When a major automobile manufacturer needed a creative registration program for a series of national training seminars introducing a new model they turned to Toucan for a solution. In the past, registration, tracking and billing of seminar participants was a burdensome task. The information on show participants was not collected in a format that was usable by other departments within the organization. Billing often occurred weeks after the event because information had to be manually input back at headquarters once the series of seminars were complete. Information on participants was also often incomplete and inaccurate.

The goal was to seamlessly register participants while collecting the desired information, allow for expedited billing and to create a database of information on seminar participants that was compatible with existing databases used by the organization. Additionally, the manufacturer wanted to create a document, complete with a photo ID, that could record a participants completion of training modules and that would provide a permanent record of course completion.

To create a document that would be creative, reusable, have a long shelf life and provide the desired permanent record, Toucan incorporated the client's theme for the training of "Passport to Adventure" into a "passport" that was branded with their corporate identification as well as the "Passport to Adventure" theme on the outside and had pages that contained their logo stepped and repeated in an official manner. The result was a document recognizable to anyone who has ever owned a United States passport.

During the onsite registration process data was gathered on show participants at a registration desk using laptop computers and two electronic forms, passport type photo's were taken with a digital camera and a portion of the information and the passport photo was printed using a color printer onto label stock specifically designed to match the paper used in the passport.

The first electronic form used was a registration form. This form was created to allow easy and accurate data entry of the desired information from show participants, while at the same time building a database of information regarding these participants. It was also tied to several of the manufacturer's existing databases to allow retrieval of information previously gathered about participants and certain employee and vendor codes.

This allowed the manufacturers staff to quickly access information about show participants provided in advance as well as insuring that the data entered was compatible with their existing databases. The registration database was emailed back to headquarters every evening and seminar billing was achieved the next business day.

The second electronic form accessed the participant's photo and data for printing onto the passport label paper. By entering the participant's social security number the photo and information used on the passport was immediately accessed and verified, than output via a color printer onto the preprinted label stock and affixed to the first page of the passport. Rubber stamps were than created with various training module themes and the participants "Passport" was stamped at the completion of each module.

The registration and passport program was a huge success for the manufacturer. Training participants and staff alike were very pleased with the efficient and fast registration process. Billing was done hours after registration as opposed to the weeks it had taken in the past. Data collected was accurate, flowed automatically into a database and was therefore accessible by other departments in a way never before possible. The passport itself was extremely well received and gave the participants a permanent record of their completion of the training. The manufacturer was very pleased and plans on using it for all future training events.

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Variable Imaging

County Board of Election officials were required by law to send a sample ballot to each of their 250,000 registered voters for an upcoming election. The board faced the challenge of matching 54 different ballot styles to specific groups of voters. The county turned to Toucan and our expertise in variable imaging to provide a cost effective solution for this project.

The mailing piece was to have a sample of that voter's ballot for Election Day on one side and a combination of preprinted and personalized information on the other. The challenge was how to match the correct ballot style to the voter's personalization and process and mail the project at the lowest possible cost for both the printing and postage.

In the past, the static information had been preprinted creating 54 "lots" of sample ballots that were then personalized with the voter's name, address, voter ID number and polling location. This was a slow, tedious and expensive process and had an increased margin for error that would often result in some voter's receiving the incorrect ballot style when the wrong "lot" of sample ballots was pulled to be personalized. It was also more difficult and time consuming to process the mailing to take advantage of maximum postal discounts, resulting in higher processing costs.

Toucan's solution was to laser both the sample ballot on side 1 and the preprinted and variable data on side 2 at the same time. The voter's personal information (voter name, address, ID number etc.) was linked electronically to the appropriate ballot style and the entire form was duplex printed with the appropriate data. This eliminated the possibility of a voter receiving the wrong ballot style and allowed the county the flexibility to make changes to the form up until the day they were personalized - an option that they needed to take advantage of and would not have had with preprinted forms. It also allowed the mailing to be easily processed for maximum postal discounts so their processing costs were greatly reduced.

Toucan's reengineering of the ballot printing and mailing process, allowed the board to attain a zero error rate for the first time ever, while mailing to over 250,000 unique voters. Additionally, the board recognized a cost savings of over 36 % and eliminated the cost associated with reprinting forms when last minute changes had to be made. Election officials were very pleased with Toucan's solution and considered the project an overwhelming success.

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