As the oldest advertising agency in the world, J, Walter Thompson (JWT) knew well the hassles of a manual production cycle. For years, staffers mailed or hand-delivered artwork around the country for review and approval. Once e-mail became a standard tool, they discovered its limitations when sending high-resolution images to clients. They found that clients did not like the network congestion caused by a steady stream of large e-mails. And possibly even worse, sending e-mail attachments introduced the challenge of tracking document versions.
JWT's Detroit office moved toward solving those problems by implementing an electronic sign-off solution for Ford Motor Co. The process moved the review and approval stages of the production cycle to the Web, using ITM Associates' PDF InFusion platform. Review times dropped from weeks to hours, with an average turnaround time of just a day.
Electronic content review technology has saved time and lowered costs by reducing the need for paper and related supplies, travel and even conference calls.
Perhaps the best benefit is client satisfaction. A JWT client for more than 50 years, Ford did not have to purchase new equipment or invest in extensive training to use the system. Unlike e-mail, the Web-based review process does not increase traffic within Ford's infrastructure.
Initially, electronic reviewing was feasible only for big and wealthy companies, but these days smaller shops have access to the technology at a very affordable price. For many businesses, parts of the production cycle remain essentially manual.
From Draft to Approval
Throughout the production process, content review generally takes much longer than draft creation. The review and sign-off phases often lead to slowdowns and missed deadlines, especially when it's necessary to get feedback from several reviewers who are located in different places.
How do you coordinate people in offices across the country or connect organizations running different computer systems? Getting everyone to use the same hardware and software is not a realistic option. Conference calls and travel costs can quickly consume a budget.
For these reasons, many organizations still rely on fax machines and couriers to deliver proofs and drafts. Though it takes just a few minutes to send and receive a fax, document quality suffers. The fax may reduce an oversized page, and subtle or small elements may simply not show up. Sending a fax of a fax compounds these problems.
The best workstations, the latest software, the biggest bandwidth — technology will not alleviate production cycle slowdowns unless you can use it to automate and improve workflow. All systems involved — the people, the procedures and the technology — must work well together toward the completion of the finished product.
A variety of solutions offer help. For example, Prolatus MarkUp provides an electronic tablet and pen, allowing the user to enter comments in a manner similar to the manual mark-up procedure. Notations and changes are automatically transferred from the tablet to the electronic file.
Widely used file types such as JPEG (an image-compression standard developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group) and PDF (Portable Document Format) allow users to view documents on almost any computer and in a Web browser. With these file formats, you can quickly e-mail drafts, graphics and proofs or post them on the Web.
Without a way for everyone working on a project to mark up the same file, keeping track of comments and controlling file versions can become very difficult. However, the most dramatic improvements to production cycle times and costs occur when the technology actually enhances coordination and communication among the people involved.
Improve Teamwork
When users conference, chat and e-mail their way through questions and disagreements about the content of the same document, they are working together, collaborating on content review. This kind of teamwork cannot take place over blurry faxes and e-mail attachments.
“In the DM community, we remain prisoners to hard copy/fax sign-offs. Electronic proofing allows us to move beyond hard-copy approvals and expands the traditional approval process toward a team-oriented one,” says Steve Farrell of Integram, a direct mail production and e-messaging firm based in Fairfax, VA.
E-proofing enables reviewers to communicate and resolve their differences quickly and easily, regardless of each individual's location or schedule. Reviewers mark up the same document and receive automatic notification when other reviewers leave comments. They can capture a chat session or real-time discussion in an annotation and make the discussion available to all reviewers. Each comment or correction is stored in a file separate from the actual document. This maintains the integrity of the draft, while creating an audit trail that keeps everyone informed.
The automated system actually improves workflow by promoting better organization, with features such as annotation categories to keep reviewers focused on the content they have the authority to oversee. This ensures that the legal department will restrict its comments to legal issues, while graphics experts concentrate on the details involving artwork or color schemes.
With affordable high-speed Internet access such as DSL or T1 lines, and the adoption of standard file formats including PDF for prepress applications, small businesses can now incorporate electronic proofing. Electronic review and approval technology allows businesses to leverage a firm's existing infrastructure and universal tools, such as Web access and a browser, to transform the cumbersome stages of the production cycle into a more efficient, cost-effective process.
Of course, some situations require a hard-copy proof. Online proofing is no substitute for the real thing when dealing with complex color management, even if you have access to calibrated monitors. It won't eliminate faxes or late-night press checks, either. But current technology enables reviewers to proof the layout, copy and general color scheme online, collaboratively, in a secure environment.
As JWT found, an electronic sign-off solution can trim several weeks from the review process. In many cases, a company can go virtually paperless from draft through personalization sign-offs. Clients that receive quality work on time and within budget thanks to a process that does not strain their own resources will need little convincing of online proofing's benefits. And businesses that adopt this technology early will gain a competitive advantage and experience measurable return on investment due to the improved workflow that results from its use.
Mike Bloom is president of Production Plus in Olney, MD. Jaya Kanal is a freelance writer.
