TJ Hurckes
By Ed Avis
BHFX Imaging does a lot of things well, but one market the company has totally dominated in recent years is scanning and document management for school districts. Their proprietary solution takes a school district’s mountain of old documents, marries it to any new construction plans, and stores it all in a cloud-based repository that is constantly updated and easily accessed by the client.
“In 2014 we really started encouraging the actual owners, the school districts, to have us manage and digitize their entire database,” says TJ Hurckes, the company’s digital service manager. “We just added our 106th school district client.”
BHFX, which has six locations in the Chicago area and joined IRgA this month, wants to share this solution with other IRgA members.
“Right now we’re doing so well in Illinois because I can say, ‘Look at these hundred surrounding districts we’re working with,’” Hurckes says. “I’d like to be able to say, ‘Listen, we’ve done this in Chicago, we’ve done this in New York, we’ve done this in multiple states.’ I’m hoping working with other IRgA members creates this possibility.”
Before we describe Hurckes’ offer, a little history.
First to Go Digital
BHFX was founded in 1956 by TJ Hurckes’ grandfather Bob and AJ Bogous. At the time, the company was called B&H Industries. AJ left the firm after a while, and four of Bob’s seven sons, including TJ’s father, Tom, joined the company. Tom has since passed away, but the other second-generation Hurckes remain owners. TJ and his cousin Dave run the company today.
In the early years the company focused on art supplies, and eventually got into diazo printing. The company grew dramatically after shifting from diazo printing to a fleet of Océ 9800 digital plain paper printers in the '90s and early 2000s.
“At one point we had 10 locations and were running 16 Océ 9800s,” says TJ Hurckes, who joined the company in 2003, right about the time the company acquired FX Reprographics and changed its name to BHFX. “We were one of the first to start moving files around digitally. This this was back when the GCs were still running full sets for everybody, right? We would run off a hundred, 200 bid sets, and then we'd stockpile them at our locations. Once we went digital, we were able to say, ‘Okay, we'll set this set up, and your subs can now order and choose to pick up from any of our eight or nine locations.’ So we just kept getting all the big jobs. Even if the client didn't print with us, if they had anything huge, they would reach out to us, because we were the only one that could spread it around and print.”
The success the company enjoyed as a leading-edge digital printer is reflected in its current success with the digital archiving business.
No More Banker Boxes
Hurckes says the company’s move into digital archiving began in 2007 when a client asked them to digitize a spec book and create links in the table of contents to certain pages. That evolved into linking from the plans back to the appropriate page in the spec book.
“And that slowly turned into linking up the closeout documents, because at that time, they were still submitting things in banker boxes, hard copy,” Hurckes explains. “So in about 2008 we started doing closeouts for general contractors. And we would basically reach out to the GC and say, ‘Listen, instead of handing over these banker boxes, we can turn it over on this flash drive, and it’s going to be much more efficient for these clients to find what they need, and everybody's going to be happy.’”
By 2010, the GC’s clients themselves began asking BHFX if the firm could help them with the piles of old documents in their basements. So they created websites with static PDF pages listing the client’s buildings with links to other static pages with construction details, inspections, etc.
“But it was all very manual, lot of intense labor to get all this stuff set up. Every time they updated a project, we had to update the static version and pass that huge file back and forth. So, in 2014, we launched the very first database-driven, web-based solution for our clients that allows remote access for their architects, remote access for their engineers. We can update it live while they're using it in real time.”
And thus was born their current solution. BHFX earns money when they scan the documents and set up the service, a monthly maintenance fee, and another fee when building renovations or new construction necessitates updates. The vast majority of their clients for this service have been school districts, though the Chicago Bears also are on the client list. Only one client has canceled in all those years.
Other IRgA Members Can Join In
Hurckes says he is happy to expand this service with the help of other IRgA members around the country. First, he’ll gladly talk with any member who wants to discuss the overall topic, even if they don’t want to use his solution. But for those who want a turn-key system, his might be just right.
“What we’ve done with other reprographers, some via the RSA, was a percentage share,” he explains. “So, for example, if an IRgA member had a client that may be interested, we would do all the demos for the resellers. We would do basically the sales for them. And if the client signed on, the reseller would get all the scanning revenue. The software revenue, we would do a percentage split. And then any of the updates, the reseller has a choice. We could either train them on how to do updates, and they can update their clients themselves, and charge their clients closeout fees like we do, or we do all the updates, we charge our closeout fee, and they get a percentage of that.”
Interested? Reach out to Hurckes via phone at 847-899-3414 or via email at tj.hurckes@bhfx.net