Print
Solutions July 2005
E-FILES
Profile
When
PDF Means Pretty Darn Fast
Plantrol
Systems’ OMNIcom247 lets
manufacturers send order documentation
immediately.
BY
JOE DONATELLI
How
quickly do you deliver price quotes?
Same week? Same day? Same hour?
Jim
Maggio doesn’t think that’s
fast enough.
His
manufacturing firm, Maggio Data
Forms Printing Ltd., Hauppauge,
N.Y., employs 12 customer service
representatives who email and
fax quotes while they’re
on the phone taking orders from
customers. “There is nothing
better than seeing that document
in front of you while you’re
still on the phone,” Maggio
says. “Email saves us a
few bucks, but the big advantage
is that it’s easier for
distributors to review price quotes.”
Maggio
customer service reps use OMNIcom247
software to email and fax order
documents in PDF form. The software
was created by Plantrol Systems
Ltd., a Westfield, N.Y., company
that provides custom software
and hardware to manufacturers
and emphasizes the need for efficient
workflow. “It’s a
pretty simple, basic product that
does a great job,” Maggio
says.
Information
On Demand
OMNIcom247
enables manufacturers to send
quotes, order acknowledgements,
invoices and shipping labels to
multiple destinations simultaneously.
The sender has the choice of emailing,
faxing or printing for regular
mail.
Files
sent electronically are converted
into PDFs and retain the look
of the original document. This
method creates two benefits: Distributors
receive order information immediately
and can share that information
quickly with customers, and manufacturers
save time and money on mail supplies
and corresponding employee work.
“Every
employee has a little meter that’s
running whether they’re
producing anything or not,”
says Dan Runfola, Plantrol’s
technical sales professional.
“If you’re standing
around a fax machine waiting,
and the guy in front of you has
to send his 27-page document first,
that’s time spent that he’s
not making a quote. Five minutes
here and there, and those minutes
add up.”
Plantrol’s
specialization is seamless insertion
of software and hardware into
companies’ electronic infrastructure.
Manufacturers can set OMNIcom247
so that it creates and sends a
variety of documents, or only
one type (price quotes, for example).
Printco
Incorporated, Omro, Wis., uses
OMNIcom247 for order acknowledgements.
The manufacturer operates web,
pack-to-pack and cut sheet presses,
and many of its forms are used
in the health care field. (It
also provides full mailing services
and short run digital and offset
color printing.) Bob Breu, Printco’s
vice president, says the company’s
clients now receive order acknowledgements
in less than 24 hours. In a typical
week, he says, 5 to 10 customers
request modifications to their
orders after receiving the acknowledgements.
“In
the past, order acknowledgements
would be mailed out, and often
the order would be shipped by
the time the customer received
an order acknowledgement,”
Breu says. “Speed is important.
Customers don’t want information
tomorrow or next week. They want
it now.”
OMNIcom247
also offers information on demand.
If a distributor wants to view
an invoice on a manufacturer’s
web site, the distributor can
request that OMNIcom247 recreate
the PDF invoice for online display.
“We’re not the cheapest
software out there because we
put heavy work into making sure
our software actually works,”
Runfola says. “We say, ‘We’ll
make our software work with you.’”
Plantrol
derives its name from the words
“planning” and “control,”
and the company prides itself
on creating custom solutions.
OMNIcom247’s features originally
were created for one of Plantrol’s
clients. When Runfola began working
for the company earlier this year,
he discovered the software’s
functionality buried within a
demo featuring other products.
Since, he has focused on marketing
OMNIcom247 to manufacturers. “Sometimes
programmers don’t realize
it when they’ve worked a
miracle,” he says.
A
key benefit of OMNIcom247 is that
it doesn’t tax users’
bandwidth and memory. Files containing
images take longer to send and
use more space, but OMNIcom247
creates files in “code,”
not “image,” which
means its PDF files move faster
and use less bandwidth and memory.
“We are planning a graphic
that will show the difference
between a standard image file
sent from computer to fax, and
our version that gives the same
result at about a 95 percent smaller
file size,” Runfola says.
“Smaller file size means
faster faxes, email and printing.”
For
example, a manufacturer that wants
to make custom shipping labels
with a customer’s fonts
and logo can do so more efficiently
than if it were using a larger
file. That’s valuable for
a distributor who relies on a
manufacturer to ship directly
to the end user, using the distributor’s
branding. “Without OMNIcom247,
this would be too time-consuming
and impractical to offer,”
Runfola says.
Next:
Internal Report Generation
Plantrol
Vice President of Sales and Finance
Dan Smith says updates to OMNIcom247
will make order processing fast
and virtually transparent. “One
of the uses in the near future
will be internal report generation
by the manufacturers,” he
says. “This will give everyone
who needs it a window into the
operation and allow them to view
the progress of a job as it runs
through the system.”
Managers
and supervisors will be able to
track workflow and read report
summaries in real time. “The
report can be viewed, printed
or put in a document management
file for later retrieval by whoever
is authorized to view or update
it,” Smith says. “More
of these reports will show up
on the web site and show up-to-the-moment
info.”
THE
FILE ON PLANTROL SYSTEMS LTD.
Company:
Plantrol Systems Ltd.
Launched:
1978
Location:
Westfield, N.Y.
Principals:
Richard Koenig, CEO; Daniel Smith,
CPA, vice president of sales and
finance
Employees:
21
Business
in Brief: Plantrol’s mission
is to enable companies to manage
their businesses without changing
the way they do business. It provides
software and hardware tailored
to meet manufacturers’ needs.
Plantrol offers solutions that
improve a wide range of processes,
including estimating, production,
shipping, billing and accounting.
It also integrates clients’
print management, warehousing
and distribution systems, and
provides system design, consulting
and training.
