IOWA CITY, Iowa – August 1, 2005 – MetaCommunications, Inc., a leading developer of business management and workflow solutions for the graphic arts industry, today announced that Southern Graphic Systems, a division of Alcoa, is using its Virtual Ticket production platform as the basis for its centralized and common manufacturing order entry system. Virtual Ticket enables Southern Graphic Systems, the leading solutions provider to the graphic arts and packaging printing industries, to speed time to market and enhance customer service for major consumer product companies. MetaCommunications will discuss this and other related case studies September 9-15 in booth #6258 of the Print 05 & Converting conference in Chicago. Southern Graphic Systems serves multiple markets with diverse needs and requirements. The company is comprised of multiple locations, each with a unique focus and distinct set of clients. Varying legacy systems installed at the company's 28 North American sites made it difficult to effectively centralize, organize and share critical business information across the entire organization. The company sought a solution that could provide a common manufacturing order entry system. Southern Graphic Systems reviewed all six legacy systems used throughout its locations, including MetaCommunications' Virtual Ticket. After a thorough assessment, Virtual Ticket, a platform for electronically managing and automating production processes, was selected as the solution of choice. Many factors led to the selection of Virtual Ticket, including MetaCommunications' solid development and management staff and Southern Graphic Systems' ability to quickly and easily customize the platform to handle the requirements of its different locations, focus areas, markets, and clients. Additionally, MetaCommunications' JDF-enabled version of Virtual Ticket enables Southern Graphic Systems to share information with other members of its supply chain in a more consistent and timely manner. “Virtual Ticket's ability to allow locations to define and store specifications for jobs that are recurring has been key in reducing order entry time and elevating quality,” said Gary Bernier, Corporate Director of Technology & Innovation for Southern Graphic Systems. “Our employees like the very simple and fast order entry system, which has been crucial to gaining acceptance and getting work out. Our management likes it because they get detailed analysis of what occurs in their business. Our clients like it because work is done quickly and accurately. Overall it has been a win-win for everyone.” Virtual Ticket is a powerful integrated solution that enables organizations to centralize information, eliminate paper job tickets, manage production files, traffic and schedule jobs, notify and alert users to changes in production information, manage digital assets and automatically archive files. Used as a stand-alone system or seamlessly integrated with other management and enterprise software, Virtual Ticket is the only product available today that combines electronic job ticketing, workflow, digital asset management, and archiving in one scalable and customizable production platform.