If it has been a while since you have been to Vancouver, do not expect it to look the same. This is a constantly changing city of cranes and construction. For a company like PacBlue Digital Reprographics, that is a very good thing.

If you only dimly recall the original name Pacific Blueprinting and it draws references to ammonia and blueprints, that is all right. This company is a 60-year-old, overnight sensation. Like the actor who worked decades to become a sudden star, PacBlue has skyrocketed into the spotlight.

For nearly 50 years, the company operated as a small, family owned reprographics shop. Think Mom, Pop, two blueprint machines, and 80-hour work weeks. About 11 years ago, Jonathan Colley, who had emigrated from South Africa, took over the firm. He knew that blueprints are good business in a city that never stops growing.

His first step was a small one. He heard from one of his suppliers that another repro business was closing and owed the supplier a large sum of money. After negotiating a settlement on the debt, PacBlue absorbed the company and its client base. More clients gave PacBlue the added strength - and confidence - to take the risk to invest in new technology. Adding software and hardware one piece at a time, and absorbing parts and pieces of several more companies, PacBlue began to grow exponentially. Equipment and staff from one company, a client list from another - that is what growth is made of.

What's inside
Now for a peek into a very-Vancouver glass building where PacBlue occupies 16,000 square feet. First, PacBlue consists of more than 50 highly skilled employees with many years of digital printing and reprographic experience. And, in the true spirit of an entrepreneurial business, family members comprise all the employment at PacBlue. You will find a room full of talented colour experts who can solve any colour management problem.

Beside the front door you see a small design supply shop. Wait, do not go back out and look at the door to see if you have made a mistake, this is the right place. One of the companies Colley added to the PacBlue stable had a substantial retail presence. Scaled back, this is just the place for a designer or student to replenish needed supplies while picking up a finished job.

Speaking of students, the folks at PacBlue offer training, advice and discounts to design and engineering students all over the city. What better way to introduce your company to the next generation of clients?

Presses, scanners, copiers
So you want to talk equipment? Let's face it; the list here is nearly endless, and constantly changing: wide-format colour, inkjet, xerographic, oil-based, water-based and more - Océ LightJet 430 and TCS400, Xerox ColorgrafX X2, Bellise digital picture press, HP DesignJet 1050C, Mimaki. Wait, that is not enough? Next week a new HP 5500 will be in production. PacBlue is already a Xerox house, running a 6060, 2045 or Docucolor 12, which combined can produce 7,020 colour copies per hour. And next month, a new iGenS will be delivered.

To deliver wide-format black and white, PacBlue is an Océ house running three 9800s and a TDS 800. In small-format black and white, the company runs two Xerox DocuTechs (6135 and 90) and two Ricoh Aficio 1085s and a Canon ImageRUNNER 8500. The thought of image scanning brings to mind tabletop scanners, drum scanners and even wide format grayscale scanning like that provided by the VIDAR TruScan Titan or Océ 9800 scanners on site. But wide-format colour scanning is where PacBlue's colour expertise shines.

But first, a warning: for those of you with a reptile phobia, you may want to jump ahead. Installed in its own special room, the Cruse Synchron table scanning system has a bed that will hold objects up to 48 by 72 inches and up to 4-inches thick. Now you can not make a full-sized scan of your dog or your kid, but you can scan your pet snake. Been there, done that! Yes, it does take a few minutes; so exactly how do you get a 6-foot python to lie still? Set up a few spotlights and your cold-blooded friend snuggles happily into the warmth and stays put.

OK, not everyone wants a huge picture of a huge snake, but the Cruse scanner is great for fine art (in a frame or flat), books, plans and renderings, paintings (again, in a frame or flat), oversized maps, rare documents, photo prints, reprographics, and small sculpture or other 3-dimensional objects. Now here's the clincher - you want fine detail? How does a resolution of 10,000 x 15,000 pixels sound?

Products
From all this equipment, PacBlue produces a wide range of printed products. A quick tour will turn up small-format colour projects like decals, labels, catalogue covers to large projects like vehicle graphics and 8-feet by 30-feet spans of wallpaper. Step into the tradeshow display room and see samples of display units and banner stands in all their glory.

That is just on one side of the house. Architectural and engineering drawings flow out the door, to the tune of over 1-million square feet of paper a month. Whenever dealing with CAD files, there is always a burden for turning it around quickly, which is why PacBlue carries plenty of stock of common substrates, as Colley says, "I have customers who will send a file on Friday afternoon at 4:45 for delivery Monday morning. I don't want to be scrambling for paper." Six radio-controlled vans work the city, much like a taxi fleet, each in their own territory.

IT services
None of this happens without a robust IT infrastructure, and PacBlue delivers here too. The latest server addition has brought the company's data storage capabilities up to one terabyte. Besides keeping all those files needed for colour digital printing, PacBlue provides document storage for office documents and plan room services for architects and engineers.

With an online plan room, architects, engineers, contractors and project owners have secure access to construction plans and project files. Architects and engineers can archive and store plans, and contractors and project managers can review bid information, order plans sets, and view prints and specifications. All participants in projects also get automatic email notification of any addendums and revisions to the project files.

To manage hundreds of print jobs, PacBlue has developed an in-house automated workflow system. Production staff and CSRs can track jobs from the time the files are submitted until the job is delivered to the customer. In beta testing now is an online ordering/job submission system with job tracking for clients as well. In any print production facility, a huge number of calls to the CSRs are from clients who simply want to know the status of a job. PacBlue will provide self-service access to view key project milestones and soon clients will have a 24/7, real-time view of their projects in the system.

Part of the new system also includes client-submitted job data. Completion of a job specification form will result in an electronic job ticket with all production instructions. As the files are submitted, the job ticket is created, and the workflow begins automatically. Just one more step to speed up the production and delivery of printed projects.

Expect more of the same from PacBlue. "The speed at which technology changes," says Colley, "is what keeps me up at night. I am always on the watch for the best new equipment and software to deliver top quality printed projects, and the best people who can make that happen."