Acrilex, Inc., a manufacturer of custom acrylic sheets and a plastics distributor, may never again print a product catalog. Marketing Manager Daniel Rustin has developed an interactive CD-ROM that he says will make printed material unnecessary. Expected to be available by early 2001, it is intended to streamline the process of product specification for designers, purchasing agents and project managers. "We have a very nice print catalog on the products that we manufacture," Rustin says, "but apart from that, everything else will be interactive."

Rustin calls the CD-ROM a "catalog plus." The plus, he says, "is that people can not only pick from something that we distribute or that any other distributor would handle, but they can also invent and create their own.

The CD's "Create Your Own Plastic" section allows designers to specify a color, such as one from a Pantone color-matching system book, and a texture in which Acrilex can cast. This texture can be either standard gloss or matte finish, or any one of seven other physical textures.

"By picking a color and by adding a texture," Rustin says, "they can actually get a preview image of what they expect the product to look like." This allows designers to experiment before having to order product, and it saves them as much as $250 for a color-match. "It's a free way to prequalify and more closely hone in on what it is they want," Rustin says.

Once they have selected a color and texture and have a preview, designers can apply the virtual sample, as a texture map, to a CAD design. This aids designers before they have to order anything, and before they've built prototypes. "That allows us basically to have products designed and specified prior to ever having run them," Rustin says.

Prior to this, Rustin says, customers sent the company samples of product, swatches of laminate chip or specific PMS colors. They would then wait both for a color-match and for Acrilex to send the sample to them.

Designers can specify their own colors and textures in styrene, ABS, polycarbonate, PETG, polyethylene and polyproplyene. Rustin says, however, that some textures will be limited with materials other than acrylic.

This ability to create custom plastic is currently available on Acrilex's Web site, too (www.acrilex.com). "The downside to the Web site is that it will take longer to download," Rustin says, "The interactive CD-ROM will allow them to very quickly preview multiple samples at a very quick pace, as opposed to waiting for each image to be downloaded."

Acriliex Inc's interactive CD-ROM, and its Web site, let designers create samples of custom plastics by specifying colors and textures.

The "create your own" section is formatted for both Macintosh and PC.

Both the CD-ROM and Web site will feature technical data on Acriglas, the acrylic that Acrilex manufactures, as well as a searchable products database that will include spec sheets, SMDS sheets and other information from manufacturers whose products Acrilex distributes. This products database, Rustin says, is intended to help purchasing agents and project managers.

Users of the CD-ROM or Web site can submit product quotes immediately and Acrilex will respond by e-mail, fax, or phone. Rustin says that designers can work in privacy and will only be contacted should they request information, quotes, or samples. "Once they've made that request, which also requires that they enter an e-mail address, we will only contact them when we have updates or additional information regarding products that they selected in the past. We try not to be intrusive, and we try not to send junk mail."

Rustin says that the CD-ROM and Web site will prevent the spread of outdated information. "As changes are made by individual manufacturers that we deal with, we can then post updates on our Web site and also send out e-mail to people who we know have already received the CD-ROM [so that they] can then go to our Web site and download any of the changes and updates."

(Note: Rustin says that Acrilex uses the word Pantone generically because designers do. The company's CD-ROM doesn't use Pantone colors, but rather a representation of them. Acrilex Inc. does own Pantone's color-matching system books, but it does not use the Pantone trademark on its Web site or on its CD-ROM product.)