Author Howie Fenton: Biography and Authored Content

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• Howie Fenton
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• 17 August 2018

4 Benefits of Workflow Automation. Which is your Favorite?

Over the last few months, we have been focusing on possible reasons in-plants are reluctant to invest in workflow automation. We discussed workflow myths, building the business case and infrastructure, and executives jaded due to claims of increased productivity. There is another side to this

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• Howie Fenton
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• 17 July 2018

How Value-Based Pricing Helps In-plants Battle Threats

How Value-Based Pricing Helps In-plants Battle Threats Most in-plants use a cost-plus pricing strategy. In simple terms, you calculate the cost to manufacture and mark that cost up 5-20%. This works well unless equipment utilization falls and prices increase, or a super-efficient company is trying to get the business. In either case, commodity type products

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 18 June 2018

The Real Reason Printing Companies are Reluctant to Invest in Workflow Automation

This is the third and final article in a series that attempts to answer the question of why companies are reluctant to invest in workflow automation software. In the first article, we dispelled five myths, and in the second we looked at research. In this article, we will try to identify the true underlying reason for the lack of investment.

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 17 May 2018

Why Printers Don’t Invest in Workflow: Survey Says…

Why Printers Don't Invest in Workflow: Survey Says… This is the second article in a series of three that attempts to answer why companies are reluctant to invest in workflow automation software. In the first article, we dispelled five myths. We will focus on data in this article. According to the Idealliance "2017 Capital Investment

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 15 April 2018

5 Reasons Printers Don’t Invest in Workflow Software

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 19 March 2018

What You Don't Know about Costs Can Hurt You - Part 2

How long it should take to perform a task (create an estimate, enter orders, etc.) has always been a mystery because there is little to no comparable data. Recently however, Chris Bondy and Wesley Odell from the RIT School of Media Sciences published a report.

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 16 February 2018

What You Don’t Know About Costs Can Hurt You

This is the first in a two-article series about understanding and improving costs. In any business, some mistakes are costlier than others. In our opinion, some of the most dangerous mistakes for in-plant print centers are the ones that get back to the administration

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 22 January 2018

Has Web to Print Become a Business-Critical Application?

Has Web to Print become a Business-Critical Application? The growing importance of e-commerce has never been more clear than the most recent holiday season as 51% of holiday shopping was expected online, compared to 42% in stores (Deloitte Holiday Retail Survey [2017]). An annual survey by analytic firm comScore and UPS found that consumers are

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 18 December 2017

In-Plant Primer 201-Article #6- How Software Automation Increases the In-plant's Value

This is the final article in our dealer and vendor in-plant education initiative called "In-Plant Primer: From Operations Basics to Advanced Sales Concepts" and the sixth post of the advanced in-plant primer series, "In-Plant Primer 201: Operational and Financial Concerns." Workflow automation brings value to in-plant managers and c-level execs.

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 08 December 2017

5 Critical Success Factors for Success in 2018

5 Critical Success Factors for Success. The state of the in-plant industry is strong and those that focus on the new critical success factors (CSF) will likely continue to thrive. Among the CSF factors contributing to this healthy market are: A growing print market, Continuing efforts to automate production, Measuring and reporting improvements, Monitoring and

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