"ScheduALL is absolutely essential to our business," said David Klafkowski, technical director and a founding member of The Farm. "With five separate facilities and almost 200 employees, our operation has become very complex. ScheduALL enables us to juggle resources, equipment, rooms, and media quickly in the most efficient and profitable manner possible."
Soon after The Farm's founding in 1998, company managers realized they needed to automate their paper-based systems for managing booking, scheduling, tracking, and invoicing of client projects. As a very young company, The Farm's transition from a paper-based tracking system to ScheduALL enabled it to work from a clean slate and establish workflows that drive operations to this day.
Currently, The Farm's 15 bookings managers use ScheduALL to manage and track operations for 50 edit suites, three grading studios, nine audio studios, four track-laying rooms, and a range of other facilities operating out of five locations — four in Soho, central London and one in Bristol, U.K. Not only does the system prevent double-booking and ensure the most effective allocation of all of the company's resources, but project data entered into the system at the booking and scheduling phase is captured for use throughout the entire project workflow, including final invoice creation once the job is complete — providing a true view of the project lifecycle.
In addition, The Farm has taken advantage of ScheduALL's modular approach, which has allowed the system to grow with the company. The Farm currently uses a host of modules including Quotes Manager, which the company uses for budget forecasting and business planning; Invoicing; Rental & Shipping; and Library Management. The Farm is in the process of implementing the ScheduALL Media Manager module, which will enable the company to organize and track its physical and digital media assets seamlessly for each client and project.
"Although the industry is steadily moving to file-based workflows, there is still a huge volume of tape to be tracked and managed in an operation the size of ours. 'The X Factor' alone generates an astounding quantity of tape for each episode," said Klafkowski. "We use ScheduALL to prompt an automatic creation of a file structure on our storage network for all media related to particular jobs. This gives our project managers centralized access to location information about every tape, file, and piece of media."
"As the global economy struggles, media companies face the challenges to streamline their businesses, improve and/or maintain profit margins, and operate as efficiently and cost effectively as possible," said Joel Ledlow, CEO of ScheduALL. "The Farm is a stellar example of how ScheduALL helps organizations run a 'lean' operation by reducing potential waste, maximizing the productivity of its resources, and improving financial visibility."
More information about ScheduALL and its software solutions is available online at www.scheduall.com.
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About The Farm Group
The Farm Group is London's leading independent television and film post-production group. Its companies include The Farm, Uncle, Home, The Shed, Rent, and Family, all based in the center of London in Soho. Services include high-definition post production for television and feature films; digital post production for television, commercials, music promos, and DVDs; broadcast equipment hire; and a freelance editor agency. Each company is top of its sector because of its fabulous creative and production staff, continual investment in the latest equipment, and the first-class service offered by the entire team. More information is available at www.farmgroup.tv.
About ScheduALL
ScheduALL is the leading provider of enterprise resource management (ERM) software for the broadcast and media industry. With almost 20 years of experience and 1,200+ worldwide clients within broadcast, satellite, and production facilities, ScheduALL is clearly recognized as the partner of choice for operational management software solutions.
ScheduALL's software offers comprehensive workflow and resource management capabilities that enable clients to optimize personnel, resources, and bandwidth utilization in a way that directly translates into increased productivity and ROI. ScheduALL's modular approach and scalable product-sets provide a collaborative platform for users in the broadcast, production, post-production, satellite/network transmission, and newsroom environments. ScheduALL clients include ABC Australia, BBC, CBC, FOX News Network, The Associated Press, IntelSat, Turner Studios, Mediaset, RTL, and SES New Skies. More information is available at www.scheduall.com.
ENDS