Offset and Digital Convergence: It’s About The Workflow

By Chuck Gehman

Originally Appeared in OnDemand Journal

November 2003

Digital output devices, and variable printing, deserve all the buzz and coverage they get in media, and arguably even more than they are getting today. We can’t forget, though, that a tremendous amount of On-Demand printing is done either on offset machines, or is executed by a combination of offset and digital equipment.

There is a great need for new workflow tools that understand both the offset and digital worlds. Increasingly, jobs are being produced that incorporate elements that are produced offset, then are fed into digital machines for some kind of personalization. Direct mail applications are clearly among the leaders in this trend, but there are also more mundane applications like books, training materials, invitations and even stationery (preprinted shells with four color process artwork produced on offset, then fed into digital machines that print the black and white “personalized” part of the product.)

My last piece for On Demand Journal lamented the need for a standard way to produce input documents that can be used as variable templates. Having such a standard would solve some of the front-end issues involved in getting work to the print manufacturing facility. Once the work is in house, though, there are additional roadblocks created by workflow solutions that don’t know about the capabilities of both offset and digital machines. Today, few printers have the software and processes to efficiently produce products that employ these two production technologies.

Most print service providers who have both offset and digital capabilities operate them separately—often in different rooms (or even buildings), staffed by different people. Until recently, this was an appropriate setup, because these distinct operations produced different products for different customers (or, perhaps more accurately, for different applications within the same customer account).

Today, the lines between digital and offset products are blurring. An article in the November edition of Electronic Publishing notes an RR Donnelley short-run book printing operation (in their Harrisonburg, VA, plant-- one of the largest offset manufacturing facilities in the industry), where the pages are produced on a small web press, and the covers are produced on a digital press. This gives the plant the capability of essentially producing a run of one single book. One might say that on-demand books are very different from most commercial print, but this is a harbinger of the emerging need for workflow convergence in all segments of the industry.

Most commercial printers with more than $10M in sales have adopted some type of workflow system from a pre-print equipment or software vendor, but primarily for film or CTP output. These high-end workflow systems are full-featured and provide the needed offset workflow components, including trapping, imposition, and RIP capabilities.

With some notable exceptions, sending files to digital devices today is a simpler (and, naturally, less capable) process of loading the document into a native application and printing (using a vendor-specific driver for the output device) directly to the toner-based output device. If the output device is sophisticated, there may be a workstation attached to it that can control variable printing features, simple imposition, and a wide variety of additional features like paper selection and tabbing.

We’re entering a new phase in the workflow software environment. It’s driven by the shorter runs, tighter turnaround times, and non-professional document creators who are now feeding commercial printers’ production capacity. How many pre-print operations today struggle with handling offset output of customer files from applications like Microsoft Publisher or the Microsoft Office applications today? Have you received an order for an offset color book job of 5,000 pieces, only to discover that the digital files were produced by the customer in Microsoft PowerPoint? These problems aren’t going away, and we need workflow to make these jobs flow seamlessly into production.

The challenges are easily identified: first, and most basic, the ability for the workflow servers, RIPs and their accompanying tools (i.e., the pre-print production workflow systems employed in high-end production) to be “digital smart”, capable of driving a variety of digital machines and supporting their many features. Second, we need the ability for offset devices to be driven simply by the same workflow system, where output on an offset press is “green button” easy, just like the digital press. Finally, just when we think we’ve solved all the industry’s proofing problems, there is the matter of proofing for jobs that combine offset and digital output.

The good news is, we’re beginning to see innovative solutions to these problems in the marketplace that are specifically designed to addresses these challenges facing the industry. It’s exciting to see the industry adopting new techniques and processes, to increase productivity and enable print’s expansion into new applications and markets, resulting in business growth and profitability. Workflow convergence may be the “killer app” that makes this all possible.

CIM COMES TO FLEXO

Originally appeared in Flexo Magazine, November 2003

Customers expect the highest quality, and they still want printers to deliver lower prices and faster delivery. Computer integrated manufacturing is the best way to address these challenges.

Process automation initiatives generally begin with the streamlining of business and production processes. Computerizing an inefficient operation is almost guaranteed to solidify inefficiencies, making them nearly impossible to improve.

JDF is an interoperability specification that lets software and machines communicate information about jobs. This promises to eliminate many of the time-consuming chores associated with machine configurations.

COMPUTER INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES PROMOTE SAVINGS FOR FLEXO PRINTING APPLICATIONS

By Chuck Gehman

Computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) is rapidly being recognized as the best way to implement process improvement in the printing industry. Flexo applications, which often involve complex processes and resulting products, can benefit dramatically from CIM techniques. Significant savings can be found in the areas of productivity improvement; reduction in waste and overruns; and the streamlining of internal and external communications.

CIM has been an important tool for making manufacturing industries more efficient since the late 1970s. In printing, though, it has only just begun to take hold. The reason is that, until recently, it has been difficult to implement CIM in print manufacturing.

The complexity of print products and the fact that customers deliver significant pieces of the raw materials (i.e., digital content) have helped to slow the adoption. In addition, the printing and converting industries are generally oriented more toward craftsmanship than toward manufacturing science. This, too, has delayed usage of CIM in printing—up until now, that is.

These days, companies are realizing that in order to remain competitive, they must cut costs and improve equipment and staff utilization. Customers are demanding shorter runs, shorter turnaround times and lower prices. Quality isn’t a sufficient differentiator anymore—customers expect the highest quality, and they still want us to deliver lower prices and faster delivery. CIM is the best way to address these challenges.

The CIM Approach

Waste is often thought of as material waste—paper, plates and ink. Other industries as diverse as the furniture and semiconductor industries have discovered, however, that most waste can be identified and reduced by focusing on time. Simplification and elimination of unnecessary steps is the first place to begin to reduce wasted time. Often, when you take a step back and begin to analyze why your staff is performing many operations, you will quickly discover that certain tasks are performed “because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Process automation initiatives generally begin with the streamlining of business and production processes. Computerizing an inefficient operation is almost guaranteed to solidify inefficiencies, making them nearly impossible to improve. Implementing process improvements for both business and production begins by identifying non-value-added time. Eliminating or reducing this time can go a long way toward improving profitability.

CIM is not an all-or-nothing proposition; it can be implemented in stages as budget and time allows. It’s important to identify areas where CIM can benefit your operation today, and take your company into the future. A review and update of your business plan is important to the realization of the profit potential of CIM, because it’s likely that changes in business practices will be necessary to implement many aspects of CIM. For example, automation of the instructions for the pressroom will require more detailed production planning knowledge upstream in the front office.

CIM Tools Available Today

One of the most important technologies the industry is employing to implement CIM applications is the new JDF (job definition format) specification from the Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) consortium, a group of 160 graphic arts companies.

JDF is an interoperability specification that lets software and machines communicate information about jobs. This promises to eliminate many of the time-consuming chores associated with machine configurations (for presses and finishing machines). It communicates job parameters (for tasks like imposition) and eliminates errors by making re-keying data unnecessary. A JDF file describes a particular job and its components, and that file flows through the production process along with the actual job content itself.

There are some products on the market today that implement JDF, but implementing JDF may require that you replace some of your presses or finishing equipment to fully take advantage of this new, emerging standard.

Having said that, though, there is equipment today that can be retrofitted to existing presses and finishing gear to allow printers to participate in a CIM network today. For example, direct machine interface equipment (DMI, see sidebar) can be connected to a flexo press for monitoring “speeds and feeds,” as well as waste counts and more.

There’s no reason to wait to begin to recognize the benefits of CIM. Many of the tools of CIM— including print management systems (see sidebar) and their accompanying databases, dynamic scheduling, automated prepress workflows and remote proofing—are available today.

Applying CIM to Flexo

This probably isn’t the first article you’ve read about CIM for print. There’s been plenty of buzz, but most of the excitement has been focused on commercial print applications. The good news is that many advantages of CIM that apply to commercial print applications are benefits that flexo printers can enjoy, too.

A simple but powerful example is the tracking of roll stock. Barcode readers, connected to a print management system, can let you know exactly what you have in stock—in real time—so you can make purchasing and production decisions.

Innovar Packaging Group, Arlington, TX, recently implemented barcode applications in its plant and saw a reduction of better than 70 percent in the time it takes to perform its paper inventory, according to Gary Cooper, general manager. What used to require two people spending 14 hours doing a physical count now requires only four hours. Because it took so long to do a count in the past, it wasn’t done very often. It still takes two people, but one is driving the forklift.

Innovar implemented a flexo-specific print management system that lets employees use hand-held barcode readers to read the paper manufacturer’s barcodes on the roll stock. This has saved many hours of work. Before the system was implemented, inventory was kept by hand making labels and sticking them onto each roll. With paper costs higher than ever, knowing your current inventory status and employing “just-in-time” purchasing to meet manufacturing needs can provide monetary returns.

Ship and Release, an emerging labeling industry profit center, isn’t really practical without a print management system like the one employed by Innovar. The problem is that every time a customer places an order, you have to make a trip to the warehouse to make sure the stock is there. With a print management system and CIM, you will have 100-percent confidence that the stock is in the warehouse, and you can automatically generate production job tickets when the stock reaches a specified level. In addition, systems today can be more easily tied into Internet ordering, so that your customers can serve themselves while you still maintain the benefits of your automated system.

Production scheduling is yet another area that can allow your company to leverage CIM without replacing major capital equipment. New dynamic scheduling systems optimize your entire operation— personnel, prepress workflow, presses, finishing equipment and more—to increase throughput, capacity and on-time delivery. Using software to schedule your plant in this way, you can minimize makeready time between jobs by grouping like jobs together. The most advanced new scheduling systems let you perform “what if” analyses so you can determine whether you have the capacity to fit in another job without negatively impacting the work you already have in progress.

CIM scheduling software can take into account that the time allocated to complete a particular job for one device needs to be “blocked” in combination with another device. Examples include label applications in which a job exits one press and feeds another (instead of rewinding); or a bindery line in which multiple machines need to work together on one job (obviously, a very common situation).

Benefits of CIM

This is just the beginning of CIM applications in the flexo arena. Implementation of CIM is a great value for any company, because these techniques don’t just reduce costs; they can also help you with your top line because you’ll be able to run more work through your shop with the same number of employees. On the other side of the coin, eliminating waste and filling idle time with productive work is a sure way to reduce your costs.

The way to start on the road to CIM is to take a good look at your processes, people and machines. Don’t try to do it all at once; start with an analysis of your operations, begin to simplify them and then proceed to process automation. Create a roadmap that will take you from your current situation to the automated vision you see in your future. By starting small and taking simple steps in this direction, you’ll begin to see real benefits almost immediately.

What Does It Mean?

The following are commonly-used CIM terms:

CIM: Computer integrated manufacturing, the application of computers to streamline and automate manufacturing processes. The term was first introduced in 1973, in a book by the same name, authored by Joseph Harrington.

JDF: Job definition format. JDF is a comprehensive public standard supported by the CIP4 consortium, a group of 160 graphic arts companies. JDF employs XML (Extensible Markup Language), a descriptive computer language that is used by leading software developers worldwide to exchange data between systems. It provides a common syntax and method for encapsulating metadata in a structure that is directly supported by programming languages such as C++; Java and Microsoft programming languages; and tools and architectures such as .NET. For more information, visit the CIP4 web site at www.cip4.org

Direct Machine Interface: A combination of sensors and an electronics package that attaches to a printing machine (i.e., a flexo press or a finishing machine) that sends data about that machine’s performance to a computer system (usually a print management system).

Print Management System: Stands for printing-industry-specific ERP (enterprise resource planning) software. PMS, also known as MIS (management information systems), are systems that manages all aspects of printing-company business and production operations.

Digital Smart Factory 2003: Moving from Vision to Reality

By Chuck Gehman
Originally appeared in High Volume Printing magazine

July 20, 2003

The Digital Smart Factory Forum 2003 was held recently in Philadelphia, PA, June 23-25th. It was the fifth annual event, and was a watershed for the Digital Smart Factory (DSF) effort, attracting a record attendance of over 90 people (that’s up over 30% from last year). Attendees and speakers included printers (web, sheetfed and digital, producing a large variety of different products, and sized both large and small), publishers (from the biggest magazines to small journal publishers), as well as equipment and software vendors.

The conference committee worked hard to incorporate content that would appeal to this wide range of constituents: in previous years, the DSF forum represented more of a “think tank” atmosphere, where hard core technical “geeks” got together and discussed leading edge technologies. This year marks the first time the event has been held since the Research and Engineering Council (R+E Council) became part of the NAPL (National Association of Printing Leadership) late last year. Yet another first was the support of corporate sponsors: Fujifilm, Heidelberg, Kodak Polychrome Graphics, Printcafe and Prinexus all supported The Digital Smart Factory 2003.

This is all strong evidence that the concepts of the DSF: a combination of business, manufacturing and customer-facing systems working together to create a sum that is greater than the individual parts, are starting to become more “mainstream”.

Background
If you haven’t heard of the Digital Smart Factory, here is some background. In a nutshell, the DSF’s goal is to converge all the systems in a printing company, as we said above: this includes business systems, including accounting and production management, manufacturing systems, including scheduling, press systems, workflow systems and more, as well as customer-facing systems, which are most often CRM (customer relationship management) and internet-based ordering systems.

The late Bob Jones, a veteran production executive at Newsweek, RR Donnelley and Sons Co, and subsequently the founder of Prograph systems (predecessor of Printcafe), saw early on the potential that computers held to revolutionize the printing industry. The DSF idea came out of an R+E Council prepress committee in which Jones was active. Frustrated with the “islands of automation” he saw everywhere he looked, Jones set about to bring change to the industry.

While the group started out addressing the needs of high-end printers and their high-end customers, its scope has broadened as the hardware and software tools to implement these ideas have become affordable to even the smallest printing company. In fact, that’s part of the interest the NAPL has in the Digital Smart Factory: applying these concepts can be a great equalizer for smaller printers to compete profitably with larger ones.

The Digital Smart Factory Committee of the Research and Engineering Council of the NAPL plans the conference, and is an open group. Many thanks go out to the committee members who put in the time (often that they didn’t really—these are very busy people) to build a great agenda for this year.

We encourage newcomers to get involved. When you read this we will be starting to plan next year’s conference, and all input is welcomed. There are programs and other involvement opportunities between now and next June’s DSF 04, too. See the contact information below if you wish to become involved.

The DSF 2003 Program
The conference opened with a keynote from Anthony M. Federico, senior vice president of the Xerox Corporation Production Systems Group. While the name of the conference has the word “Digital” in it, and presentations do cover “digital” and “toner-based” printing technologies, the Digital Smart Factory Forum is not a “digital output” conference. DSF is more focused on the automation needs of lithographers.

Having said that, though, Federico presented a fascinating look at such digital output technologies, and their business drivers, from the Xerox perspective as an industry pioneer. He compared the evolution of digital color technologies to Moore’s law (which says transistors in Microprocessor will double annually). In Federico’s version, digital color power is doubling (in speed and quality) every 18 months. He also noted that costs have declined from $0.16 per page in 1996 to less than $0.05 per page on the new iGen3 (on average), and as low as $0.023 in some cases today.

The conference went into full swing with a panel entitled “Information Technology (IT): The All-Important, Now-Understood Role”. Bill Lavelle, principal at Point Balance, moderated a lively session that included panelists Mark Evans, VP of technology applications at Prinexus, and Chris LaFontaine, product manager for system integration at Agfa.

Evans described the role of IT at Prinexus, a $100 million plus “integrated communication services company” (owners of Tukaiz in Chicago and Findlay Printing in Hartford, CT and Color by Pergament in NYC, among others). According to Evans, there is no single point of activity at the company that does not touch IT in some way, and IT is a fully respected, involved member of their team. This means leveraging technology and manufacturing to help customers execute their marketing strategy “more efficiently than has been historically possible”; speeding time to market, with no increase in spending.

LaFontaine brought another perspective—that of a system integrator, and presented a unique and well received presentation about how to plan, organize and execute successful IT projects to implement a “graphic enterprise”—Agfa’s vision of the printing company of the future. Noting that some 85% of IT projects fail, the cause is often because they are technology-driven, rather than business-driven. LaFontaine stressed that work today should be “matrix-based”, rather than linear: inefficient and self contained processes versus collaborative, and efficient processes.

On the second day, Mark Evans returned to the podium joined by Janice Reese (principal at Network PDF), co-chairing a panel on Content Management. A variety of presentations made up the session, with Leigh Kimmelman, director of emerging business for GroupInfoTech kicking off with a look at automated prepress from his company’s unique perspective:
• Documents for Factories
• Smart Documents for Digital Smart Factories
• Intelligent Documents for Smarter Digital Factories
The concept being that these new type of database-driven documents leverage XML and “zoned” content (page level geometry) to “purpose” information from/to a variety of sources and destinations. This is stuff that GroupInfoTech is implementing today in their Print Line Automation software (used by Valassis, among other prominent industry leading companies). Leigh wins the award for the use of the most unique and obscure word at DSF 2003, for “Punctum”, a word dating back to Roman battles that means “the moment in time where small actions lead to great changes”. Leigh proclaimed DSF 2003 as such a moment.

Kin Wah Lam of Time, Inc. presented a talk about using an ASP for Digital Asset Management, primarily for Ad content. Carsten Lau of Pindar, a software company whose roots are as a British printing company presented case studies of technology applications that have benefited both customers and printers, with increased savings and top line growth. David Lipsey of Artesia talked about how XML has matured in use for metadata indices, and the evolving role of DAM in both corporate use, and in general for printing applications. Stephanie Gwyther of Banta Integrated Media demonstrated an application called “Page Sprayer” that was used to populate QuarkXpress pages with tables.

A panel on Customer Facing technologies followed, led by Holly Muscolino of CAP Ventures. Presenters included Denise Miano, vice president of customer technologies at Moore Wallace (fresh from the merger of those two large printers), with a talk about the company’s diverse customer base and manufacturing platform: with 16,000 employees serving 40 countries, that’s diversity. Miano stressed the fact that they are looking to make everything they do PDF and JDF enabled. She also pointed out the high importance of building an interface to the customer’s platform—not driving the customer to the supplier’s platform. Moore uses content management, order management, market intelligence and connectivity to serve their customers. A little known fact is that the company holds 2,500 patents in more than 40 categories.

Chris Wells, the forward-looking (and young) President and CEO of LaVigne, Inc, in Boston, a successful NAPL-member sheetfed and on-demand printer in business for 104 years (and planning to remain that way). Wells very articulately described how the printing business is changing and ways that commercial printers can leverage technology to turn the challenges into opportunities. Paul Beyer, VP of product marketing at Servador, talked about how the business of online procurement is changing, and the threat that commoditization can present to printers who don’t embrace technology. Mark Jones, the always engaging and very smart senior VP with Quebecor World, talked about how the world’s largest Printer leverages off-the shelf technologies, custom solutions and best practices to serve their customers through their own branded portal, called QWikLink.

Leigh Kimmelman chaired a panel on Digital Manufacturing, which (perhaps as opposed to CIM) focused on the front-end of the manufacturing process: dealing with customer input, making pages and making money. Speakers included Xerox color guru Ann McCarthy, Tim Daisy, CIM product manager at Printcafe, Ken Brooks, president of Publishing Dimensions, and Arthur Burkhart, partner and business development director at iGility Communications. McCarthy, an ICC (International Color Consortium) Steering Committee member, gave a talk was about as technical as things got at this conference. Her well-received presentation spelled out the challenges of color, and challenged the RGB vs. CMYK line of thinking, instead telling the group that seven other elements are more important: device calibration, capture and visualization characterization, profile creation, image color encoding, profile selection and exchange, profile use and visualization.

Mills Davis, the industry’s own futurist, provided the second day keynote, in which he presented his vision of an “shared resource” architecture for the Digital Smart Factory, ala Web services and the various computer industry technology and standards initiatives that encircle it. While Mills sometimes has trouble explaining his own beautiful graphics (because they can be very complicated), his vision is one that we should all hope becomes a reality.

The last day of the conference opened with a standards session, featuring experts on all the current and emerging standards affecting the Digital Smart Factory. Volker Rendl, from Heidelberg Web Systems was the moderator. He was followed by Dr. Rainer Prosi, CTO of the CIP4 organization and a Heidelberg staffer, David Hultin, director of print initatives at Idealliance, Larry Warter, director of new business development at Fujifilm and Alan Darling, executive vice president of Vio. Prosi presented a complete overview of the activities of the CIP4 group, and gave the audience a very good picture of the complexity, and great progress embodied there. Alan Darling presented the (very thoughtful) idea that interoperability means changing system components without changing the files or output.

Darling pointed out that accredited international standards take a long time to gestate (he should know, being a longtime leader of the DDAP Association), so it is important to adopt defacto standards, in the meantime—but we must carefully monitor and control how companies make proprietary extensions to these defacto standards, and that they eventually are confirmed and approved as part of the specifications. Such is the case today with CIP4 and JDF, according to Darling, who noted that interoperability tests are underway.

The conference’s last session was, appropriately, on Computer Integrated Manufacturing, chaired by Bob Whitton, principal of Arellton Group. Joining Bob were Al Shapiro, president of LA Graphico, John Sweeney, director of color measurement systems at Graphics Microsystems, Udi Arielli, director of product management for web and CIM products at Printcafe, and Andy Featherman, manager of the Muller-Martini Digital Finishing Division. This session focused the group in on the primary challenges facing the industry, and the ways that efficient manufacturing can address many of them.

Summary
It’s hard to accurately portray a conference with the depth and breadth of content that the Digital Smart Factory Forum 2003 provided in such a short article, but I hope we came close to doing it justice here. Thanks to Dennis Mason of Mason Consulting for his excellent notes. If you’d like more information on any of the sessions described, to obtain the Powerpoint presentations, Dennis’ complete notes, or to contact any of the individuals or companies mentioned here, call or write Ron Mihills a the R+E Council (contact information provided below).

The final thing that I would like to leave with the readers of High Volume Printing is this: as great as DSF 03 was, it would have been even better if you had been there. We hope to see you next year.


Sidebar:

Upcoming Digital Smart Factory Events

GraphExpo 2003
The Research & Engineering Council of the NAPL’s Critical Trends Breakfast at GraphExpo on Monday, September 29th will highlight exhibitors at the show who feature Digital Smart Factory technologies.

On Demand 2004
On Demand, March 8-10, 2004 in New York, New York, will feature a special interest day entitled “Workflow for Efficiency and Profit”. The focus will be Digital Smart Factory technologies and best practices, featuring case studies presented by print service providers who are achieving success with the Digital Smart Factory. The day is co-chaired by Holly Muscolino of CAP Ventures, and Chuck Gehman.

Contact Information for The Digital Smart Factory
Research and Enginnering Council of the NAPL
Ron Mihills
www.recouncil.org
www.smartfactory.org
www.napl.org
804-436-9922
recouncil@rivnet.net

The Do Not Call List: Is it the tipping point for variable data and personalization applications?

Originally appeared in: OnDemand Journal
By Chuck Gehman
July 12, 2003

It’s clear that just about everyone, with the obvious exception of telemarketers, is ecstatic about the new National Do Not Call List. Estimates are that more than 60 million people will sign up. Within those numbers are the most sought-after demographics targeted by marketing professionals today.

Graphic Communications World, in their July 7th, 2003 issue, declared the list a “boon” for print. According to GCW, telemarketers made 104 million calls daily, and capturing $80.3 Billion from companies hawking their products in this way. That money has to go somewhere-- certainly, printing industry trade associations and analysts (not to mention printing company owners, as well as publishers) are among those that are extremely happy about this development, and almost universally assume that it will benefit print. This is most likely very true, but it is important to consider just how it will provide these benefits.

The fact is, print advertising and direct mail already targets those same families and individuals who have now added their phone numbers to the Do Not Call list. It’s hard to image that increasing the volume of advertising in the same channels will compensate for the loss of telemarketing. And that money probably won’t go to TV or other media, either, for the same reason. The Do Not Call List eliminates an important weapon in the direct marketer’s arsenal: direct, personalized communication. Telemarketing has been an effective tool because, armed with specific information about you, marketers have been able to directly target you with offers that you are more likely to buy.

Author Paul McFedries, on his “The Word Spy” web site (www.wordspy.com) defines a “tipping point” in epidemiology as “the concept that small changes will have little or no effect on a system until a critical mass is reached. Then a further small change tips the system and a large effect is observed”. The Do Not Call list could well be the catalyst that helps demand for variable and personalized print applications, which have been growing over the last couple of years, to reach such critical mass.

Except for some notable successes by forward-looking marketers, variable-data applications and database-driven print campaigns have been a solution looking for a problem. This isn’t to say that “statement stuffers” from companies like American Express haven’t been highly successful—they have. The difference is, we’re likely to see a whole new range of applications of these technologies as companies look to replace the campaigns they formerly waged over the phone.

Are printers going to be the ones who bring about this revolution? Quite frankly, probably not. Not because printers who have purchased variable printing technologies don’t have “a vision”, but because the need is driven from outside printing.

This is an opportunity for creative marketers in corporations and ad agencies to apply personalization in ways that haven’t yet been conceived. It’s up to printers and technology vendors to educate these people on what is technically possible, and to help them implement their ideas.

Do printers have a great opportunity to capitalize on this situation? Absolutely. Because printers are ideally positioned to provide solutions to the technical problems that marketers now have, created by the Do Not Call List. This is truly something new and unique that printers can bring to the table for their corporate and ad agency clients. It’s the kind of application that will differentiate printers from their competition, and that can be highly profitable. To me, that sounds like just what the industry needs.

Streamline Before You Automate: Laying the Foundation for Computer Integrated Manufacturing

By Tim Daisy and Chuck Gehman, Printcafe Software, Inc.
Originally appeared in High Volume Printing magazine

April 2003

Although Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) has been around for over thirty years, it is only within the past two years that CIM has been seriously considered as a method for improvement within the printing industry (although newspapers, as an example, have been employing some CIM technologies much longer). One important reason why it has taken so long to gain a foothold in the industry is that commercial print is a custom manufacturing process. We face unique challenges as we attempt to automate processes around products that are different every time. It’s only very recently that it is becoming economically and technically feasible to reap the benefits of CIM in printing.

The phrase “Computer Integrated Manufacturing” was first coined in 1973, in a book by the same name authored by Joseph Harrington. The success of CIM hinges in part on streamlined production and business processes. Automating inefficient processes simply solidifies them and makes them more difficult to improve and change. This is one reason why a business needs to undergo a program of process improvement before realizing the increased profitability associated with CIM.

The reason for the newfound popularity of CIM in print is the evolution of the printing industry from a craft process to a manufacturing process, driven by the downward pressure on prices and profitability. The industry is learning that profitability can only be maintained if the craft is kept upstream of the production process. In other words, let’s leave the art to the artists. This shift opens up the production and business processes to a host of tools, both process and software, for improving profitability.

Identify the Waste

Waste is so often thought of as material waste – paper, plates, and ink. However other industries as diverse as the furniture industry to the semiconductor industry have discovered that most waste can be identified and reduced by focusing on time. Identifying wasted time in a process also identifies wasted materials. The first step in any process improvement program is identifying and reducing wasted time in all business and production processes and a highly effective tool for doing this was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1980’s call AΔT (A-delta-T).

AΔT is the difference (Δ) between actual cycle time and the theoretical best cycle time. The delta represents the opportunity for improvement and is the basis for all process improvements moving forward. The tool is simple to use and is employed by those who perform the process being analyzed. AΔT can be used for all processes both business (invoicing, estimating, end-of-month close) and production (prepress, fulfillment, production.)

The first step is to map the process, roughly estimate the time necessary for each step in the process and identify to customer-centric deliverable for the process. The customer may be the end customer or an internal customer.

The total time of the process is the actual.

Next, identify the tasks that do not directly contribute to providing the deliverable and mark these tasks as deltas.

The actual time less the deltas represents the theoretical best for the process and is the goal for future process improvement methods.

All of the deltas represent opportunity for improvement and should be eliminated, or at least be reduced to the minimum cycle time that the current process will support, before further automation can be put in place.

You can find out more about A-delta-T by visiting the Center for Quality of Management in Cambridge, MA, at their web site: http://cqmextra.cqm.org/cqmjournal.nsf/reprints/rp10500.

Attack the Waste

Much of the waste in any process involves waiting. Waiting time is an indicator of deficiencies in a process – information not being where it needs to be when it needs to be, inflexible staffing, an unsynchronized production process, running large batches for functional efficiency, etc. Additional waste can be found in re-running portions of a job, re-entry of data, and overrunning a production run. Let’s look at some basic examples.

We all know that often a press can output finished product faster than the bindery can accept the work. That’s a good example of “waste” in our own internal manufacturing process. Other examples can be found outside our manufacturing facilities. Simple, traditional industry business practices, like having salespeople deliver proofs to customers, and then waiting to have them approved, are ripe for process improvement. While it may seem like this is a good way to stay in front of the customer, it is actually a huge time waster for both the salesperson and the customer.

If you have 100 important accounts and 3 salespeople, it’s easy to see that they won’t be able to visit each of them even once a month; let alone often enough to make sure you don’t miss any jobs. So, in this example, the salesperson needs to leverage IT for process improvement by using tools like email, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and databases, and we need to use CIM and the Internet to automate the proofing and approval cycle.

Business negotiations can also be time wasters. The RFQ/Quote process should not involve paper forms today. If you are using paper forms, they will have to be keyed into a computer system at one point or another (whether into a print management system, or into a simple spreadsheet): this is time better spent on higher value activities. While it can be difficult to get customers to use a system to enter specifications, and in fact, they may not actually possess enough knowledge of print to generate a usable job spec, we can use new technologies to “collaborate” with the customer on specification entry, for example, using a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant, or handheld computer like a Palm Pilot.)

Fulfillment applications and re-ordering are also great examples of inefficient internal/external processes that can be streamlined. Processing these orders by hand using forms, or even by phone, is costly and wastes time. Having Internet systems integrated into your production management environment allows print-on-demand applications, variable print, inventory picks, and traditional offset re-orders to be merged into a streamlined process.

Mistake-Proof the Process

Re-runs and over runs drive wasted time as well as material waste. The root of this waste is generally in product quality procedures. A root cause analysis of re-runs and overruns can identify process inadequacies that many times can be solved with simple mistake-proofing procedures and quality software.

Software is available that enables you to quality check customer files coming in, and your own manufacturing input (i.e., imposed digital signatures ready for plating) so that no problem will ever make it onto the plate, let alone onto the press. However, in order to be effective, prepress manufacturing processes must be designed and implemented before the software and automation are even considered. We often refer to these manufacturing processes as “workflow” in our industry. So in many ways, the pre-press part of CIM involves implementing a strong, standardized production workflow that works “by the numbers”, rather than by “look and feel.” This is what takes us from Craft to Manufacturing.

Reduce Make-Ready Time

The auto industry was turned on its head in the early 1970’s when Japanese manufacturing techniques reduced the overall cost and time of auto manufacturing causing a recession in the US auto industry. The root of these improvements involved a reduction in make-readies across all aspects of the manufacturing process using a process called Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) developed by Shigeo Shingo. The key tenet of SMED is to move the majority of make-ready tasks from between runs to during runs. The remaining tasks then need to be vigorously attacked to reduce or eliminate them. This idea has been embraced by many press manufacturers and can be seen on many presses as far back as 1992.

Today, press automation and communication between business systems, prepress and press consoles are taking make-ready and job switchover to new heights of efficiency. The information flow, back and forth, is “closing the loop” between manufacturing and job costing data, enhancing the ability to profit from jobs with real information.

Tactical Implementation of CIM

Overall process improvement is strategic. Implementation of CIM is tactical. If process waste includes waiting for information, invest in the systems that put the information where it is needed. If process waste includes the re-entry of data into multiple systems, invest in integrated systems which share data so it is only entered once. If process waste includes waiting, invest in software which helps manage throughput and synchronization.

It’s becoming clear to many in the industry that information technology (IT) is a core competency for competitive advantage. It isn’t enough anymore to have the best press, the most expensive workstations and the most experienced people. Incremental competitive gains by virtue of quality are only taken away by price competition. You have to have an overall view of your business, and control over it, so jobs are produced with maximum efficiency, with the expected excellent quality, while still delivering profitability to the printer. That’s the advantage that IT and CIM deliver.

Is JDF CIM?

Frankly, the answer is no. However, many CIM solutions are enabled by the CIP4’s JDF, Job Definition Format. It is JDF that allows equipment and software to share information for a more streamlined production process. JDF is important today, and will certainly be more important tomorrow—but without taking a hard look at your current process and taking advantage of process improvements going into a CIM implementation, you won’t be able to take advantage of the interoperability and automation that JDF will provide.

Summary

The discussion of the replacement of legacy equipment, and whether older equipment can support Computer Integrated Manufacturing has become a hot button in the industry. But this may be the wrong place to look for improvement. While it’s easy to look at the big capital expenditures first, we may be missing opportunities by not adequately analyzing other ways to improve efficiency, profitability and differentiation in our product mix.

All printing plants have legacy equipment, but more importantly, legacy processes that may well need to be replaced, or perhaps, “re-thought” to enable Computer Integrated Manufacturing. Once you start looking at the business and manufacturing problems from the point of view of streamlining both your own, and your customers activities, the solutions become apparent.