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.