Taking our lab services on line - chapter 9
How it works in the lab
When the consumer completes his order and transmits it,
the orders go to a bank of server computers operated by Fotowire. Those servers operate 24 hours a day, so our computers
don't have to be turned on and connected to the internet for a customer to
place an order.
We named the computer that handles our Fotowire orders
"Fotowire." See, we're really creative!
Each morning when we get to the store, we turn on all
the computers in the network and our Konica QD-21 printer/processor. When
network connectivity is established, we log onto the internet using America
On Line.
We launch the Fotowire Lab Software and a menu bar
launches on the monitor. When I click on "Collector," our computer
connects to the Fotowire server. First the software determines if any
updates are needed, and if so, performs them automatically. Next any new
orders are collected - harvested, if you will - from the Fotowire server.
We'll print out the work order and
the invoice. This shows exactly how many prints to make of each image, what
size, and the customer's name and address.
If the customer is prepaying the
order by credit card, that's on the invoice too. We'll ring up the
transaction and approve the credit card payment before making the prints. If
it's one of our regular customers, who pays upon pickup or charges it to a
house charge account, we skip that stage.
Only at this point do we check off
the orders that are ready for processing.
The Fotowire/Silverwire The image
processing module prepares the images for printing and sends them to the
printer queue.
Labs using Noritsu and Agfa
minilabs will actually start the printing at this point. In our case,
because we use a Konica QD-21, our lab operator imports the orders and
prints them as if they came from a camera's memory card.
Customers like it and so do we.
Our story so far:
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