Twenty years ago, Planco (www.planco.com.sg) was among the first to offer architecture plan printing services in Singapore. Today, it is set to take on a pioneering role again, and bring those services onto the internet.

Planco's adoption of e-commerce is the latest in a constant effort to keep up with technology.Since it started business two decades ago, the industry has moved from ammonia printing using photo negatives to the use of Autocad technology with drawings done on a computer and output using a plotter.

"It's not just the machines.You have to upgrade the manpower as well. In the past,we could hire a person with primary six education. Now, the minimun we need is a diploma holder because to operate the machines you require technical skills."

In 1996,Loo returned home from his studies in Vancouver. Having seen the Internet revolution in full swing, he came back with ideas about leveraging on the Web to tap new markets like printing corporate documents for the Big Six accounting firms.

These plans would also dovetail nicely with new trends in Planco's traditional business-architecture plan printing."We can see a growing trend of architectural co-operation. Increasingly, worldwide efforts are involved in a project.For example, a lot of Singaporean firms get jobs in, say, Indonesia and even in Kathmandu. Local architects may work with their counterparts from US, on the project, and they can then send us their drawings to be printed and distributed."

Loo then linked up with army buddy Benjamin Lee, Sales Manager of Cable Media. The National Computer Board (now Infocomm Development Authority)had just introduced the Local Enterprises Computerisation(E-commerce) programme. Planco engaged Cable Media to develop an e-commerce solution and at the same time apply for the LECP grant.

The solution, which was launched a year back, enables Planco's customers to upload soft copies of drawings and documents onto Cable Media's server. An email alert will inform Loo that a job is in, and he can download the software during off-peak hours for printing. File sizes range from 100kb to 12MB.It takes Loo about seven hours to download a 6MB file, but it certainly beats having to courier Syquest disks to and from clients, he said.

Payment arrangements ranged from advance cheques or credit terms for regular business customers to credit card payments for business-to-consumer type of transactions.

The move to e-commerce was well timed, said Loo. He has received enquiries from around the world, with many hits from countries like the US and India. Locally, there has been an 80 per cent upsurge in email regarding printing jobs, but Loo is keeping a tight lid on his expectations.

Planco is taking its first year as a learning year. "We are the first e-commerce plan printing site, so we can't fall back on another person's experience." He said.

Certainly, there have been lessons aplenty.

Even at the start, it took a couple of weeks of intensive meetings before Loo and Lee could figure out how to incorporate into the e-commerce solution.

"There was a lot of trial and error. For example, we looked at things like colour printing, but what would the file size be? How about using broadband? How to compute charges? All the details, a bit like a duck talking to a chicken," said Loo. "Up till today, there are still small little glitches," he said.

But the upside was eventually, clients would not have to come down to the company's office at Peck Seah Street at all. "We want to convince people to send us jobs online.