Originally appeared in GATFWorld magazine
August 2004
By Chuck Gehman
Print production workflow is one of the most important topics in the industry today. The reason is simple: increasing the efficiency of preproduction processes is one of the most accessible, lowest-cost ways to improve overall profitability.
Further, streamlined workflows hold the key to enabling printing operations to offer value-added services. Streamlined print production workflow has been proven to decrease the labor-intensive processes associated with getting files ready to print—freeing up staff to perform activities that add value or enhance customer relationships. In a more direct way, new workflows can provide the ability for a printing company to offer new services. These are the things that are driving the need for Hybrid workflows.
Whether a printing operation is large or small, there is an increasing desire to supplement one type of printing technology with another. In a large commercial print operation, it might make sense to add a digital capability to be able to support shorter runs. In a small printing operation, there may be a desire to move into more sophisticated, higher quality products by adding CTP and a small offset press.
Whether the desire is to expand market share, or to increase capabilities and reach in an existing market, there are several challenges inherent in adding a new and different printing technology to an existing operation. In this article, we’ll focus on workflow technologies and the challenges and opportunities that exist for shops attempting to make this type of transition.
Today, most operations that have both offset and digital printing technologies employ two distinctly different workflow for the two types of work. And, many printing operations even employ different business systems to estimate, quote, track and invoice digital vs. offset jobs.
This is becoming increasingly cumbersome: internally, because for profitability and efficiency we shouldn’t have two sets of employees processing jobs; and externally, as the volume of work that combines the two technologies increases—print buyers don’t want to see two types of invoices, one for digital and one for offset work; and they shouldn’t have to understand two distinct technical processes from the same print vendor.
Applications for Hybrid Workflows
Before we talk about the basics of implementing a hybrid workflow, let’s look at some of the applications.
Short Run Printing
One of the first applications that commercial printers gravitate toward when adding digital is the ability to produce shorter runs for existing commercial print customers. An example would be a four-color brochure that you will print for a financial services customer to announce a new insurance plan to their agents. You’ve won the bid for an offset production run of 5,000 brochures, and promised delivery within three weeks. With their annual convention approaching in only one week, you offer the customer 500 of the brochures in two days.
This is a simple addition: to begin to produce these products, you simply have to “fingerprint” your digital printing equipment to match your offset equipment. Many large corporations now have elaborate and extensive approval sign-offs. Having the ability to produce 20 or so copies of a print product using digital, as “approval” proofs, has proven to be a successful customer service tool for early adopters of digital print in the commercial world.
Mailing and Fulfillment
Another application growing in importance for commercial print is mailing and fulfillment. Even before the advent of the national “Do Not Call” list, direct mail volume has been growing. Direct mail pieces today often include several components today:
• Envelope
• Letter
• Brochure
• Coupon or Invitation
• Response Card
In the past a commercial printer might only print the brochure (in this example, just one of four possibly product opportunities in the overall promotional package), and the rest of the job would be produced by a mailing house or an on-demand printer. Commercial printers are discovering that by adding the digital printing capabilities, and the mailing capabilities, they can grow margins and provide one-stop service, helping to lock-in customers and generate more volume from existing accounts.
Transactional Printing
It has long been a practice of many companies to include newsletters and other promotional materials in the same envelope with their billing statements; another example might be additional product offers included with quarterly financial reports (for example, from the financial institution that manages your retirement account). In the past, the newsletter component has been a commercial print staple, and the actual statement of account or financial report was produced digitally, as separate, stand-alone pieces.
Savvy marketers are realizing that if the newsletter or other promotional content is incorporated in the same printed piece as the actual transactional data, the response rates improve dramatically. Often these products are produced with a “shell” printed offset with high production values, then personalized to the individual recipient with relevant content and their transactional data.
Catalogs
The catalog market has arguably never been more robust, but there’s great competition for the customer’s mindshare. Catalog marketers are looking for value-add from their printers to help differentiate their offers from the competition. Personalization, beyond the now-ubiquitous inkjet addressing and tiny “dot matrix” offers on the back of the book next to the address, represent a great opportunity for additional revenue and print buyer satisfaction. Personalization today might include whole pages in the catalog, or customized, glossy “cover wraps” printed digitally using new high speed devices like the Kodak Versamark VX series driven by the EFI Fiery Controller.
Wide Format, Point-of-Sale
Increasingly, these applications are being produced using digital technologies, and are yet another area for value-add for commercial printers. Register cards, hangers for display on shelves in stores, or in refrigerators, window posters, posters for bus shelters, and many more applications are being created with wide-format output devices.
These types of jobs often include some components that are produced using more “traditional” printing technologies: i.e., for a restaurant franchise, the tray liners or menus might be produced offset, while region-specific window posters may be produced digitally. Internet ordering and fulfillment are also becoming increasingly important components of this type of work.
SIDEBAR: Workflow Terms
Controller, Color Server or Digital Front End (DFE)
A computer that drives a digital output device, or digital printer, like the EFI Fiery. DFE is a somewhat archaic term, most vendors preferring to use the more modern terms Controller or Color Server. These machines take input files in postscript or PDF, and send them to an output device (like a color copier). More recently, these machines contain sophisticated digital production workflow functionality.
Digital Workflow (Offset)
Often used to describe the software, equipment and processes used by commercial printers to perform the operations necessary to prepare digital files to image film or plates for use on offset presses.
Digital Production Workflow
In contrast to “Digital Workflow”, used in the digital printing market to describe the unique workflow steps and capabilities of systems designed specifically for preparing and managing jobs destined for digital printing.
Hybrid Workflow
A single workflow system that lets an operator work on, and manage jobs destined for either or both of offset printing (i.e., Computer-to-Plate), or for digital printing.
JDF Job Definition Format
An XML-based industry standard designed and created by consortium of more than 200 companies collaborating (www.cip4.org) to simplify information exchange among different graphic arts applications and systems, including Web-based systems, production systems and finishing systems. To that end JDF builds on and extends beyond preexisting partial solutions such as CIP3’s Print Production Format (PPF) and Adobe Systems Incorporated’s Portable Job Ticket Format (PJTF)). It also enables integration of business and planning applications into the technical workflow.
PDF (Portable Document Format)
A cross-platform, object-oriented, file format. Invented by Adobe Systems, PDF has become the defacto standard in the graphic arts industry for job exchange and processing.
PPML (Personalized Print Markup Language,)
An XML-based language for variable data printing. Developed by PODi (www.podi.org), PPML makes variable data jobs print faster by allowing a printer to store text elements and graphic elements and reuse them as
needed. PPML is a non-vendor-specific language and is therefore considered to be
an open industry standard.
Print MIS (Management Information System)
A system used to manage the business of operating a print production operation, including accounting, estimating, job costing and production planning and scheduling.
RIP (Raster Image Process)
A computer that takes input from a workflow system, and converts it into a format that can be used to drive an output device.
Workflow
The execution of, and the interaction between, the various steps and processes within a graphic arts production environment.
Why do we need Hybrid Workflow?
Workflow today, with a few notable exceptions, comes in two distinct flavors: those designed for offset, and those designed for digital. In the past, this worked well because jobs were printed using one production technology or the other. Most digital production was done in either another facility within a printing company, or at another company as a subcontractor.
Today, with these more complex applications we’ve discussed and jobs coming in that are destined to be produced using more than one printing technology, as well as with multiple printing technologies under one roof, this approach is quickly becoming inefficient.
And, with the advent of high-volume production-class digital printing equipment, like the Xerox iGen3, capable of running an average monthly print volume of 400,000 letter-size impressions at 60% coverage, with a total cost of ownership (TCO) at 6.8 cents per page, including supplies, service, and equipment, digital is starting to make sense for many jobs that were once economically practical to be produced only on offset presses.
Goals of Offset Workflow
Many of the workflow systems and practices in use today in commercial print have evolved over time from manual processes employed to make film and burn plates for offset production. Many small printing operations don’t actually employ a workflow solution from a major vendor—job processing consists of skilled employees using off-the-shelf software applications to prepare jobs, which are then sent to a RIP and ultimately output onto film or plate.
Many of the processes used to move jobs from the customer through pre-production job prep, to output to film or to plate via CTP, are unique to offset production workflow. However, some processes are common across offset and digital production.
A typical offset workflow might include the following steps, with specialized software (often included in a complete workflow system) to support each process:
• File Conversion (i.e., to PDF)
• Color Space Conversions (i.e, images from RGB to CMYK)
• Preflight
• Color Management
• Proofing
• Imposition
• Trapping
• RIPping
• Output Management
• Archiving
Since many of these tasks are unnecessary, or at least different, for digital production, fitting digital jobs into an offset workflow is often impractical.
Goals of Digital Production Workflow
Digital production workflow systems have grown from the functionality of the Controller or Color Server, which is generally a combination of the RIP and the workflows tools to perform specialized functions to prepare the job for digital printing and the particular output engine.
As an example, a typical digital production workflow solution might include:
• Internet-based Job Submission
• Conversion (i.e., to PDF, similar to in the offset world, shown above)
• Database Management
• Variable Data Template Creation and Output Management
• A tool for managing document sections
• A “tab creation” tool (since many digital documents are presentations and/or reports), which may also support other special features
• Page and Image Editing Tools (PDF or otherwise, used to add headers and footers, to add watermarks, to resize the document, etc.)
• PreFlight
• Color Management
• Proofing
• Trapping
• RIPping
• Media Catalog Management
• Output Management
• Output Load Balancing and/or Color Splitting (to send output to multiple devices, and/or to send B&W output to a black and white printer, while color pages go directly to the color output device)
• Archiving
A recent, important goal in digital production workflow has been that of moving some or all of these preproduction tasks off the Controller or Color Server, to another computer. This is good, because it allows the controller to drive the print engine, presumably at maximum speed instead of siphoning resources processing the next set of jobs to get them ready to print.
But, because of this specific design goal, in most cases, this means that there is very little automation for most of the processes associated with getting the job ready to print, because the workflow is “offline”. In the Hybrid production environment, one that mixes offset and digital, this type of workflow has no notion of jobs that are not going to be produced on digital output devices.
The Opportunities
As commercial print providers adopt digital technologies, it is necessary for workflow systems to support both digital production and offset production in one workflow system.
To achieve the efficiencies needed in order to be the lowest cost provider in print production, and to be able to profitably offer new services, there are many reasons why maintaining multiple workflow solutions is too complex to be sustainable:
• First, there you need to be able to look at all the jobs in the preproduction process from one view: either a job processing perspective or often from a scheduling and commerce (MIS) viewpoint.
• Best-practices equipment selection: if you have a “single view”, you’ll be able to make the decision to go digital vs. offset on the real merits of each production process. Customers don’t really want to buy a particular type of printing—they want a solution from your company that results in their job being printed—on whatever technology is appropriate that achieves the quality they are looking for at the price they desire.
• Finally, one of the biggest reasons to adopt Hybrid workflow is the cost of training operators, and the need to maintain what basically amounts to duplicate staffers to operate the disparate digital and offset preproduction workflow systems.
The Answer: Hybrid Workflow
True Hybrid workflow takes the two sets of capabilities above and merges them into one seamless workflow. A Hybrid Workflow system combines functions needed to process and output jobs to both digital printing equipment and to CTP or film for offset printing.
Next-generation workflows take this a step further, and consist of the following applications:
• Streamlined and integrated business and production processes and systems, using JDF
• Automated Workflow, for both digital and offset production
• Customer-facing systems that connect to both workflow and business systems, with support for both digital and offset processes and business rules
• Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), to capture data and provide closed-loop tracking, control and reporting
• The implementation of standards for all workflow components
The following diagram shows how all the pieces of Hybrid Workflow fit together:
The Role of Standards
Standards minimize the risk associated with adopting new technologies, by ensuring
Interoperability between components in the workflow. Interoperability among software, and hardware enabled by standards gives your company more choices: in the vendor selection for each individual component, as well as in your ability to configure each component of the workflow in a way that fits the “big picture” of your operation.
Standards let you extend the capabilities of your systems so your operation can be more flexible, both in how your staff works internally as well as in the ability to change processes more easily to meet the demands of the changing marketplace. The most important standards for Hybrid Workflows are:
• PDF: Portable Document Format
o Content and workflow standard
o From creation through output
• JDF: Job Definition Format
o XML format communicates job intent
o Delivers metadata about job from creation through finishing
• PPML: Personalized Print Markup Language
o Variable Print Standard
o Documents contain “re-usable content”
The PDF standard provides the ability for documents and/or pages to flow seamlessly through the workflow. It has become a ubiquitous standard both for offset and digital production. The reasons are becoming obvious: PDF is a universal page container that lets many of the manual processes of preparing files for production be automated through software. Over the last couple of years, PDF has moved very quickly upstream to document creation. On the digital side, many systems are either converting “office”-type documents into PDF at the entry to the workflow, or are helping customers to create PDF with desktop print drivers or Acrobat Plug-ins. Similarly, offset workflow has moved to PDF, with native files from Quark and other applications being converted to PDF as they enter the workflow. The fact that both offset and digital are quickly moving to PDF “end-to-end” bodes well for the adoption of Hybrid Workflow solutions.
The JDF (Job Definition Format) standard provides the ability for commerce and production instructions to accompany those documents and/or pages. A large gamut of JDF solutions is emerging now, and there is great excitement on the part of almost all vendors as to the opportunities that will be afforded. JDF will provide the ability for automated processes, both digital and offset, starting with customer-facing systems, moving into business systems for estimating and planning, to the pressroom, and to finishing and delivery, across vendors. Because offset and digital equipment are invariably provided by multiple suppliers, JDF will help connect the elements of the Hybrid Workflow together.
PPML provides a much-needed standard for variable print, from the page itself to the variable components. PPML lets content be “reusable” and enables variable print applications to work across multiple vendors.
Example of the need for Hybrid Workflow
A printing company produces technical manuals for a number of automotive and other manufacturing clients. The company uses both digital and offset technologies.
An example of the type of work they produce is a one- or two-color inside book produced on a Xerox digital production machines, and a a four-color cover printed on a Komori offset press. The job then moves to the bindery for finishing, combining the digital and offset components. The company also has a warehouse in which they store the documents, and fulfill them for customers via an Internet-ordering system.
The company today uses an MIS system that tracks the work across the offset workflow, and employs a well-known offset workflow system.
“We treat digital stuff the same as everything else, but it has a different workflow. All the information is sitting out there (i.e., how many sheets), what were the impressions, how many sizes, what stock, how long did it take to run, RIP?”
Before Hybrid Workflow, the company doesn’t have the ability to plan and produce both the offset and digital components of these jobs, across both production methods. Each process is managed separately and jobs are managed separately.
After implementing Hybrid workflow, the company has total visibility into incoming jobs, jobs in progress, and finished jobs (for shipping to the customer, or for warehousing for later fulfillment) in one, integrated system. All the tasks, across the company are planned, scheduled, and executed from within the same integrated workflow environment.
Summary
The desire to combine offset and digital production in commercial print operations is only just beginning to become a mainstream industry need. Systems that combine both offset and digital production technologies and processes are just beginning to emerge.
These systems represent a great opportunity for commercial printing companies to “re-think” how jobs are managed and produced, and to use this process re-engineering to grow into more profitable value-added services and new markets.
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