When Peter Nygard took a step in his company's commitment to technology in fashion -- the company's slogan is Where Fashion Meets Technology -- he looked to Novra Technologies Inc.

Harris Liontas, Novra's president and chief executive officer, has worked as Nygard International's technology consultant for years, helping equip Nygard with technology that staffers at Novra design and manufacture from their 330 St. Mary Ave. offices.

"The snail mail system is not reactive enough; the whole world is coming into real time," said Nygard, chairman and founder of Nygard International. "Our world moves today, as Bill Gates said, at the speed of thought. We want to get our messages out in real time to both our consumers and our associates.

"The other method is very slow basically, and committed," he said, in response to why satellite was chosen as opposed to employees handling VHS tapes, CDs or DVDs to feed audio-visual content to a variety of screens at retail outlets and company offices.

"Business today has to react instantaneously and it has to be done in real time. Our whole company is about real-time management now and what you call visual communication. As principles of going forward, those are two very critical words that we adopted as our ongoing business practices," said Nygard.

The content will be uploaded at the plant via computer and Novra-developed custom software through a server to a satellite dish, transferred to a recipient dish at a Nygard retailer or other recipient site, then downloaded through Novra's SSP100 Broadband Media Player to recipient screens.

Screens can be analog or digital television sets, computers, or plasma screens, but Nygard has opted for translucent acrylic screens up to six feet high by 11 feet wide employing high-definition technology.

"The bigger the screen the better," said Len Nicolas, Nygard's chief technology officer.

Today, Liontas' company will help Nygard conduct a pilot project that will see Nygard's first feature, From Deloraine to Times Square, broadcast to the Bianca Nygard store in Polo Park, to Nygard's Heartland Centre store in Mississauga, Ont. and to the company's plant in the Inkster Industrial Park.

How unique is the system? Corporate satellite networks are not new -- auto manufacturers and some other companies have used them for years -- but Liontas feels this is the first Canadian clothing manufacturer to implement a system of this magnitude for this range of uses.

He said Nygard has always been first to implement new technologies. In its quest for a paperless company, the multinational corporation with annual revenues of $500 million per year recently implemented a purchase order system using key Microsoft systems that eliminated 90 per cent of the company's manual purchase-order processes.

London's Avanti Communications Ltd. uses equipment from Novra for a satellite network operated by Toni and Guy salons.

The company distributes continuous content to more than 200 member salons in the United Kingdom.

Nicolas said Nygard will be going to London to take a first-hand look at the Toni and Guy network.