to-use software solution designed to accelerate and enhance the preparation and printing of critical business documents for mailing jobs.

“We were already utilizing folder/inserter and metering machines from Neopost,” says Roger. “So integrating the software solution was simple.” This user-friendly software solution combined with Lumber Products’ existing Neopost folder/inserter system to deliver significant postage savings and increased productivity. The postal optimization interface module automatically corrects address information to match special postal automation discounting requirements. It also minimizes the volume of returned mail, allowing Lumber Products to save money on wasted postage and improve customer communication.


Increased productivity with at least $80/mailing saved:
“With Neopost as our partner, we now have a group of invoices that we qualify for savings. This means that 100% of the savings are ours, as opposed to sharing the savings with a vendor.”

Roger states reported savings for the company in the range of $75-80 per mailing, but believes that the actual savings are even higher. “We were able to consolidate customer mailings from our 18 offices into one. On top of that, we’ve maximized the efforts of our employees. With an automated solution in place, hours have been saved that would have gone to manual handling.”

The Lumber Products’ investment in the Neopost solution happened concurrently with the United States Postal Service (USPS) rate change. Roger explains that the company did this in an effort to minimize the effect of the postage increase on overhead. This was a successful business move for Lumber Products. Not only have they seen savings post-rate change, they have not had any difficulties following the new USPS Shape-Based Pricing structure. In fact, the Neopost solution has allowed them to combine invoices into one envelope to maximize postage. “We are also saving money, keeping in mind the radical post office changes, by using standard sized envelopes only.”

“On a final note, the service we received was excellent,” says Roger. “Our sales representative was always accessible, even after business hours. The consultative role that he played permitted us to truly understand the rate change and how we could minimize its effects. His attentiveness was very instrumental in our decision to first investigate, and then install the Neopost solution. We never even looked for an alternative.”