Business Profile
Mail-Gard, a division of IWCO, specializes in business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for critical communication operations. Mail-Gard offers comprehensive print-to-mail recovery services that ensure vital customer communications—such as invoices, statements, and compliance documents.
Industry
Print Service Bureau
Mail-Gard® Scales with Confidence: Powering DR and Overflow Print & Mail Services for Critical Communications
Strategic Expansion Meets Workflow Innovation
When Mail-Gard, a division of IWCO renowned for its flawless track record in disaster recovery services, unveiled its major expansion at the Warminster, Pennsylvania, facility, it marked a transformative moment in the company’s evolution. Driven by a strategic partnership with a major healthcare provider, this expansion went beyond simply increasing capacity—it represented a comprehensive reinvention of Mail-Gard’s production capabilities through cutting-edge workflow optimization powered by Solimar Systems.
Since its inception in 1996, Mail-Gard has maintained an impressive 100% success rate in supporting declared disaster recovery events. Now, this industry leader is leveraging that expertise to revolutionize daily healthcare communications with the same level of reliability and compliance that earned its trusted reputation in business continuity.
The Challenge: Scaling Without Compromise
The new relationship with a major healthcare provider introduced a series of demanding operational challenges:
- Dramatic Volume Increase: Mail-Gard needed to scale throughput by 2-3 times while maintaining perfect accuracy for critical healthcare communications.
- Enhanced Redundancy Requirements: Production work had to be seamlessly transferable between facilities to ensure uninterrupted service.
- Workflow Transformation: New high-speed print-to-mail hardware investments demanded a sophisticated workflow platform that could eliminate bottlenecks and reduce manual intervention.
- Rigorous Compliance Standards: As a healthcare communications provider, all systems need to maintain HIPAA-compliant processes with comprehensive tracking and reporting.
To meet these ambitious goals, Mail-Gard turned to a trusted partner who understood both the technical and strategic dimensions of their mission-critical work—Solimar Systems.
At-A-Glance
Locations (USA)
- Chanhassen, MN, USA
- Warminster, PA, USA
Business Solution
- Job Tracking & Reporting
- Data Stream Conversion
- Document Re-engineering
- PDF Optimization
- Output Management
- Workflow Automation
Solimar Products
Benefits
- Scaled production volume by 2–3x without expanding labor or facility size
- Seamless transfer production between plants—enabled by centralized tracking and file normalization
- Automated and reduced manual intervention and streamlined operations, decreased file preparation time, and improved overall turnaround speed
- Strengthened HIPAA-compliant systems with detailed tracking, audit-ready reporting, and job histories
“Solimar Systems has provided, not just software, but a platform and support model that empowers us to meet the highest standards for reliability, compliance, and responsiveness.”
Brian Murphy
Director of Operations
Mail-Gard, a Division of IWCO
The Solimar Solution: Chemistry for Success
Mail-Gard invested in advanced hardware and implemented Solimar’s Chemistry™ Platform to create a powerful end-to-end workflow solution. This comprehensive technology suite has become the backbone of Mail-Gard’s modernization effort, featuring:
- Solimar® Print Director™ Enterprise (SPDE): Affectionately known as “Speedy,” this powerful engine functions as a universal translator and workflow controller, normalizing incoming jobs from diverse sources and intelligently routing them based on job requirements, service-level agreements, and facility availability.
- SOLitrack™: This robust job tracking and reporting system delivers transparency into operations and production processes by providing real-time status updates, enterprise print management, and maintaining detailed audit trails—essential capabilities for maintaining HIPAA compliance and delivering confidence to healthcare clients.
- ReadyPDF®: As Mail-Gard brings new clients onboard, this intelligent tool automatically optimizes PDF files from various formats, ensuring they are print-ready and dramatically reducing changeover time, thereby enhancing material flow throughout the production environment.
Transformative Results: Proof in Performance
The diversity of incoming documents spans from basic letters to intricate files containing numerous pages and associated resources. Suboptimal PDF structures can significantly impact processing efficiency, potentially leading to increased processing time at the printer and, in more severe cases, triggering errors that halt production. These interruptions delay scheduled work, resulting in paper waste, and often require time-consuming reprints.
Most clients remain unaware of the technical inefficiencies in their PDF submissions. Common issues include:
- Files bloated with numerous repeated, subsetted font families
- Images containing unnecessarily high resolutions exceeding print requirements
- Redundant comment records added by enterprise production software
- Inefficient object referencing requiring multiple processing passes
The Search for a Solution
The integration of Solimar’s platform has delivered compelling results across multiple dimensions:
- Capacity Scaling Achievement (2x–3x)
By optimizing how jobs are received, processed, and routed, Mail-Gard can now process and deliver critical communications at up to three times the previous volume, without proportionally increasing labor or facility footprint. This efficiency breakthrough enables Mail-Gard to take on significant new business while maintaining its exacting quality standards. - Seamless Plant-to-Plant Redundancy
One of the most powerful outcomes has been the ability to transfer overflow work effortlessly between facilities. Thanks to Solimar’s centralized job tracking and file normalization capabilities, Mail-Gard can redirect jobs from Warminster to IWCO’s production facility in Chanhassen, Minnesota, without disrupting workflows or compromising compliance requirements, significantly enhancing its value proposition as a disaster recovery and business continuity partner. - Enhanced Workflow Efficiency
Solimar’s technology has directly contributed to optimizing Mail-Gard’s production environment. By eliminating manual file preparation and reducing changeovers, operators now spend more time running equipment and less time troubleshooting job files. This efficiency translates directly into faster turnaround times, greater operational predictability, and elevated client satisfaction. - Rock-Solid Compliance Support
With SOLitrack’s comprehensive capabilities, Mail-Gard provides healthcare clients with complete peace of mind through detailed tracking, comprehensive job histories, and audit-ready reports. Solimar equips Mail-Gard with the tools to confidently meet the most stringent regulatory requirements in an industry where every communication must be meticulously accounted for.
For Mail-Gard and IWCO, Solimar is a true strategic partner that helps future-proof operations and strengthen its position as a leader in regulated, high-stakes communications.
Industry Leadership Reinforced
”As our business continues to grow in the healthcare and critical communications sector, having the right partners in place is vital,” said Brian Murphy, Director of Operations – Mail-Gard. “Solimar Systems has provided, not just software. but a platform and support model that empowers us to meet the highest standards for reliability, compliance, and responsiveness. They’re an integral part of our strategic investments in Warminster and IWCO’s Chanhassen production facility.”
This expansion represents more than a tactical move—it’s a cornerstone of IWCO and Mail-Gard’s broader strategy to reinforce their leadership in the business continuity and disaster recovery space. Solimar’s solutions enable Mail-Gard to deliver modern, resilient services that meet the increasingly complex needs of regulated industries, particularly the healthcare sector.
Building the Future of Critical Communications
For Mail-Gard and IWCO, Solimar is a true strategic partner that helps future-proof operations and strengthen its position as a leader in regulated, high-stakes communications. Whether for disaster recovery or daily healthcare mailings, Solimar’s workflow solutions ensure Mail-Gard can deliver securely, reliably, and at scale.
As Mail-Gard continues to support both long-standing clients and new enterprise partners in the healthcare industry, Solimar remains a key enabler, helping the company drive innovation, scalability, and trust. Through intelligent workflow automation, real-time tracking, and PDF optimization, Solimar empowers Mail-Gard to exceed its clients’ highest expectations—today and well into the future.
For organizations in critical communications seeking to modernize operations or implement business continuity services, Mail-Gard and Solimar Systems together demonstrate the extraordinary potential that emerges when visionary strategy meets transformative technology.