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Q&A with Wayne Thompson, IT Manager 

IT has long played an important part in our own internal production control methods and internal verification requirements. Now our clients can experience the benefits of these systems to assist in the management of customer print projects. We conducted an interview with Wayne Thompson, A1 Security Print’s IT Manager, who explains a bit more about A1’s technology development journey.

Where did it all start?

Our journey into development started with us building internal systems to allow us to streamline and manage administration processes. This included a system to manage the stock and distribution of all River Island vouchers in the UK and Europe from our factory.

How did you start creating A1’s ‘bespoke’ platforms for customers?

We wanted to advance our offering into customer facing platforms. But instead of purchasing ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions which would force the customers to amend their data and systems to suit the software, we began developing bespoke web portals in the .NET framework. These are developed and tailored entirely to the customer and their needs, while also including internal verification controls and production management for A1 staff to allow a smooth flow of work through the factory.

Can you give us an example?

One of our original portals was developed to manage the print, personalisation and distribution of on-demand examination papers and OMR forms across Europe for Pearson. We needed a platform that could manage the inventory of thousands of different examination question papers while printing, packaging & dispatching them on-demand within a tight window to ensure the documents made it to the centres in time for exams. This needed to be achieved while maintaining 100% integrity of documents within each package via production barcode verification, with a full audit trail and giving the customer live information regarding the status of their order.

How did that work out in practice?

Integrating the print personalisation with the portals worked very smoothly as our developers sit within the digital print programming team, all portals are tightly coupled with our powerful Quadient Inspire Designer software which we use for personalisation across our suite of digital presses, allowing for seamless integration from portal to print.

Portals of this nature were then further developed for the production and dispatch of certificates all over the world for awarding bodies such as IB and NEBOSH.

What made you develop A1’s full tracking service?

We found that some customers’ existing method of tracking packages from suppliers would include the time-consuming process of multiple phone calls between account handlers, production staff, 3^rd parties and couriers. With our web portals we wanted to make this an instantaneous process that could be accessed live 24/7 at the customers convenience. This led us to build a tracking module that gives full tracking of every document shipped via the web portals.

What else did you find along the way?

While going through the integration process with customers and talking data, we found that another one of their pain points was the generation of management reports via time consuming and error prone manual processing of data, often from multiple data sources, using legacy systems and databases. We therefore replicated and improved upon these reports within our web portals to offer bespoke web based instant reporting systems from data already securely held within our portal, therefore removing the need for the manual data manipulation from the customer.

How did you further improve security measures?

For secure personalised items such as certificates where validation of the documents and their content is paramount, we started to introduce an extra level of digital security by adding web based QR codes to every printed document. These QR codes are linked in with our secure portals and are a mixture of open access for use by potential employers to validate results on certificates, and access controlled for institutes such as universities, insurers, governments to validate their certificates internally on the suspicion of fraudulent documents.

The knowledge and insight gained from working with our customers in developing these systems formed the basis for many of our web portals going forward which now included the likes of Data Validation to ensure data being uploaded is correct prior to being processed; Document Inventory to manage the proofing and administration of thousands of variable digital and physical items; Stock Management to automate notification emails upon minimum stock levels being met; Live Tracking for every shipment, from data upload to receipt by the end user. Automated Emails at keys points in production, such as data upload and dispatch; Bespoke Reporting tailored to the customers needs; QR Code Document Validation, to easily verify the content of a document in the field, linked in directly with our secure databases; Live cancelation of certificates already produced and dispatched anywhere in the world.

What about fully digital products?

The integration of our personalisation software into our web portals naturally led us to E-Documents whereby customers can receive digital copies of their documents to compliment their printed offering. For example, university students could get an email copy of their certificate or even a personal account created for each student to login and retrieve their digital documents.

How widely used are these web portals?

Our web portals have now been used in the production and verification of millions of secure documents worldwide.

As systems that customers use internally have evolved, we have started interacting with them via Web API for a handsfree exchange of data, to make the flow of work even smoother. This includes both receiving data for personalisation and sending data back to customer systems such as tracking information.

Talk to us about VeriSecure

In 2020 we introduced encrypted QR code validation onto our documents via a smart phone app, which is now present on over 1 million documents throughout various countries worldwide. Our VeriSecure app can be downloaded on both the Apple and Android stores and used to decrypt and verify the content of documents once authenticated.

What does the future look like for A1 Tech?

Today, our team of programmers are continuing to research and develop our web and software platforms using the rapidly growing new technologies available and striving to create new and innovative ways to offer our customers flexible, user friendly and secure digital print & E-Document solutions.

Summary

The future definitely looks bright for A1 Security Print’s Tech Division. Visit our website or contact us to enquire further.