Enterprise Application Integration (EAI): For Small Printers

By Jason Manosh and Chuck Gehman

Originally published in TAGA Proceedings 2002

Abstract

Supplier consolidation, budget cuts, and corporate e-procurement initiatives have emerged as a trend that even the smallest printer cannot afford to ignore. In order to remain competitive and continue to obtain business from both large and small corporations, printers must adopt new IT practices like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI.) EAI is a complex subject; there are dozens of books that address the need for EAI, and that discuss implementation strategies. This paper will focus on the small Print Shop (SPS) and its need for developing an EAI system to do business with corporate customers, despite the inherent challenges of a lack of IT resources at a typical SPS.

Definitions

We have defined the main terms used throughout this paper as follows:

EAI - "EAI is the unrestricted sharing of data and business processes throughout the networked applications or data sources in an organization." (eCRMguide.com, 2001)

SPS – Small Print Shop, an acronym we have created to use throughout this document, a sub $50m printing company.

BizTalk – A server-based software product from Microsoft Corporation that provides a low cost, accessible way for small business to implement EAI EDI - "Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) may be most easily understood as the replacement of paper-based purchase orders with electronic equivalents." (Clark, 1998)

XML – “The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web.” (w3.org, 2002)

UN/EDIFACT (EDI for Administration Commerce and Transport) - “The only EDI standard that is truly accepted world-wide. EDIFACT provides standard formats for business documents and incorporates features that meet international requirements.” (SAA Consultants, 2000)

ANSI X12 – “The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 develops standards for cross-industry electronic exchange of business information.” (ASC X12, 2002)

*Printable Technologies, Inc.

Introduction
More than ever before, the systems at the SPS need to communicate, and integrate with, the systems of their corporate customers. Corporations who want to conduct substantially all of their purchasing via their own e-procurement systems, using software and services from e-procurement vendors (i.e., Ariba, SAP, PeopleSoft) are becoming more and more commonplace. These corporations are demanding that all of their vendors receive orders from these e-procurement systems, in lieu of the former practice of using faxed purchase orders and acknowledgements. This makes it critical for the SPS to obtain the ability to exchange the equivalent of these documents electronically with the corporate customer, or potentially lose the business to a more technically astute or larger competitor. This makes EAI a necessity for the SPS.

In addition, forward-looking SPS are now considering ways to leverage IT to create value-added services, increase their own profit margins, streamline order handling and decrease turnaround times. By using EAI, the SPS can work with their own suppliers more closely through information exchange, to communicate order information downstream to their distribution partners and shipping companies, and to seamlessly offer additional products and services (a very basic example would be promotional merchandise like Hats and Key Chains.)

Another trend that has started to become prevalent in the very large global corporation is the corporate document repository (i.e., Documentum,) which may contain tens of thousands of corporate documents. The SPS needs to interface seamlessly with these types of systems so they can perform functions like Print-On-Demand. The concept of printing “on-the-desk”, “down-the-hall”, or “down-the-street” has taken hold in corporate America, and these corporate customers want the flexibility of being able to choose output options and service providers with ease.

Finally, the same tools for EAI that provide for inter-enterprise data exchange, the most commonly addressed form of EAI, also provide interoperability between machines and other software systems within the SPS itself. For example, it is possible to use an EAI system to share JDF compliant documents from an ordering system (e.g., Printable) with a print management (or MIS) system (e.g., PrintCafe.)

The state of inter-enterprise document exchange today

For the most part, EAI has been out of reach for the average SPS to date. That does not mean that entrepreneurial small business owners have not found ways to accommodate requests from corporate customers for this type of functionality.

Some of the ways that small print shops have been solving these problems up until now has been a combination of EDI, and islands of web-based-systems. Neither EDI nor the web based systems in and of themselves accomplish the goal of implementing a flexible EAI system.

EDI is a powerful tool, and the introduction of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) messaging system in 1973 was nothing short of revolutionary. SWIFT is responsible for “creating a shared worldwide data processing and communications link and a common language for international financial transactions.” (S.W.I.F.T., 2002) Since that historic initiative, most large corporations have required their major vendors to participate in their own or industry-sponsored EDI initiatives. However, EDI is a legacy technology, developed when many of the capabilities we have today were simply not possible.

Obviously, the interactive Web has also changed the way people do business. Nevertheless, these days, simply typing an order into a Web Site no longer fits the corporate customer’s idea of "integration". Closer integration and exchange of database information and documents is required. In addition, corporations require the ability to track, report and data mine the relevant data acquired with these exchanges.

The majority of SPS use off-the-shelf software to run their businesses. These applications perform tasks like simple estimating, accounting and shop floor management. Since most SPS do not have strong internal IT staff, developing custom systems to integrate with corporate EDI-based systems is out of reach for most SPS, both monetarily and because of skill sets.

XML and Interoperability

EDI overcame some major hurdles in the quest for inter-enterprise data exchange. However, EDI documents are based on a “punch card” like format, providing no flexibility for the new kinds of information that are being transmitted today, and the unknown but undoubtedly rich data formats of tomorrow. The computer and software industry is addressing these shortcomings by the development and widespread application of XML formats and technologies. Figure 1 is an example of an EDI document format, showing the limitations of the use of such formats.

Figure 1: This is an example of the X12-850 document format an EDI purchase order.

XML addresses many interoperability issues between disparate systems, but XML documents can also be very complicated. Both XML and EDI is machine generated. The big difference between EDI and XML is the explosion of support for XML standards, and specifications. There are also many tools widely available to create, read, and exchange XML compliant documents.

Figure 2: This is an example of an XML compliant document.

Integration Opportunities

It is surprising that today, with the level of general excitement in the computer and software industry about XML, the most prevalent format for inter-enterprise document exchange is still EDI, both in corporate America, and, in fact, worldwide. According to one source, “Ninety percent of U.S. Fortune 500 companies use UN/EDIFACT or X12 solutions, with similar adoption levels in Europe. Roughly only six percent of all other companies in the world are EDI enabled.” (Vasters, 2001) However, more modern e-procurement systems are making inroads. These are systems like Ariba, Commerce One, PeopleSoft, and SAP.

This underscores the opportunity for the SPS to develop a flexible EAI system. Not only are EAI systems an opportunity to increase revenue, but they will allow the SPS to remain competitive in the emerging technology-oriented corporate marketplace. More and more corporations will implement e-procurement systems to do their purchasing with both their large and small vendors. Without support for EAI, the SPS will be at huge disadvantage by not being able to “electronically” accept orders and exchange information with corporate customers.

Here are few examples of some relatively simple integration points:

§ Purchase Orders

§ Purchase Order Acknowledgement

§ Shipping Acknowledgement

These are the lowest common denominator of document types, which, corporate customers will seek to exchange electronically with vendors. This is the initial level of integration that the SPS should target. Being able to exchange this information electronically will allow the SPS to level the playing field with larger suppliers’ initiatives to serve corporate e-procurement needs.

Data Mapping

The information that needs to be exchanged is typically already stored in a database of some sort at the SPS (i.e., an inventory system, an accounting program, or a simple flat file database application like FileMakerPro,) and similarly, in an enterprise system at the corporate customer. The SPS could attempt to store their data in the same format as their large corporate customer, so they could provide their customer with, for example, updated shipping data using a technology like Open Database Connectivity (ODBC,) “A widely accepted application programming interface (API) for database access.” (Microsoft, 1999) This technique will not scale, however, because once the SPS obtains another large corporate customer who wants to do the same sort of inter-enterprise exchange, that customer will come with his or her own unique database structure and requirements. The SPS would then have to modify their existing database to meet the needs of their new customer, or worse yet, create a new database, and modify their online ordering system for the new corporate customer.

It is evident that this would be an unrealistic goal for the SPS, considering IT resources are most likely very limited. The SPS needs a way to translate data stored in their own ordering system to the multitude of e-procurement initiatives on the market today. This is called Data Mapping. Flexibility in Data Mapping is extremely important to consider when creating an EAI system.

Figure 3: Information from the SPS database needs to be entered into the corporate customer’s e-procurement system

By using Data Mapping in an EAI system, we are able to seamlessly and with minimal (or no) human intervention, transfer information from our database to our corporate customer’s database, and vice-versa.

Example

A corporate purchaser logs into an internal intranet purchasing system and places an order for business cards. The information (in the form of an electronic Purchase Order) is transmitted to the SPS’s online ordering system (along with the metadata for the business card), where the order goes into production.

Once the SPS accepts the order, an acknowledgement fires-off back to the corporate e-procurement system in an agreed-upon format (i.e., ANSI X12.)

Finally, after the order ships the SPS system sends a message (again, in an agreed-upon format) back to the corporate e-procurement system so that payment to the SPS can be processed.

Figure 4: Example of EAI in process: a corporate Intranet, showing Ariba catalog interface, and Printable catalog order in progress

This is made possible because the SPS in this case has implemented a flexible EAI system. Once the EAI system is in place, the SPS needs to work closely with their corporate customer’s IT department to arrive at a format that they can accept (in the previous example, cXML was used, because of the corporate user’s choice of the Ariba Network.) ANSI X12, a comma separated flat-file or XML may also be required; therefore, flexibility and support of multiple formats is key. Table 1 shows some of the common industry-standard document formats that SPS can use for communication with corporate customers using an EAI system.

Document Format	Description	Used By
PIPs - RosettaNet Partner Interface Processes™ (PIPs®)	Defines business processes between trading partners. (2002, RosettaNet)	RosettaNet
cXML - Commerce XML	cXML is a streamlined protocol intended for consistent communication of business documents between procurement applications, e-commerce hubs, and suppliers. (2002, Commerce XML)	Ariba, Clarus, VerticalNet, others…
CBL - Common Business Library (a.k.a., xCBL)	A set of XML data tag definitions and schema language framework designed to extend the usability of XML in e-commerce. (2002, Commerce One)	Commerce One, SAP
JDF – Job Definition Format	JDF is a comprehensive XML-based file format/proposed industry standard for end-to-end job ticket specifications combined with a message description standard and message interchange protocol. (2002, CIP4)	Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, others…
PrintTalk	PrintTalk defines the communication between print management systems and e-commerce applications. PrintTalk supports the JDF standard.	Printable Technologies, Heidelberg USA, others…
PML – PaperHub Markup Language	PML is a new protocol for Internet-based commerce between buyers and sellers of paper and printing products. (2001, XML.org/Zap Think)	Appleton Papers, others…
PDML – Product Data Markup Language	Product Data Markup Language (PDML) is an Extensible Markup Language (XML) vocabulary designed to support the interchange of product information among commercial systems (such as PDM systems) or government systems. (2001, XML.org/Zap Think)	Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Motors, others…
CSV – Comma Separated Values	A record layout that separates data fields with a comma and usually surrounds character data with quotes. (2002, Atomica)	Microsoft Outlook, Excel, many others…
EDI FACT - EDI for Administration Commerce and Transport	The only EDI standard that is truly accepted worldwide. EDIFACT provides standard formats for business documents and incorporates features that meet international requirements.” (SAA Consultants, 2000)	SmartWorks, United Nations, many others…

Table 1: Some common document formats for inter-enterprise exchange.

Messaging

Once the SPS configures the EAI system to map data to the corporate customer’s format, then the two companies need to agree on a messaging methodology. This requires technical specification of both how and when the SPS and corporate customer will exchange the data.

Using bidirectional messaging, either party could initiate a transaction. An example would be Ariba sending user validation information to the SPS online ordering system. The SPS EAI system would then send cXML to integrate with the Ariba shopping cart system.

It is possible that only one party will initiate transactions, and that information will travel in only one direction. For example, the SPS online ordering system sending their corporate customer a shipping acknowledgement in XML. It is important to note that with EDI, you typically have a precisely scheduled delivery time, or more specifically, an exact date and time. For example, a corporate customer may only allow exchange of X12 850 documents from SPS at 10:00 p.m. on the 28^th of each month.

With legacy EDI systems, the aforementioned scheduled (or synchronous) document exchange was commonplace. Today the trend is toward the real-time asynchronous exchange of documents, so systems on both sides of the transaction have the most up-to-date information possible. Therefore, an EAI system implemented by the SPS needs to guarantee the delivery of all data in real-time. In addition, with the goal of no human intervention, this process should be automated using software that provides an Asynchronous Message Queue (i.e., MSMQ: Microsoft Messaging Queue.) Table 2 shows the most common communication protocols that the SPS EAI system should support

Protocol	Description	Purpose	Suitability
FTP	File Transfer Protocol	Binary or ASCII file exchange	Good for Batch Transfers
HTTP	Hypertext Transfer Protocol	Internet Standard for non-secure transfer of Data	Basic exchange over the Web
HTTPS	Hypertext Transfer Protocol – Secure	Internet standard for secure transfer of data using encryption	Secure exchange over Web
SMTP	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol	Standard for sending email messages	Email Exchange

Table 2: Common communication Protocols for EAI

Most IT professionals are familiar with these protocols and use them on a daily basis. The most important thing for the SPS to consider in selecting a messaging protocol for EAI is, “What does my corporate customer want me to use?” Therefore, we once again stress the utmost importance of flexibility.

Implementations

It is apparent that EAI is a very technical topic, but it does involve business development as well. To make EAI happen at the SPS, there has to be buy-in from upper management. That is because there are numerous costs involved in implementing such a system.

We have seen that the corporate customer typically drives EAI. Let us take for example, participation in the Ariba supplier network. In order for a SPS to receive orders from a corporate customer, using the Ariba network, the SPS needs to be certified “Ariba® Ready™.” Ariba® Ready™ is an “Ariba initiative to provide a special designation for suppliers who have demonstrated the ability to effectively transact with and provide content to organizations using Ariba® Buyer™ over Ariba® Supplier Network™.” (Ariba Inc., 2002) This will require high level interfacing between SPS management and Ariba’s staff.

The SPS will also need access to technical expertise in the EAI platform they are planning to use. For the purpose of this paper, we will use Microsoft BizTalk as an example of an EAI platform. Microsoft BizTalk is a good example because it represents a solution, which is relatively low cost, and suitable for use by the SPS. However, it may still be difficult to find expertise with this type of implementation, because this is an emerging technology.

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000

The BizTalk platform costs a relatively small amount of money, and provides a lot of flexibility for the SPS to integrate with multiple e-procurement and other types of systems. In addition, it is possible to use BizTalk to support printing industry specific XML formats (i.e., CIP4, JDF, and PrintTalk.) Those specific implementations are beyond the scope of this paper.

BizTalk Server requires the aforementioned technical expertise to install, but is simpler than most other EAI products. For example, BizTalk provides the BizTalk Orchestration Designer “A design tool used to create drawings that describe long running, loosely coupled, executable business processes. The XLANG schedule drawing is compiled into an XLANG schedule that is used to execute the automated business process.” (Microsoft, 2002) The output of the BizTalk Orchestration Designer is XLANG, which according to Microsoft is “a language that describes the logical sequencing of business processes, as well as the implementation of the business process by using various application services.” (Microsoft, 2002)

Figure 5: An example of an XLANG Schedule Drawing created with BizTalk Orchestration Designer

There are also many third-party add-on software products for BizTalk available today, including special adapters, XML formats, and many other enhancements. There are numerous books available on the subject of BizTalk, which go far beyond the scope of this paper. To learn more about Microsoft BizTalk, visit www.biztalk.org. “The goal of BizTalk.org is to provide resources for learning about and using Extensible Markup Language (XML) for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and business-to-business (B2B) document exchange, both within the enterprise and over the Internet.” (Microsoft, 2002)

Case Study

ABC Print is a small privately owned SPS who recently established a relationship with a Fortune 500 company, XYZ Corporation. ABC Print agreed to provide stationary at a substantially lower price than the competitors did.

There was one big challenge in winning this account: although XYZ Corporation wanted to use ABC Print for their stationery, XYZ Corporation only purchased items using their own e-procurement system.

ABC Print decided to implement an EAI system that was powerful enough to handle this complex relationship, and flexible enough to open the door to new relationships with other Fortune 500 companies. After much thought, the IT department at ABC Print decided to implement the following workflow using an off-the-shelf EAI solution:

1. When XYZ Corporation updates the design of their business cards, they populate the changes to their own e-procurement system and forward the changes on to ABC Print. After reviewing the updates to the business cards, ABC Print posts the new information on their online ordering system.
2. When a purchasing agent from XYZ Corporation places an order for business cards, the e-procurement system externalizes the Purchase Order in X12-850 format, and places the EDI document in ABC Print’s FTP server.

Figure 6: Graphical Depiction of the Translation (mapping) of an XML document to an EDI document

3. When ABC Print receives the X12-850 document in their inbox (scheduled delivery, every 2 hours), the document is converted from X12-850 to XML with their EAI system, and sent to their ordering system.
4. ABC Print’s ordering system sends a response to the EAI system accepting the Purchase Order, which is then externalized in X12-855 format.
5. Once ABC Print delivers the order, a notice is sent to ABC Print’s EAI system, which externalizes a document in X12-856 format and sends it to XYZ Corporation’s FTP server where it is processed by their e-procurement system.

Conclusion

There will come a time when small printing companies that do not have EAI capabilities will be left out of the corporate print spend. That time is fast approaching: with supplier consolidation, cost cutting, and layoffs prevalent in both the current economic downturn and the continued conservative spending likely to follow during an extended recover period, EAI with suppliers is high on the priority list of many corporations – not just for print, but for all procurement. Therefore, to remain competitive, EAI is a necessity for small and large printers alike. Fortunately, the range of affordable options and the ease of implementing these types of systems have never been better.

References

eCRMGuide.com: 2001, “The Definitive Source for Customer Relationship Management Technology”, www.ecrmguide.com

Microsoft Corporation:

2002, “Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000 - EAI Made Easy”,

http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/overview/

2002, “Getting Started with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000”,

http://microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/biztalk/proddocs/btsdocs/

1999, “Microsoft Universal Data Access Web Site”,

http://www.microsoft.com/data/odbc/

Roger Clark: 1998, “Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): An Introduction”, www.anu.edu.au

SAA Consultants Ltd.: 2000, “EDI Resources”, www.reims.net

The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12: 2002, “Developing Cross-Industry Standards”, www.x12.org

S.W.I.F.T.: 2002, “SWIFT History”, www.swift.com

World Wide Web Consortium: 2002, “Extensible Markup Language (XML)”, www.w3.org

Ariba Inc.: 2002, “Ariba Ready”, www.ariba.com

RosettaNet: 2002, “PIP FAQ”, www.rosettanet.org

Commerce XML: 2002, “cXML FAQ”, www.cxml.org

CIP4: 2002, “Information about JDF”, www.cip4.org

XML.org/ZapThink: 2001, “XML Standard Reports”, www.zapthink.com

Atomica: 2002, “One source for integrated answers on demand”, www.guru.net

After the Shakeout: e-Commerce for the Printing Industry in 2001 and beyond

Originally appeared in High Volume Printing Magazine

By Chuck Gehman

Last year in High Volume Printing, I wrote a series of articles about e-commerce and the Printing industry. At that time, a large number of new “dotcom” companies were aggressively marketing their online e-commerce solutions to both printers and buyers. The climate in the industry was one of fear, uncertainty and doubt: that these companies were going either going to extract a “tax” on the already margin-strapped printing business, or would steal customers and eliminate the important service and relationship elements that printers had worked so hard to build over the years.

What a difference a year makes. Since the publication of the first installment in my series last year (April 2000 High Volume Printing), we’ve seen both a crash of tech stocks and the disappearance of capital markets, most especially for dotcoms, as well as a large number of the print-related e-commerce companies either going out of business or being acquired at fire sale prices by “brick-and-mortar” businesses or by stronger Internet players. Of the companies profiled in my series, 10 of 19 are either out of business entirely or were acquired by other companies (see Table 1.)

This article will attempt to answer the big questions on the minds of Printers today. Why did this happen? It’s not as simple as “they deserved it.” Is there any value at all in doing business online? The answer is yes, but it’s not whether to do it, rather how. And finally, things are tough all over— not only are dotcoms failing, but a lot of Printers are downsizing, cutting costs and even shutting down operations (announcements in the press about Mail Well, Quebecor, RR Donnelley and others.) In this environment, why does it make sense to pursue an e-commerce strategy?

Capital markets and the “new” economy

When the dotcom boom started in earnest way back in early 1999, it looked like anyone who didn’t raise tens of millions of dollars (and then spend it quickly on “growing” the company) was an idiot. I can vividly remember meeting with companies like Impresse at VuePoint in April 1999 and they were saying things like “our biggest challenge is managing the growth.” Venture capitalists with big funds were encouraging companies to take the money, develop technology, hire sales forces and operations staff and acquire customers at any cost… get big quick. Profit was not necessary at that time: it was a land grab.

They staked their claim, they got the most people using their system so they could achieve “critical mass,” and then (at some undefined time in the future) they might have to worry about turning it into a real business. But they’d only have to do that after the IPO, at which time the VCs would have their “exit,” and public market investors would have to worry about revenues and the bottom line. Looking back on those days, and analyzing the prevailing mood at the time, it’s easy to understand how companies got caught up in this whirlwind.

The VCs themselves aren’t entirely to blame, either. They were being spurred on by the large institutional investors who put millions into their venture funds, and who in turn were hearing nothing but euphoric predictions from sector analysts at large investment banks. At this writing, Congress and the SEC are investigating the role that analysts played during the “bubble” period in inflating stock prices and helping to push IPOs out the door of investment banks, generating huge fees for those banks (If you want to learn more about this, pick up any issue of Forbes or Fortune magazine over the last few months.)

Alas, for both the companies themselves and their venture investors, things didn’t quite work out the way they had hoped. In a very short period of time (less than a year), the IPO market disappeared. Companies lost enormous valuations virtually overnight. Stocks that traded in the hundreds of dollars were reduced to dollar stocks, or were delisted, or went bankrupt. Worse still, adoption of these new systems and applications was much slower than anticipated. It’s still not entirely clear which came first: slow adoption, leading to the collapse of the capital markets, or the perhaps the capital markets slowing and the “euphoria” of the boom disappearing causing adoption to slow.

What happened in our industry

For the printing industry, which we all know is generally quite conservative, adoption of this new “paradigm” began slow and remained slow. Companies that were giving away services experienced much lower growth than their business plans had anticipated. At a certain point, investors who no longer had an exit in sight and had poured huge amounts of money into a company, became disenchanted, to say the least. They begin to wonder whether the management team of the company in question knew what they were doing. And when all of your investments are doing poorly, you become very critical about who and what you are going to continue to fund.

From a marketing standpoint, many of these companies committed the ultimate sin of bypassing the Printer and going directly to the print buyer— either getting in the middle of the transaction with a “tax” or by attempting to turn print into a commodity business with auctions or exchanges. This was exacerbated by arrogant and demeaning messaging in the industry trade media, often (though perhaps not intentionally) characterizing Printers as old fashioned. This was interpreted by printing company executives as a “you’re either on it or under it” ultimatum. Adoption among print service providers quickly fell to zero, unless they were forced by their corporate customers to start using a particular system.

Worse still for the young e-commerce companies, even the print buying community, who could look to believable case studies documenting the benefits of these applications, was slow to take advantage of these opportunities. This was caused primarily because corporate IT was just coming out of the Y2K process, and secondarily because the larger companies were planning e-procurement initiatives (i.e., SAP, Ariba, Commerce One) that were more important than the niche of Print spend.

Another key aspect that really confused the market, and threw a number of these companies into turmoil, was pressure from investors to change business models. As the rate of adoption of these services failed to materialize they way companies predicted in their initial ambitious business plans, companies were pressured by their boards and investors to change their market focus. In several cases, companies brought in new management, changed from selling to printers to selling to the Fortune 1000, and weren’t given enough time (with their dwindling cash) to execute the new plan. This is what happened to both MediaFlex and Collabria, which resulted in good companies with strong technology and great people being shut down.

Finally, the sheer number of dotcoms marketing to the graphic arts industry before the shakeout began was simply overwhelming. At the peak, there were as many as 240 different companies selling Internet applications, all with different features, benefits, pricing models, with many of them simply repackaging technologies from other software developers. With some of these companies, it was obvious at first look that they were not serious contenders—they didn’t even have real business plans or value propositions.

However, there were quite a number that had plenty of money, technology and smart people, making the it all the more difficult for Printers to choose a partner. According to the Dotcom Watch on PrintPlanet.com, at this writing there are still over one hundred of these companies operating today. Recently, we’ve seen an amazing phenomenon where some of these companies— even though they still had plenty of money— either at the behest of the management team themselves or their investors decide to call it quits and give the money back!

Fortunately for both prospective customers and the remaining companies, it is becoming more apparent which companies will survive. Even more heartening for these survivors is that, because there are fewer companies, it’s a lot easier for Printers wanting to make the jump into e-commerce to compare features and benefits and make a real decision.

So, is there value in doing business online?

A big problem today, after this shakeout (ok, it probably isn’t quite over yet… let’s give it another couple of months), is that there is now a new fear in trusting online service providers with mission critical applications— a fear they might go out of business. E-commerce companies today are primarily ASPs (Application Service Providers), who run these sophisticated applications in central data centers.

But there is a still a great value in working with ASPs. The biggest benefit to printing industry companies is that there are major cost efficiencies. Printing companies, except for the very largest, have small IT departments. Even in the larger companies, there are too many projects for the number of IT staffers that are available. With the cost cutting and emphasis on the bottom line that comes with the current downturn in the economy, outsourcing to an ASP starts to look like a very good idea.

In a recent article in InternetWeek (July 9, 2001), Rodric O’Connor, vice president of Technology at Putnam Lovell securities, talks about his desire to run all of his applications through Internet-based ASPs. This is impressive when we hear it from an investment bank that can’t afford downtime, and actually has substantial in-house IT resources. When building a Customer Relationship Management application (CRM), O’Connor estimates that having the bank’s own IT staff do the work would have cost over half a million dollars in initial expenditures and $150,000 per year in annual expenses. The ASP model appealed to O’Connor because he could get the same benefits at an annual flat subscription fee of $70,000 with no major startup costs, and he could deploy the application in almost no time at all. In the same article, Kirk Brauch, formerly with RR Donnelley and now technology director at myfujifilm.com (a new ASP offering from Fuji), talks about how Fuji is launching an ASP service for the graphic arts community by taking advantage of other ASPs to create and manage the service.

The time to market advantage of working with ASPs may be the biggest benefit of all. Even if your company has the resources and talent to develop your own applications, how long will it take? In addition, these companies continue to provide a time and cost saving advantage, by continuous improvement of their applications. Are you going to be able to keep up with systems that are developed by companies that are spreading the cost of development and operations over a large number of customers that are similar to your own? Not only that, these providers are getting the benefit of all the input that those companies bring to create better applications over time. Despite the gloom and doom of the “dot bomb,” there is still tremendous innovation happening at small companies working on “Internet time.” There has never been a better time to partner with these companies to give your business a competitive advantage.

These examples (and many more abound in the IT trade press) show that by doing your homework, and really approaching the ASP relationship as a partnership, you can overcome the fear of loss of control and take advantage of the cost-saving and value-added benefits that these service providers bring.

The best way to deal with these fears is by employing thorough due diligence. Make sure the company that you are thinking of working with is stable. If the company is profitable, or has profitability in sight, all the better. Ask for references from existing customers. Is there a way for you to backup your data in the central system to your own site? What happens if the company’s servers go down? Is there appropriate backup and redundancy in place? Can you buy a server and install the applications at your own facility? (This can be expensive, because these systems are complex, but it’s nice to know you can do this if you desire and can afford it.)

Does it still make sense to pursue an Internet strategy?

The first step toward having your company really take advantage of the benefits of using the Internet for e-commerce is to develop a serious strategy. Since there are still many choices of vendors, there is plenty of competition for your company’s dollars. You don’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars today to get a functional online presence up and running for your printing company.

The key to success when partnering with an ASP is to focus on the value for your company. My suggestion would be to shy away from companies who talk about “supply chains” and spout corporate-speak buzzwords that leave you wondering what their systems do even after you’ve spoken to a sales representative for half an hour. If you can’t identify a clear value proposition after spending 30 minutes on the phone, there probably isn’t a good match for your company.

According to Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter (quoted in Internet World magazine, July 15, 2001), what you should avoid is working with companies that use the Internet to “shift the basis of competition away from quality, features and service toward price, making it harder for anyone in their industry to make a profit.” In a nutshell, that’s what many of the failed printing industry dotcoms attempted to do. Instead, look for applications that help you, according to Porter, “link one activity with others and make real-time data created in one activity widely available, both within the company and to outside suppliers, channels and customers.” According to Porter, keeping up-to-date on Internet technology is necessary, but shouldn’t be confused with having an Internet strategy: strategy is the art of “competing differently.” Having a strategy could mean focusing on creating deeper and better relationships with key customers.

Seek to partner with companies who provide applications that help you use the Internet to leverage these three major business goals: First, they should help you get more business out of existing customers. The applications should help you make it so easy for customers to do business with you that you are their first and only choice.

Second, they should drive more margin from existing business. The applications you choose should make your employees, and your operations better. They should help you free up your sales reps and CSRs to do more of the relationship management aspects of their jobs— instead of processing paperwork, faxing and playing telephone tag. Many of the online applications also address digital workflow problems, like preflight or variable printing applications, as well. These tools can save your company time and money by allowing the applications to do work that would previous require the labor of highly valued technicians in your prepress operation.

Finally, an ebusiness web site should help you get new customers. Let’s not forget that having an Internet presence beyond a “brochure-ware” web site is still not the norm for printing companies. Not everyone has one, so implementing a great online service with your brand on the web shows that your company is visionary. How many times have we heard “I put up a new web site that took months to create, and I didn’t get one new customer.” That’s really missing the point: a web site isn’t an advertisement for your company, or at least it shouldn’t be. It should help to differentiate your company from the competition. It will help you win the business of the many prospects out there that won’t do business with you unless you do have a functional online presence. And that’s more and more businesses everyday.

In Summary

There’s never been a better time to explore the opportunities that e-commerce can afford your company. It’s a buyers market, and vendors are typically bending over backwards to meet the needs of prospective customers. The options abound and with some careful planning, you can really leverage the Internet for your business without selling the farm.

Despite the dotcom problems of the last year, there are major benefits to be recognized by companies in the graphic communications industry by pursuing an online presence. Don’t let fear, uncertainty and doubt guide your strategy. Partner with the right company and move ahead, and you’ll be certain to reap the benefits.

File Transfer and Job Delivery: The State of the Art

Originally appeared in GATF Technology Forecast 2001

By Chuck Gehman

One would expect that by the year 2001, all file deliveries between creators and their service providers (i.e., printers and prepress shops) would be taking place over digital networks. However, this is far from true today. In fact, the most popular job delivery method continues to be removable media, with recordable CDs (CDRs) being the most popular format for large job deliveries. However, use of the Internet for job delivery has never been more popular than it is today, and is positioned to play an increasingly important role in our workflows.

In the recent Trendwatch report (November 2000), entitled “Printers and the Internet: Rethinking Marketplace Realities for 2001 and Beyond”, it is noted that of the printing companies surveyed, 67% of the respondents use email to receive jobs. Only 40% of those same surveyed printers have FTP sites to download or upload files with their customers. Similarly, only 35% of those companies use email to send/receive proofs.

In analyzing these numbers, one must pose two questions: first, why is email used so much? Second, why do seemingly so few printing companies take advantage of more advanced digital file transfer methodologies? We’ll try to answer these questions and make some predictions for what we’ll see in 2001.

Using Email to send files

Why do people use email to send files? The simplest answer is that email has become ubiquitous and simple. Just about everyone has email and knows how to use it. Creators see the computer as a tool to do their job. They are very well-versed in the use of their content creation programs (like Quark or Adobe InDesign, and creative programs like Adobe Illustrator and/or Photoshop.) But they don’t want to learn how to use a complicated system to accomplish job deliveries. And why should they? It’s a simple drag-and-drop activity to copy files to a removable media disk, or, for that matter, to burn a CDR these days.

Another extremely important reason why email is popular for file transfers is that it’s free. Having access to email has become part of everyone’s work life: it’s like having a phone on your desk. Why would you want to spend money to subscribe to a file transfer service when you can just send files via email attachments for free?

One good reason is that email isn’t a great way to send files. Most email systems restrict the size of attachments that can be sent and/or received. This greatly limits the functionality of email as a job delivery mechanism. A typical corporate email system limits attachments to 2mb; so do the popular “free” email systems like Microsoft’s Hotmail or Yahoo. This size limit typically applies to your entire inbox, so as soon as the total size of your messages exceeds this limit, you can’t receive any more messages. Another important reason why email transfers are problematic is that encoding of attachments can go awry. Users of America Online (AOL), and users sending files from PC to MAC and vice-versa are the most likely to experience these types of problems.

A second, perhaps more important, reason why email falls short is that email affords no workflow integration. Your email message arrives in an inbox in an email program, and then needs to be manually opened and the attached contents moved to a hard drive or server volume so that they can go into production.

So, email file transfers are working today for those last minute text changes, small graphics and forgotten fonts. But for sending entire job deliveries, it will never be the ideal method.

FTP Emerging

FTP, the Internet standard File Transfer Protocol, has really emerged this past year as the most popular method for graphic arts job delivery. Transfers of virtually unlimited size can be accomplished. There are many FTP programs that are easy to use available for virtually any computer platform (i.e., Macintosh, PC/Windows and Unix.) Most FTP client programs today support error checking and resumption of transmission when Internet connections have problems with dropped lines (like over modems) or congestion over network backbones.

There are two big obstacles to FTP use today. First, it’s the complexity. As simple as these client programs have become, they still don’t quite make transfers a drag-and-drop operation, in most cases. You still have to remember user names and passwords, and navigate a file system to take advantage of FTP.

Setting up an FTP server (which is the receiving end of the FTP connection) is more complicated than installing an FTP client. One big obstacle to having an FTP server on your premises is that you need to have a dedicated Internet connection. This means either a DSL line or a T-1 line. Without the dedicated connection, customers won’t be able to access the FTP site.

Perhaps the biggest reason for FTP’s limited acceptance is the technical and administrative overhead that puts a burden on the staff of the graphic arts service provider. Someone has to configure and support an FTP server. In order to be particularly useful, each of your customers should have their own User ID and Password. They should only be able to see their own files that they’ve sent you, and files that you’ve put on the FTP server for them to download. You’ll want to consider the folder structure carefully, so you can track the uploads and versions that your customers send. You need to worry about the security of that server, both so hackers don’t get your customers’ sensitive information, and so other customers don’t see their competitor’s files on your servers. And along the same lines, your staff is going to have to provide hand holding support over the phone to your customers as they try to send files to you.

But because FTP is essentially as free as email (after you’ve justified the dedicated Internet connection, hardware investment and support overhead) it’s a compelling way of doing job deliveries with customers. Basically, the more you use it, the less it costs, and because with a little tech skill you can move file deliveries from the FTP server right into your workflow, you can achieve integration and automation that other solutions might not be able to provide. Expect to see FTP become easier to do, and significantly more popular in 2001 than it is today.

Advanced Methods?

Over the last four years, WAM!NET has established a presence in the high end of the graphic arts market with their Direct service (also known as the “purple box”.) This service is easy to use: job deliveries take place over a private network: you drag-and-drop into a folder, and off goes your job. But this ease of use comes at a price that is often too high for most printing companies and creators to pay, because in addition to a monthly service fee, senders pay by the megabyte. And although WAM!NET has established an Internet Gateway, this is a solution that would, for the most part, only appeal to “purple box” customers, in allowing their business partners to send them files via the Internet.

The former 4-Sight ISDN solutions are still used by a large number of companies around the world (WAM!NET purchased the company in 1998.) However, ISDN solutions are complicated and expensive to use (paying by the minute for file transfers), and, in the face of ubiquitous broadband Internet access in the United States, they’ve become antiquated by today’s standards.

Another entrant, the VIO file transfer service, is a wonderful example of using advanced Internet technologies to address a graphic arts market need. The user interface employed by VIO, and their sophisticated use of a database for tracking and user authentication, are to be commended. However, VIO also charges by the megabyte for job deliveries, and, like WAM!NET, is primarily a private network service with an Internet gateway. The cost and complexity, as well as a small installed base, have limited it’s adoption.

The most recently announced service in the job delivery arena is FileFlow. The company has recently launched their FastSend application as an Internet browser-based, easy to use service. Incorporating compression and encryption, the service provides a secure, method for job deliveries over the Internet. As with the other services mentioned, FileFlow charges a per megabyte fee for job deliveries. But it’s less expensive than the above-mentioned private network services and works over the ubiquitous Internet. However, it remains to be seen whether users will pay by the megabyte for sending files over the Internet, when FTP can be used for virtually no on-going or per use charges.

Predictions for 2001

With broadband Internet access (i.e., DSL, Cable System-based Internet access and cheap T-1 lines) becoming available in more and more areas of the United States, the Internet will become the de-facto method for job deliveries sooner rather than later. Although the Trendwatch report mentioned above indicates that not all companies in the graphic arts industry take advantage of email or FTP, the same report states that an additional 15% of companies surveyed plan to add those capabilities.

In many areas today, even though DSL isn’t available (it will begin to be available in more and more locations nationwide as 2001 progresses), inexpensive high performance T-1 lines to the Internet are affordable even for small graphic arts firms, with prices reaching below $500 per month for these services. Business-class DSL (Symetrical DSL – same upload and download speeds) services will fall to about $100.00 per month over the next year.

This affordable Internet access will become a requirement for companies serving the graphic arts market, and will make job delivery via digital networks become a standard application both for creatives and service providers.

The area of workflow integration via the Internet has become a key focus for both graphic arts Internet companies, such as application service providers (ASPs), as well as the traditional suppliers. Companies like Agfa and CreoScitex have debuted significant tools (like Agfa’s Apogee Create and Creo’s Prinergy InSite) which as much as require a robust Internet connection to be used effectively. This trend will increase as 2001 rolls on, with many new tools and applications emerging.

Because of this, we’ll see the job delivery component move from being a standalone application to one that is incorporated into our production tools and systems. This will both remove the burden of having to learn how to use an additional application to send files, and will bring the creator and the service provider into a much more effective, network-based, collaborative workflow. Instead of the typical “one big job release” as we see today, creatives and their printers will instead take advantage of the interactive capabilities of the network and software, making time work for them by releasing components of jobs into production as they are ready.

Standards will play an increasingly important role. The CIP4 consortium’s JDF initiative, as well as the various industry XML projects like PrintTalk and printCafe’s PCX, will be important tools in creating links between systems both for content (the actual job deliveries) and for the information about those jobs that will go into our management systems and databases.

2001 promises to be an exciting time for job delivery, and for our industry in general!

Storage Developments

Originally appeared in the GATF Technology Forecast 2001

By Chuck Gehman

The year 2000 was a big year for storage. With hard drive capacity continuing to increase and prices continuing to drop, storage became more affordable than it’s ever been. And in the graphic arts industry, where we can never have enough storage, this is great news.

But applications like Computer-to-Plate and Digital Media Asset Management continue to increase in popularity and this means we’ll need even more storage to keep up. Fortunately, 2001 looks like it’ll be an even better year for affordable high capacity storage.

Perhaps the biggest news in 2000 was the emergence of Fibre Channel Storage Area Networks (SANs) as something that could be purchased off the shelf, instead of requiring high-end integration services to make it work. That trend will continue, and it’ll become even easier with the announced cooperation of major storage vendors like IBM and Compaq to adhere to standards for interoperability of their fibre channel devices.

Workstations are another area where it’s become easier to get the capacity we need. The standard Apple Macintosh G4 machines now come with 40gb Ultra ATA hard drives (these are the less expensive, but relatively high performance PC-compatible drives). A menu choice in the Apple web store will let you select your machine pre-configured with three 72gb Ultra SCSI drives, for both fantastic performance and high capacity (for a total of over 200gb.) This is the kind of storage we only had in servers a couple of years ago.

Last year another important trend emerged, and that is the popularity of CD-R technologies. Virtually replacing other forms of removable media for job submission, these inexpensive devices (less than $300.00 typically) and the even cheaper disks (35 cents in quantity) provide capacity of over 650mb. In addition to job submission, this has made archiving and delivering scans to customers an easy, inexpensive process. For 2001, expect the emergence of two new, similar technologies. First, manufacturers are starting to roll out DDCD (Double Density CD), which provides 1.3gb capacity on a disk with the recording drives slated to retail in the same price range as today’s CDR drives.

Perhaps even more important, 2001 will bring the affordability of DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) recorders. The capacity of this new media is about 4.7gb per disk, and the media cost should fall below three dollars ($3.00) in quantity this year. Unfortunately, there are currently three different DVD data standards (DVD-RW, DVD-R and DVD-RAM) among the various manufacturers, which could cause some interoperability issues. However, the DVD-RAM format is backward compatible with most DVD readers and will most likely emerge as the de-facto standard. Expect to see affordable and network-ready DVD-RAM devices early in the year.

Another big trend that will continue is inexpensive CD and DVD Jukeboxes. There are machines on the market today that can support almost 1 Terabyte of data (assuming 200 DVD disks with a capacity of 4.7gb/ea) for under $2000.00, with acceptable throughput when attached to servers with caching capabilities. This is an incredible price/performance breakthrough, and we’ll see the trend continue. Imagine the potential this brings for access to Asset Management archives and on-line libraries, let alone providing an easy way to maintain access to your customers’ jobs for reprints and re-purposing.

Software for Storage Management is a big area of investment for the big storage vendors like Compaq, EMC and IBM. Vendors like Legato and Veritas continue to enhance their offerings with applications to support these ever increasing capacity systems. We can expect this software to become easier to use and virtually “invisible” as integration becomes tighter with servers.

Finally, a new concept that has emerged in the Internet hosting world will most likely make it’s way to the graphic arts industry. That is the Storage Service Provider (SSP.) SSPs are companies that provide, manage and maintain your storage capacity as an outsourced service. Instead of buying drives and integrating them with your server, you simply contract with an SSP and pay by the megabyte for your storage. Most offer backup services, mirroring and data redundancy as added services. You’ll never run out of space again, because in order to add more capacity, you just make a call or access a web site… no downtime, screwdrivers or hassles.

e-commerce: Does it make sense for In-Plant Printers?

Originally appeared in Innes Publishing's In-Plant Printer magazine
By Chuck Gehman, Chief Technology Officer, Printable.com

Corporate e-procurement has become a new hot topic in many companies. Has the discussion made it to your department yet? Have you heard IT or business staffers talking about things like Ariba or Commerce-One? These systems help companies get a handle on their purchasing activities when multiple locations and many staffers are buying products and services from many different vendors.

Basically, it’s about using Internet technologies to streamline and automate the purchasing process. These same concepts can help you to make it easier for your internal customers to do business with your operation. And it’s possible that someone upstairs in corporate is thinking about plugging your operation into the corporate e-procurement environment. So, it just might be time to start looking at some of the ways that you can use these new Internet applications to both make your life easier and to provide better service to your company in the process.

In the commercial print world, a controversy has been raging around e-commerce. Mostly, the arguments center on this new way of doing business being an evil process that turns printers into commodity providers, and removes their added value to their customers. The good news is these discussions don’t really apply to the world of the In-Plant.

The world of e-commerce and how it relates to corporate e-procurement can provide a lot of benefits for In-Plant printers. These benefits include better customer service, improved communication, fewer errors and faster turnaround on jobs. And another really important area to consider is purchasing paper and supplies online. This can be both a money saver and a way to more easily manage ordering and inventories.

Appropriate e-commerce business models

There are many different companies and almost as many business models in the e-commerce arena today. Some are appropriate for the In-Plant printer today.

Bulletin Board: Basically, a place on the Internet or your Intranet where your buyers can post RFQs and you can read them and respond. This is a very loose definition of e-commerce but one that could be valuable to an In-Plant printer; since basically, you get the ability to organize RFQs from your internal constituency and respond to them more efficiently.

Storefront: An e-commerce company provides you with a web site with e-commerce capabilities, and provides all the backend logic and processing. It makes your operation look like you have your own elaborate e-commerce system, but in fact you are using the e-commerce provider’s systems. These systems can help you implement a portfolio of jobs you’ve created for your internal customers, and let them order online. This could be as simple as business cards, letterhead or forms reorders or as complicated as variable printing jobs.

Digital Marketplace or Linked Exchange: Vendors come together in a system that provides easy buying and access to information about products and services. In addition to being the direction most corporate e-procurement is headed these days (this is where Commerce One and Ariba fit in), this model is very appropriate to an In-Plant printer by providing the ability to purchase paper and consumables online.

One or more of these business models could be appropriate for your operation. Refer to Table 1 for details on some of the companies providing e-commerce products and services to printers, and to Table 2 for more information about online paper and consumables vendors.


e-production

It could be said that the easy and fun part of printing is when it comes time to run the job on the printing press. And that’s where the printer’s money is made. But the process before the job goes on press, communicating with the buyer and collecting the files to be output, making sure you are producing what the customer is looking for, and that the job flows smoothly through the prepress department is the time consuming and error-prone part of the job. Then, after the actually printing process, you have the bindery and fulfillment issues to worry about.

The fact is, the internal customer (and possibly other vendors the customer works with, like designers and photographers) is actually a key part of the manufacturing process in our industry. The supply chain in the printing industry goes as far “upstream” as the designer working in their home studio, and as far “downstream” as the bindery, where the end product is finished for delivery to the “end user”.

Even the most efficient operation spends time on what could be considered unnecessary interaction with customers and suppliers, such as fixing problems, correcting misunderstandings, attempting to agree on color issues, “signing off” on approvals and making last minute changes.

This is where e-commerce (or really, the new buzzword “e-production”) holds the promise of bringing real benefits to printers. By integrating and automating both the workflow and the transactions that add unnecessary iterations to an already labor intensive process, your personnel are free to focus on the real manufacturing process of getting ink on paper.

If you can more easily provide status information, exchange previously paper documents and even content files, obtain approvals electronically, and generally improve interaction with your customers, everyone wins.

Some of these new services are providing useful production tools like job ticketing, job status, and even automated preflighting. Not to mention the fact that these systems can provide high-tech job estimating and job costing that can help your bottom line.

Purchasing Supplies and Paper online

One of the easiest ways to get started with e-commerce is to purchase supplies and paper online. There are now several substantial companies selling these products over the Internet. They include PrintNation.com, GraphicArtsSupplies.com and the behemoth, Xpedx.

Paper seems to be a “hot commodity” for e-commerce in our industry, with six of the nine companies listed in Table 2 focused on this segment of the marketplace (although Xpedx sells other products as well.) We’ll talk more about these companies in a later installment.

Of the other three companies, two are “click and mortar” companies (meaning they have both an online presence and a “traditional” distribution business.) Pitman and Graphic Arts Supplies have their own inventory and distribution, while PrintNation.com is an entirely online operation, with no distribution of their own (they use other companies, like Unisource, to do the heavy lifting.)

The entry of the “brick and mortar” companies, like Pitman and Xpedx, is a recent development in the e-commerce landscape and brings a lot of credibility to the concept. These companies have recognized the powerful capabilities the Internet provides, and are combining it with their vast inventory, distribution and financial capabilities to provide a truly comprehensive package.

One of the greatest benefits of ordering supplies and paper online is the ability of these systems to “remember” previous orders you have placed. Most people place similar orders with their distributors on a weekly or monthly basis. Even if you don’t have your own inventory system, these systems let you pull up your previous order, see how much you paid, make adjustments for the jobs you have planned, and “click”… you’ve placed the order without having to wade through a mountain of paperwork.

Existing Systems and Infrastructure

To really take advantage of these new applications, these services should be able to plug into our accounting and estimating systems and look at historical data from jobs that are complete. We’re going to want to upload our production data into these systems so we can use it to job cost and benchmark that data against prospective new jobs we’re going to bid on.

Beyond the accounting systems, we’ll need to have an interface to our workflow and scheduling systems that will allow us to integrate the production information we need. We need both content (i.e., production files) and context (the information about the jobs: accounting, personnel, scheduling, etc. which is sometimes referred to as “metadata”) in the systems to have them really benefit our manufacturing operations.

There are several industry initiatives that are focused on providing this interoperability. While they are all at least a few months away from providing any real benefits, it’s great to see companies cooperating to create standard interface methods that will make these new systems even more useful in the future. Some of these intiatives are CIP4 and JDF (www.cip4.org), PrintTalk (www.printtalk.com), printCafe’s PCX (www.printcafe.com), and PPML and PODI (www.podi.org). It would take me several paragraphs to explain what each of these are all about, so instead, I encourage you to check out their respective web sites if you are interested in this type of interoperability. If not, stay tuned because you are likely to hear much more about each of these in the coming year.

This is also where the Commerce One and Ariba systems can come into play. They can provide the interface between your printing-centric applications and the corporate e-procurement and accounting infrastructure.

Finally, don’t forget that these systems may require changes to your current IT infrastructure in order for you to take advantage of them. For example, do all your personnel have access to the corporate LAN and/or a robust Internet connection?

Summary

Just like a new piece of equipment you would buy for your shop, you need to do your homework and understand how these technologies will fit into your operation before you start spending money.

With the right solution and good implementation, the opportunity these new technologies and services present to the In-Plant printer mean better customer service and a more efficient operation. The result can only be happy customers and an even happier bottom line.