Signshop: For PhotoCraft, the Portland, Oregon-based facility of Vectra Visual, a leading provider of innovative retail graphics solutions, the decision to implement DALIM SOFTWARE's TWIST and ES sprung from the need to exert control over its workflow, simplify the premedia process, and slash production times.
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I love how, when these two companies merged, they did not just merge their finances and personnel, but also their best practices. I think a lot of times companies merge, it is seen as employees as a negative thing (i.e. employees laid off, tighter money.) However, it definitely seems as if these companies are taking the positives of a merger and finding ways to improve the new merged company together. As I was reading this article, I couldn't help but think how it would be so useful for other companies to be able to do this with their competition and sister companies without having to merge. If there was a way for companies in competition to share best practices with one another without putting each other out of business. I suppose the closest thing I can think of that achieves this goal are industry conferences (i.e. USITT.) While these conferences are definitely useful, I feel they are more for individuals and less for entire companies to learn and make big changes from. I think partnerships between competitors could really help make our industries even stronger by identifying best practices for all. The trick is to find a way to incentivize stronger companies to help weaker companies out by sharing their practices.
We hear a lot about “the cloud” nowadays. Most of the conversation however revolves around file storage and sharing largely for personal devices. There is however another subset of the cloud which has traditionally gotten less attention and which has enabled this company to truly change the way they work. Cloud computing relies on a central CPU and GPU to process files that would traditionally be dropped on individual workstations. Because of its centralized nature and ability to service multiple workstations this server is able to, with similar or less investments be several times more powerful. When combined with a localized server of high speed storage devices this takes the render time of large files from hours to minutes and it does all of this while leaving the individual users computer free to perform other tasks. We don’t do a ton of video rendering in theatre yet but with media emerging as a true force to be reckoned with who knows what we’ll need in the future.
I do not know a lot about graphics printing, but I know there is a lot involved. From design to colors, media, and quality there are a lot of variables. Even if one already has a design, there are several steps to go through to actually print something. Having used a professional printer in the past, I know this can be difficult; especially because I was just in charge of the purchasing. As a result, once I got the designs, I headed over to the printer with a flash drive and said, “I need these printed.” Little did I know that the designer was working in scale. There was a lot of back and forth before I was able to communicate to the printer which image files related to which sizes of actual images that needed to be printed. It would seem that this new system would eliminate that. With the new streamlined process, all parties involved would know exactly what images were to be printed in what sizes and on what materials. If only I had this level of customer support with the printer I worked with. Though, in part, this could have been avoided if the designer gave me all the information beforehand.
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