Digital asset management taps secret savings: packaging departments that have made digital asset management a priority are more efficient and have cut `rework' - Digital Aasset Management - digital asset management usage in food packaging industry

Food & Drug Packaging, April, 2003 by Lisa McTigue Pierce

The amount of digital data generated by companies has grown to gigabyte proportions.

Consider that the average personal computer 20 years ago had a 60 megabyte (MB) hard drive and 16 kilobytes of RAM (random access memory). Now, a typical laptop computer boasts a whopping 30 gigabyte hard drive and 256MB of RAM.

The real kicker? Today's computers fill up just as quickly as ever.

In all areas of business, electronic files are ever-increasing in their volume, importance and complexity. Digital asset management (DAM) programs can help packagers organize and quickly find important and often-used computer files.

Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions about DAM.

Why do you need to manage digital assets?

Can you afford the time and money of package design rework? Vendor consolidation forced Dan, a general manager in charge of packaging for a consumer product company, to switch package printers three times in as many years. Each time, Dan's department had to redo carton designs for the new supplier.

In your department alone, how much wasted time is spent looking for a computer file? Research has shown anywhere from 12 to 28 minutes a day--per person--is wasted looking for things. A system that organizes needed files can save countless search time.

Or, consider the legal ramifications. Robert Williams, president of Cohasset Associates, published a paper with the Association of Information and Image Management (AIIM) titled "Realizing the Need and Putting the Key Components in Place to `Getting It Right' in Records Management."

Williams writes: "Consider this hypothetical: three months from now, unforeseen litigation is filed against your organization. The records requested in discovery involve the reconstruction of transactions that occurred seven to eight years ago--within the statutes of limitations for such events. How will your organization access, review, and produce the requested records from those legacy systems on which they were created and stored?"

What packaging assets should be part of a DAM program?

DAM makes sense for archiving:

* Package/label graphics, including photos, illustrations and company and brand logos.

* Regulatory requirements and evidence of compliance, such as for 21 CFR Part 11.

* Document approvals.

* Label and/or insert contents and layouts, including a history of versions and Nutrition Facts, Drug Facts or Supplement Facts. These can be primary package labels or shipping labels.

* Specifications for packaging materials or machinery.

* E-mail communications between internal departments, as well as with outside parties.

How can you convert non-digital assets into digital format?

A number of options exist to make something non-digital, digital. Time, cost and future use should help you decide which method is best.

* You can recreate the information on a computer. This is the most time consuming and costly way, but gives you the best means of making changes in the future.

* You can scan documents and/or package graphics or film. Today's high-quality scanning equipment is so good at digitizing packaging graphics that even counterfeiters are able to quickly copy your packaging! This method is fast and relatively inexpensive, but alterations to the original materials are severely limited.

What are key attributes of any DAM system?

The success of any computer database is how easy it is to use. It's important that the system has an intuitive user interface, especially since not all participants will use it every day.

Other questions to ask: Does the program have a logical naming scheme for the files? Does it show a history of versions? Does it use icons to show the contents? Is the data organized in a way that's easy to navigate? Can you set up various levels of access for security?

Who offers DAM solutions?

Twenty years ago, two initial companies struggled to survive in the newborn DAM market. Today, the list of solution providers is as broad as it is deep and includes:

* Prepress service organizations, such as Creo, Esko-Graphics, Schawk and others.

* Packaging material suppliers. Inland Paperboard mud Packaging, Pechiney and Rock-Tenn are among the many suppliers that offer DAM programs for structural and/or graphic package design.

* DAM service providers, such as AdProps, Document Control Systems, HAHT Commerce Inc., Mystic Management and 3M Global Packaging Services (see "If it worked for 3M ..." above).

What DAM programs are available?

No matter what software you use, web-based or not, the most important step is to set a policy for digital asset management. Identify the data you want organized, then find the DAM product or service that best fits your needs. It might be an off-the-shelf program; or you may need one custom built.

Here are just a few of the options available today:

* From Esko-Graphics, the Web Center archives design layouts and/or CAD/CAM drawings for major manufacturers, including Kraft Foods.

* From HAHT Commerce, the HAHT Consumer Products Suite helps consumer product goods (CPG) companies manage and share brand information with retail partners on the back end of packaging--through time supply chain.