Dorfman Pacific recognized that managing their product data and associated images would be a complex task. For example, an item might be manufactured in different styles and colors, and each of those product variations can have an associated image. Photos taken using different camera angles or image resolutions may also need to be associated with the item. The large number of possible product and camera parameter permutations meant that any single catalog item may have very many associated images. And the images include Adobe® Photoshop® files typically 20-30 Mbytes each. The time required for graphics department staff members to find, retrieve and distribute requested product images to resellers and distributors was longer than Dorfman Pacific desired.

Formtek Solution: Alfresco™ Enterprise ECM software was selected as the content management software used for the Image Management Application (IMA) because the solution met all of Dorfman Pacific’s basic functional requirements, and because of Alfresco’s affordable subscription-based price point.

To store the metadata for product items and associated digital images, Formtek developed a content data model unique to Dorfman Pacific’s requirements. The metadata in the content model includes the various style, manufacturing, and camera parameters of the product items and associated images. IMA then allows users to search over any of those metadata parameters and find images that match that criteria within the IMA repository.

As a browser-based application, the IMA client provides easy access for both internal and external users. But the IMA repository can also be accessed in ways other than via the browser. Users in the Graphics Department can mount the IMA repository as a standard network drive and can easily interact with the repository directly from their graphics software applications, such as Adobe® InDesign®, without needing to start the browser-based client.