Situation (Challenge)
Taylor & Francis Group, a leading global academic and scientific journal and book publisher and long-time Sheridan customer, was looking for more efficiency, expediency, and cost-effectiveness in their print journals program. One area of concentration became standardization. Between their two journals divisions – one in the US and the other in the UK – there were different workflows, processes, supply chains, and vendors.
They turned to Sheridan to help streamline and standardize their U.K. and U.S. journal workflows. Having worked with both U.K. and U.S. divisions, Sheridan was aware that the workflows were different and was confident that unifying the approaches would yield great efficiencies and value for both T&F divisions.
Solution
The team at Sheridan began by mapping each of the two journals’ production workflows, and then, keeping in mind the unique needs of both T&F locations, presented a universal workflow that both could adopt. The new workflow is made possible by Sheridan Select™, Sheridan’s automated print management system.
Sheridan Select proved to be the perfect platform for this initiative. In fact, the U.S. division had some experience with Sheridan Select as a print-on-demand (POD) back issue fulfillment solution.
To implement the new universal workflow, the U.S. division made adjustments to their content preparation workflow and associated supply chain responsibilities, which mirrored the U.K. division process, creating instant efficiencies and increased content processing automation.
Today, the majority of orders for both divisions are processed through the Sheridan digital production platform at the Sheridan PA facility, ensuring standardized toner and inkjet output. They also leverage Sheridan’s digital asset management system to process and house content files and associated metadata, eliminating the need for conventional prepress processing.
Results
Benefits of the newly implemented solution include standardization of workflows and full automation. Correction cycles and manual touch points are now a thing of the past, allowing for reduced costs and faster time to distribution.
Most Taylor & Francis journal printing in the U.S. is done at the Sheridan PA location, although some longer run journals are produced at the Sheridan NH facility. No matter which manufacturing location, all orders feed into a single integration point – Sheridan Select – and are then automatically channeled to the appropriate Sheridan print facility.
Before implementation of the Select solution, Sheridan produced 365 titles for the U.S. division, with an additional ~400 titles going to other print vendors. After implementation, Taylor & Francis awarded Sheridan a sole-source agreement, making Sheridan the only print provider for all ~800 Taylor & Francis U.S. journals.
Products and Services Used
- Sheridan Select
- Sheridan Electronic Warehouse
- Sheridan Print
- Sheridan Fulfillment (Zero-Warehouse POD (virtual) and Back-Issue Warehousing
Company Profile
Taylor & Francis Group
Taylor & Francis Group partners with researchers, scholarly societies, universities and libraries worldwide to bring knowledge to life. As one of the world’s leading publishers of scholarly journals, books, ebooks and reference works, their content spans all areas of Humanities, Social Sciences, Behavioural Sciences, Science, and Technology and Medicine.
From their network of offices in Oxford, New York, Philadelphia, Boca Raton, Boston, Melbourne, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, Stockholm, New Delhi and Cape Town, Taylor & Francis staff provide local expertise and support to editors, societies and authors, and tailored, efficient customer service to their library colleagues.
About Sheridan
Sheridan is a leading provider of print, publishing services, and technology solutions to publishers, associations, university presses, and catalogers. A division of CJK Group, Inc., Sheridan has five U.S. based production facilities; each location has a market specialty that supports scholarly journals, books, magazines, reprints, or catalogs. Sheridan is also the provider of the scholarly publishing platform, PubFactory.