Building Bonds by Managing Assets

Although separated by four states, 1,700 miles, and two time zones, Blanks Color Imaging manages the digital photography assets of the $4 billion retailer, Mervyn's, using Xinet's WebNative Venture system to publish the retailer's images for its designers via the Internet.

"We're in Dallas, they're in California, and Venture puts us as a virtual presence within their building," says Jim Smiddy, technical director for Blanks Color Imaging. "This partnership has been a great success. Mervyn's operates 264 stores in 14 states, so with this system it can maximize huge cost savings per year."

Blanks Color Imaging, an $18 million commercial sheetfed printer and prepress company, also uses the Venture asset management system to transmit digital images over the Internet for Dal-Tile, the largest ceramic tile manufacturer in the U.S., and Michaels Arts and Crafts Stores, the largest specialty retailer in the U.S., with 700 stores and $2.5 billion in sales.

Smiddy chose the WebNative Venture and FullPress systems from Berkeley, Calif.-based Xinet, Inc. in November 2001 to be able to take on Web-based asset management services for companies like Mervyn's. "We had a different system at the time," he explains, "but once I saw all the features of WebNative, I knew that was what I wanted instead."

Blanks Color Imaging, working with its integrator, North American Systems, achieved a "surprisingly painless" installation and implementation of both systems. "We just ran the installer and got going," Smiddy recalls.

FullPress, a powerful prepress server package released in 1995, streamlines production workflows with seamless file sharing, print spooling, output optimization, and an industry-standard image replacement engine.

WebNative, Xinet's server-based asset management system that's fully integrated with an enterprise-strength SQL database, provides users with unlimited, 24-hour Internet access to their files and archives.

"Our customers like how easy it is to use Venture," Smiddy reports. "By establishing a logical naming function for the database, keeping the product name embedded into the file name, we made the system functional and very simple to use."

He says asset management is made even simpler because the dozen participating photography studios can upload their product photos to the Blanks Color Imaging Web site, where they are managed in one place. "The best part of Venture is that companies have realized that they can repurpose their data very easily," Smiddy says. "That's where the huge cost savings comes in."

For Dal-Tile, Blanks Color Imaging manages a library with more than 6,000 tile images. "Dal-Tile was struggling to provide images to all its vendors, contractors, and Home Depot, so we took over the image bank," Smiddy says. "Now vendors just log in from any computer and track tiles according to brand or style."

He concludes, "Xinet's Venture and FullPress systems help us provide services that tie clients to us in a very personal way. By housing and managing customers' images, we become part of their culture and even become identified as part of the company. What better customer bond is there?"