The PLM Group was founded by Barry Pike in 1987. At its inception, the company had six employees and one sheetfed press, with Pike doing the selling. Since that time, The PLM Group has grown into a publicly traded company that finished 2006 with revenues of approximately $110 million (Canadian), 500 employees, and a portfolio of services that deliver an end-to-end single-source approach. Fully integrated services include prepress, sheetfed and web offset, wide format digital printing, direct marketing services, specialty finishing and IT services.
From the beginning, Pike's vision was to create a different type of printer, vertically integrated to service niche markets. In line with that vision, the company today is exclusively dedicated to serving the growing promotional and print-for-one markets by delivering a full-service print solution to the marketing and agency communities.
PLM's prepress operation has a staff of 47 talented employees that support the company's printing operations, including making plates for all of its presses. According to John Go, Vice President of Technology for Prepress, "In the late 1990's, we were trying to find a system that could track and manage all of our jobs, eliminating the paper-based system we were using. Our goal was to have all information about all of our jobs available to everyone who needed access through a single interface in real time. While that sounded like a tall order back then, we were delighted when we found MetaCommunications' Job Manager, which gave us the capabilities we were looking for."
Two years later, PLM added Virtual Ticket for even more integration and automation. Go says, "With Virtual Ticket, we were able to add even more convenience and automation by creating our own electronic forms, including docket forms or job tickets, and change forms. We also track all of our digital resources and ensure that we capture all billable costs for each and every job that comes through the prepress department. Once a job is completed, we use Virtual Ticket to archive all of its components. Even if we archive to tape, Virtual Ticket makes it easy to locate the job if we need to access it again, and to retrieve all of its components in one job package."
When a job enters the prepress department, according to Go, the CSR opens a docket in Job Manager, creating a job and docket number, and then enters all instructions in Virtual Ticket. Since Job Manager and Virtual Ticket are fully integrated, no rekey is necessary between the two, and because most of the fields are pull down menus, the need to key in information at all is limited, resulting is fast entry of jobs into the system. He says, "The CSR just chooses the right customer address, colors required, the number of pages in the job, etc., and notes any special instructions. Once the job is ready, it is passed on to a scheduler who assigns an operator."
Job Manager allows our plant manager to look at jobs in real time to assess job costing and estimates versus actual so that we can ensure that each and every job is profitable.
John Go, Vice President of Technology for Prepress
Everything related to the job is then accumulated in a folder on the server labeled with the docket number and Job Manager tracks all activities, including any new files added to the folder. This includes RIP files, proof files and imposition files. With Virtual Ticket's InterSync indexing capability, all job components that bear the same docket number are associated with the job and indexed for easy tracking. This makes it simple to archive and retrieve the job later. Periodically, the company's archivist uses Virtual Ticket to search for all closed or billed jobs to move them to second tier online storage, and then to near-line tape library, thus optimizing the amount of online storage the department requires.
Employees also use Job Manager to record the hours they have worked on a particular job. Go adds, "This allows our plant manager to look at jobs in real time to assess job costing and estimates versus actual so that we can ensure that each and every job is profitable. We also use this real-time data to adjust our processes as necessary in the spirit of continuous improvement."
"Especially now that they are web-based," concludes Go, "Virtual Ticket and Job Manager are very easy to implement. They can be accessed from either a PC or Mac with a web browser, and that makes it easy for our operators to use the system, regardless of which platform they are using, without the need to load client software."
MetaCommunications has also been very good to work with, Go says, adding, "When we call them, either we get a live person on the line immediately, or they call back quickly. They almost always can resolve any problems in that initial call. And if we need anything done to customize the system, such as custom scripts or queries, they just jump right in and do it. I wish all of our vendors were that flexible."
