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Workflow: Digital Asset Management
Today's Digital Asset Management Systems
Morph to Process Management for Packaging
By Noel Jeffrey
Not all that long ago, digital asset management systems were special applications that allowed users to catalog, store, and retrieve their digital images, artwork, videos, text, production files, audio clips, and more. In a word, they were digital libraries. Now, many of these libraries are a component, albeit an essential one, in workflow systems for most industries, including packaging.
Offerings include software applications that sell for under $1,000, like FileMaker Pro, through specialized services that cost several hundred thousand dollars annually. Whether they have their own in-house system or not, packaging designers will likely be working with more than one of the high-end applications being adopted by brand owners.
High end for brand owners
"In the last couple of years a different understanding has developed about digital asset management, " explains Kent St. Vrain, development officer at Paxonix. "People understand that it's necessary but it's not sufficient. Certainly having versions, thumbnails views, and processing different kinds of files are important but they have become a component under the hood. "
Today's systems are almost all web-based, whether they use the software as service model (SAS) or are installed applications set up behind an enterprise firewall. Typically they include modules that allow multiple users around the globe to review, approve, organize, search, retrieve, and deliver digital media, packaging, and marketing assets. In some cases, they include the ability to interface with printers' workflow systems or corporate ERP software.
For example, PaxPro, Paxonix's digital asset management offering, takes a holistic approach to packaging workflow by offering modules that put a great deal of automation in the process from "ideation to conversion." It's a pure SAS model with a price tag starting upwards of $100,000 annually.
"Without process management, designers spend 40% of their time on things that have nothing to do with design, " St. Vrain notes. "They're looking for content, getting approvals, checking status, and chasing process issues. The idea is to let the computer do it. Designers now have a tool that can take these tasks out of the way of normal work. "
PaxPro's modules consist of digital asset management, collaboration and workflow, routing and approval project management, specification management, integration, and reporting. The specification module is especially useful for packaging groups in CPG and pharmaceutical companies that want to separate assets like structural files, caps, closures, and so on. The integration module interfaces with the companies' other systems, such as like SAP enterprise systems. While design houses are not typical PaxPro customers, St. Vrain says that they are typically part of brand owners' systems, often logging in with different passwords for two or more of their clients.
St. Vrain points out three main reasons people purchase PaxPro or other process management systems: "The first is speed to market. We have taken 56% out of cycle times for clients. In one case, time for approvals was cut 81%, that is, 40 days to three days. Second, there is less rework. Since the system operates so fast, there can be more people who can catch errors in the review cycle. And third, the visibility and transparency of the whole process let's everyone know where the project is, who has it, and so on."
Ron Malloy, chief strategy officer for Design2Launch (D2L), cites similar rationale for his company's offering, described as "graphics lifecycle management." Technical support, design guidance, training, and customer service are all key components of the D2L system for "turnkey" solutions. A complete system with 1,000 users might cost around $200,000 initially and perhaps less thereafter.
Malloy says that D2L sells exclusively to Fortune 2000 brand owners and use Kodak technology for their virtual proofing solutions. "Kodak is our biggest partner," Malloy elaborates. "To tie our software into the workflow downstream, we have also incorporated an interface with their products so that files and metadata have an easy transition to Prinergy. " (Prinergy is Kodak's workflow system for printers.)
Like PaxPro, D2L offers a series of modules that include a digital asset management system called VAM (Virtual Asset Management) as well as modules for supplier submissions, reviewing and collaborating, color management, and communication that include soft and hard proofing, project tracking, and more. D2L is available as a hosted service or as a software application installed onsite at the client's facility.
"Our business has just exploded over the last two years," Malloy says. "The market has adapted to full digital workflow and companies that we talked to as long ago as 2003 are contacting us to present the solution to them again. Although some prepress houses or printers may offer digital asset management, for our target customers brand awareness is their business. " Malloy says that their customers are focused as a company in being in charge of their intellectual property as well in being in control of the communication channel to their vendors. "
Downstream and upstream/downstream
There are other automated and effective solutions as well. InSite Creative from Kodak is geared to prepress houses and printers but is also designed to be branded for customers. There are printers who offer digital asset management as a value-added service, and InSite, with its $20,000 to $30,000 price range, is certainly a candidate as the tool for this service. Steve Miller, product manager for Packaging Workflow at Kodak, says that although InSite may be an external offering, printers will also use it internally even more than their clients do.
Designers and production personnel can work with InSite Creative's modules using any web browser, but Kodak also offers free client software that Miller says is appealing to "power users." The main Kodak modules are called Projects and Library. A Smart Review client (a tool for proofing high-resolution data) can be launched from either module. Smart Review can also be used in conjunction with MatchPrint Virtual, which requires a color-accurate, calibrated monitor for color approvals. Miller points out that some customers have already invested in asset libraries and just want the ongoing workflow and review capabilities found in Projects.
"There is a shift to virtual proofing for some stages of packaging," Miller says. "In time, people will do it. We're seeing it much more in the commercial space today." Finally, there is also a module for printers who use Kodak's Prinergy workflow called Prinergy Jobs. This module offers another way to search for assets by date and job designation as well as for projects that may repeat.
WebCenter from EskoArtwork, winner of a 2006 InterTech Technology Award from PIA/GATF, started out life as a communication platform with strong features designed specifically for packaging. It could be called an upstream/downstream solution. Susie Stitzel, solutions manager at EskoArtwork, describes it as a "blend between an approval, workflow, and asset manager." Although it doesn't start out with an asset library per se, the system does store projects as they are entered so that over a period of time, it holds a large store of historical data and becomes a source, as Stitzel puts it, for "rich metadata." It's an appropriate system for designers as well as prepress houses and printers.
According to the InterTech Award description, "Webcenter can automatically create 3D models on-demand to accurately communicate a product, complete with its packaging, to a wide variety of stakeholders. Using a standard Web browser, WebCenter resolves a number of customer pain points, such as tracking and maintaining different versions of files. " Webcenter also supports approval workflows on virtually any file from structural and graphic design files to Microsoft Office documents. One tool in Webcenter provides accurate measurement of distances and angles, while a densitometer accurately measures each ink as well as the total ink coverage.
General systems for specific uses
Both St. Vrain of Paxonix and Malloy of Design2Launch mentioned that although their solutions have packaging-specific features, some marketing or graphic design departments in their customers' companies are signing on to the systems because they also use many of the same digital assets like logos, images, barcodes, etc. The flip side of that coin is that general digital asset management systems can function in the packaging world successfully, too, and their sales message is also resonating with brand owners.
For example, there's ClearStory's ActiveMedia. This summer, the company released ActiveMedia with Workflow Automation that extends the capability and value of its original solution beyond traditional transformation, cataloging, and repository services to manage digital media projects, creative workflow, review, and approval. It can also automate system events, asset management functions, and email notification. ActiveMedia can even extend to users outside the system, such as legal teams approving projects, printers who require automatic asset delivery upon completion, web content management, and other enterprise applications.
Pricing is by the license and pay as you go subscription model. The basic Essentials package can be delivered as a hosted service for as little as $99 per user. Customers using an on-premise solution to manage millions of assets with thousands of users can run as high as several hundred thousand dollars for just the software. Generally, entry level packages start at $10,000.
No story on digital asset management would be complete without a look at Cumulus from Canto, one of the pioneering companies in this field. What started out as a modest library for small workgroups has expanded to include an enterprise system of note. According to Joerg Koehler, marketing manager at Canto Software, they have a growing percentage of customers buying their enterprise solution to be deployed in their creative, marketing, or communication departments to manage files such as images, collateral, brochures, etc. The customers also use Cumulus to help them with optimizing their workflow with marketing agencies, print shops, and designers —basically to handle the entire brand management process. They also have a number of clients that are design agencies in the package design field.
Although the Cumulus enterprise solution would start at upwards of $30,000, the company still offers a Workgroup product that may be a better fit for small companies and firms. Pricing for this Workgroup product starts at a little over $3,000.
"Digital asset management is Canto's only industry, so we monitor trends very closely," says Ulrich Knocke, Canto's CEO. "I believe this is what has enabled us to stay ahead of the ever-changing digital asset management pack for over 16 years. " Knocke believes that the open architecture of Cumulus makes it easy for Canto and its development partners to mold the program into whatever customers want. This power has proved increasingly beneficial in past years as Cumulus has evolved into a more workflow-centric player. "Users want more than just the ability to find assets these days," Knocke explains. "They want the ability to monitor asset histories and control asset futures."
To SAS or Not to SAS
Of the systems presented in this story, only PaxPro is solely an SAS (Software as Service) offering and only InSite Creative and Cumulus are exclusively in-house client/server solutions. Not surprisingly, Kent St. Vrain sees SAS as the way of the future. "Three years ago, IT managers would not accept a third party solution for their assets, " says St. Vrain. "Now, with IT budgets slashed, the Chief Information Officers listen. In addition, the return on investment is much faster. An in-house system requires a huge upfront investment. Plus, when we get a great new feature, everyone shares it."
Among the other digital asset management suppliers, there's a general feeing that enterprises are still reluctant to trust their intellectual property to an outside vendor. Ron Malloy of Design2Launch estimates that 70% of D2L customers are in-house solutions with 30% hosted. Susie Stitzel says that 75% of WebCenter's clients own their system and 25% are hosted. Clear Story says their service breaks down to just about half hosted versus half installed currently (52% vs. 48%).
Noel Jeffrey regularly covers print production, digital imaging, print-on-demand, and related subjects for graphics trade media. Contact her at noeljeff1@earthlink.net.
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COMPASS is an online software tool for packaging designers and engineers to compare the environmental impacts of their package designs.
