Print automation represents a breakthrough that is too often underestimated, especially in small businesses. It is a workflow evolution that saves time-and therefore money-and dedicates human resources, which remain central even in a more automated environment, to higher value-added activities.

Tipografia FB is one of Soltech's success stories, which was able to support the initiative of its owner, Paolo Fantuzzo, so that he could carry on a business that has grown a lot over the years. But it needed an extra boost; and that boost was provided by Soltech's print automation services, which provided the customer with specialized software with the ability to create customized printing workflows. 

The idea that changed FB Typography forever

FB Typography is not just another print shop. It is a family business that has been going for decades and knows very well the value of careful work and dedication to the customer. The spirit of craftsmanship is still preserved today and distinguishes its identity.

Like other industries, typographies have also faced many changes over the years; and as a result, they have had to adapt to a more complex business environment. It is for this reason that Paolo Fantuzzo in 2019 decided to experiment with an online business of selling customized picks, through ThePicksHouse. 

“It is a very active market in the United States, in Europe less so.”, Fantuzzo says, recalling the birth of ThePicksHouse. Hence the intuition to develop it. At first, to test the ground, only in Italy. Once the first feedback was positive, the activity was gradually expanded to other European markets, such as Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. And each of the major markets has a dedicated, translated site to make it easy for non-Italian users to navigate.

The initiative has paid off and proved to be a great success: the turnover of FB Typography has grown significantly. The sale of customized picks now accounts for the bulk of turnover, thanks - above all - to the strong international footprint of this business. 

Over time, ThePickHouse began offering other items, again customizable, such as pickguards for guitars and drum sticks, as well as themed merchandise.

Fantuzzo's idea, then, transformed the printing company, gradually accompanying it into a new phase of its historic industrial life. With his insight he was able to shift the focus of the business from a very competitive sector to one in which it could create a very vertical space. 

“Creating an e-commerce on the old typography would have been very difficult if not impossible”, he explains. “The competitors are huge and many. We, on the other hand, have carved out a micro-niche that represents, at the same time, a large catchment area”.

Indeed, the success of ThePicksHouse has been such that it has prompted the company to experiment on other similar fronts. For example, Tipografia FB is now also involved in printing custom tennis and padel balls. New solutions, then, that have been made possible by the proactive initiative of Fantuzzo and all of Tipografia FB. 

This approach “gives us the opportunity, thanks to the know-how we have cultivated, to go out and continuously look for more niche products,” Fantuzzo goes on. “So not the product that assures you a hundred orders a day, but the one that assures you a few and continuous ones so that they are also manageable for a relatively small company like ours.”.

Print automation becomes a real need

But as the volume of business and shipments increased, the first assessments of how to make the entire order processing and printing process more efficient took over. “We had arrived at a very difficult order mount to manage”, Fantuzzo recounts.

The main needs of FB Typography were twofold. On the one hand, to be able to make more efficient a process that, in essence, is rather standardized. The typography receives from the user the design to be applied to the pick or other object. Then the file must be checked and managed, so that it is properly archived, and finally converted and sent to print. 

“All this meant that one person was busy all day doing just that,” Fantuzzo explains. “While another person had to devote himself to creating the file to send to print.”.

On the other hand, and hence the second need, there was a need to free up these resources so that they could take care of other components of the business activity.

Soltech's solutions for print automation

For this reason, Tipografia FB chose two print automation solutions from Soltech: WideGESTed Enfocus Switch. The two solutions work in harmony and within a unified print workflow. 

WideGEST manages the collection of orders and automatically links to all sites managed by FB Typography. When a user submits an order to the company, WideGEST recognizes the metadata and automatically enters it into the database making sure to capture every useful element for printing purposes (such as quantity and order type). 

Once in the database, through Enfocus Switch the company can run automated scripts. For example, this software takes care of opening the file, run in a photo editing program the changes that are necessary to achieve a quality product, including resizing and useful corrections so that it follows the rules that Tipografia FB has established. And this is done very easily on hundreds of products handled by the company.

It is Enfocus Switch that is the most successful aspect of the implementation offered to FB Typography, mainly for two reasons:

• freed up many hours of activity each day for the staff;
• Is scalable.

“We saved one person, who now follows other activities,” Fantuzzo adds. “Before, one person was busy two hours every day downloading files, while another person organized printing for almost the entire day. Now the preparation has been reduced to 2-3 hours a day and there is much more freedom. Also, we have everything under control; so we can monitor all the steps, we can go backwards, and we can figure out, if it happens, why we went wrong.”.

Today FB Typography looks to the future stronger than before

The relationship between Soltech and Tipografia FB was not limited to the implementation of print automation solutions: it continues to this day, and Tipografia FB can count on Soltech's support for all eventualities and advice.

“I am very happy with this result, and everything is working as I had envisioned,” Fantuzzo says. 

Thanks to Soltech's solutions, the customer was able to:

• Optimize the work of staff;
• Efficient printing of custom objects;
• Equip themselves with a scalable and future-proof platform;
• Implement automated scripts in which each step can be monitored.

In this way, FB Typography was able to consolidate and improve the initiative that transformed the historic company into a successful online player.