Printing Industries of Michigan (PIM) developed "printwire.org" to help its members respond to their customers who wanted to use the Internet to alleviate paperwork and improve turnaround time. As the word of the non-commercial product got out, printers around the country have been endorsing "printwire.org" as the right answer to eCommerce for the graphic arts industry.

The customers said:	The printers responded:
Management is pushing for eCommerce solutions to procurement. The commercial responses confuse us and bring in an unwanted third party that will add to the cost.	PrintWire is a dedicated web portal designed by printers and print buyers who understand the way the industry does business. There is no middleman to add to costs.
Paperwork is killing us. Anything you can do to minimize the paperwork and give us more time to concentrate on the production of projects would be appreciated.	After consulting with buyers, PIM developed PrintWire to provide a paper trail for a print project from bidding straight through to delivery, evaluation and cumulative record keeping.
Saving time is our main goal, saving money would be a welcome secondary benefit.	PrintWire has an email notification system, so that printers are notified as soon as the RFQ is posted and buyers are notified as soon as a quote is returned. The system will verify that the quotes meet the requests and then provide a price comparison.
We want to continue our relationships with qualified bidders (no free-for-all bidding).	PrintWire is designed to allow print buyers to maintain a preferred vendor list for efficient selection of RFQ recipients and maintains confidentiality on the bidding process so only selected bidders will be involved.
We don't have to know where the project is in your plant all of the time, all we care about is that you will be able to make the deadline. Let us know the project has been delivered and who signed for it.	We'll post the delivery information. However, we heard loud and clear that the print buyers want to maintain personal contact with their print vendors, so we encourage you to call with any questions about your projects.
For quality purposes, we’d like to include a review of each project with the file.	It's done. Part of the RFQ history will include job performance and review capabilities.
We’d like the system to give us a record of our transactions by including information on vendors by category, i.e. minority, union, etc.	PrintWire is built to allow buyers to keep a running tally in categories they are interested in.

The strength of PrintWire is that it is a product developed by printers in response to the needs of their customers. PIM will continue to listen as the users of PrintWire make suggestions. The goal is be able to personalize the product to meet each user’s needs. We see this as an evolving process with a singular purpose -- giving buyers and printers the tools they need to make the Internet work for them.

If you would like a transcript of PIM's conversation with print buyers, call PIM (248-946-5895) for a copy of "Print buyers share their ideas on putting eCommerce to work." It is a follow-up to "The Customer Speaks: Criteria for selecting printers." Buy both and get a discounted price.