Livermore, California (PRWEB) May 12, 2008 – Businesses today are rapidly joining the green movement towards the preservation of our earth, and Acutrack, Inc. is one of them. Considered among the leaders in world-wide On Demand CD and DVD production, Acutrack consults with other businesses about how they can leave behind a smaller carbon footprint while remaining profitable. Acutrack has been helping its clients ease the burdens they are placing on the world we live in a number of ways, including CD and DVD manufacturing that is done in more environmentally friendly ways.

“It’s simply not possible to continue with business as usual and not take into consideration how business practices are affecting our environment,” said Asheesh Barman, executive vice president of Livermore, California-based Acutrack, Inc. “For companies who are in the business of putting out a CD or DVD-based product, there are even more issues that must be addressed compared to that of a service-only business.” Barman recently focused the company’s latest podcast series topic on The Three Principles of an Eco-Friendly CD/DVD Manufacturing Environment.

The biggest challenge for companies who are selling or distributing optical media including CD or DVD based products is that many people do not know specifically what to do to or whom to turn to in order to render a smaller carbon-footprint.

Acutrack focuses on consulting with its clients in detail at the beginning of any project to seek out the best possible eco-friendly solutions. Goals are discussed along with the products involved, the target audiences, the time constraints and even the final destination of the products -- all of which have an impact on going green. Acutrack also assists companies by looking for redundancies in order to eliminate environmentally and fiscally inefficient steps.

How is this accomplished? Acutrack focuses on the three R’s: Reduce, Recycle and Reuse. From the reduction perspective, optical media in and of itself is very conducive to conservation. Acutrack has been telling its customers for a very long time to use optical media to deliver their content with effective yet minimal packaging. One example of this involves how Acutrack recently helped a client who ships parts manuals to 780 dealers. These nearly 1,000 page catalogs of parts (four of them per set) were bulky and heavy and therefore expensive to ship. Acutrack came up with a DVD ROM concept where all four catalogs were scanned and then produced into a DVD ROM with a searchable index. The cost went from $136.00 to $3.00 each, and the production time was much faster -- 9 days versus 14 days. Shipping used to cost $11.00 each for shipment with UPS Ground and that went to $0.58 each with the U.S. postal service.

Barman said, “We helped the client save a lot of trees and energy. Overall the DVD ROM left a much smaller carbon footprint, and the dealers were thrilled with the searchable index because it took them less time to find the parts.”

Acutrack’s On Demand Production model gives customers the ability to produce and ship custom packaged CDs or DVDs one at a time. Since there is zero inventory of products, there is no obsolescence which leads to zero waste for that product. Ideal for customer’s who are selling downloadable content, On Demand Production model allows manufacturing of CDs and DVDs on an as needed basis, eliminates the up-front costs of producing multiple titles normally associated with CD/DVD production, and takes care of inventory, packaging and fulfillment.

As for the second R, recycle, Acutrack as a company itself has long been forging eco-friendly business practices. Acutrack recycles all waste CDs & DVDs. All paper, plastic, metal and cardboard materials are recycled. In fact, even lighting was recently changed in the company’s warehouses to more eco-friendly fluorescent bulbs which cut energy usage by 25 percent. Offset and silkscreen press set ups for similar color scheme jobs are ganged together for less idle time on the presses, which conserves a lot of electricity as well.

Acutrack reuses all printing screens by stretching and re-emulsifying them. These screens have a photo emulsion layer that is water soluble, so they can be re-emulsified and reused without any degradation in the printing quality they yield. The company also reuses everything from office paper, cardboard boxes to plastic disc spindles to store media.

As for paper print jobs, the company uses imposition software and positions all the artwork on large sheets so they are printed together which cuts down on paper waste and the amount of press set up time.

Rather than using printed mailers and catalogs, the company practices online optimization and social media marketing and public relations to educate and to market to its clients and prospects. These types of media such as email campaigns, electronic media, a website press room, telemarketing and podcasts do not use any paper thereby conserving precious resources.

Additional examples of how Acutrack has assisted its clients achieve smaller carbon footprints while also minimizing costs are as follows.

An independent film company asked Acutrack to produce 1,000 of their DVDs and package the job in what they assumed to be the most environmentally friendly mailer -- a disc in mailer made of recycled cardboard. They thought this would yield the smallest carbon footprint, also assuming that a standard Amaray style DVD case is not recyclable and more expensive.

In consulting with the client, Acutrack clarified that the DVD case is made of Polypropylene (PP) and is in fact recyclable and explained that in their particular case even though a recycled cardboard mailer may seem like the most effective solution, it was not. Procuring recycled cardboard, printing on it, die-cutting it and gluing it would use more energy and thereby yield a larger carbon footprint. Also, mailer sleeves are flat and include a postage label, and are typically thrown away once the disc is removed. If the DVD arrives in a DVD case, the user can easily store the disc back in the case and reuse the case for the next several years. Hence, from an environmental standpoint, it was better in this particular case to send the product in a DVD case rather than a printed mailer sleeve.

One of Acutrack’s large software manufacturing clients wanted to develop new eco-friendly packaging for a launch of more than 100,000 products that would ship nationwide to major retail stores. They were on a tight budget with tight lead times, and they thought they needed to place the disc and manual in a box with a corrugated insert; however Acutrack knew that corrugated inserts would increase the cost, take longer to assemble and cause more wastage. Since Acutrack specializes in high volume CD replication, DVD replication, eco-friendly retail packaging and fulfillment services, the company designed and developed a simple tray that is 100 percent environmentally friendly and recyclable, made from Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE), the same material water bottles are made from, to hold all the components of the box. The tray held the CD, DVD and the manual neatly inside the software box and allowed Acutrack to be able to produce 600 pieces per hour as compared to 200 pieces per hour when using standard corrugated inserts. The product was also re-useable and lighter; therefore shipping was less expensive. The tray design reduced the production lead time so much that Acutrack was able to ship the products sooner and therefore was able to ship via freight train versus dedicated trucks. An average freight train, on one gallon of fuel can move almost one ton of product nearly 420 miles, a much better fuel economy.

“The client was very pleased because the product ultimately was better, less expensive, got great reviews and left a lot smaller carbon footprint,” said Barman.

About Acutrack, Inc. (www.acutrack.com)
Established in 1992, Acutrack, Inc. provides fast, high-quality production of CDs and DVDs including video editing, DVD authoring, graphic design, photo realistic and silkscreen printing, and a variety of packaging, copy protection and fulfillment services. Products can be warehoused and ready for Acutrack's worldwide shipping and fulfillment service. Customers can also take advantage of the company's proprietary On Demand Production service giving them the ability to produce and ship custom packaged CDs or DVDs one at a time.