Web-to-Print Becomes a Product Category: It’s Business, not e-Business

Originally appeared in On Demand Journal

By Chuck Gehman

People are using the Internet to make travel arrangements and buy tickets. Amazon.com is profitable, and consumers buy goods over the Internet every day. Consumers are actually shopping for cars over the web (a couple of years ago, this seemed ridiculous, didn’t it?) We use the Internet for banking, too… these days, I am almost upset when I go online with my bank and notice that someone hasn’t cashed a check I wrote them a couple of weeks ago (in the few cases where I actually write the check by hand).

Access to up-to-the-minute information is key: we use the Internet to look up the weather forecast before traveling, for both home and destination cities. Google and other Internet search engines have become the first choice for high school and college student research when they write papers. Ubiquitous Internet access is truly here. According to a recent Nielsen NetRatings report, about 80 percent of Americans ages 35-54 have Internet access compared with 77 percent of children and 63 percent of seniors. An estimated 204 million people now have Internet access in the US—quite an impressive number.

What’s even more astonishing, is how quickly the Internet has become an essential work tool. From online research to web marketing and web collaboration, wired employees and employers are online and expect the companies they deal with to be online as well.

The printing industry is not exempt from this trend. What we’re seeing in the printing industry today is strong demand from customers for Internet applications, from job submission to fulfillment applications. Printing companies that wouldn’t have considered implementing Internet applications two or three years ago are finally ready to make the plunge. Let’s face it: as recently as four years ago, many commercial printers considered the Fax machine to be the embodiment of high tech communications.

According to CAPV’s March 2003 study entitled, “The U.S. e-Print Infrastructure Market”, more than half of the print providers surveyed said they offered Web-enabled services to their customers. Isn’t it time for the other 50% of printers to take the plunge and get wired for business??

As we rapidly approach the “JDF Drupa.” we are beginning to see systems that link customers on the Internet to production and business systems at the printing company. Both printers and their customers alike have begun to realize just how powerful the Internet can be as a customer acquisition and retention tool. Most of the discussions of JDF have been about programming presses (ala CIP3 PPF and ink key presets), but we’re entering a new era of JDF where the “customer’s intent” will be brought into the equation.

We are starting to see companies that were early adopters of Internet technologies now providing real functionality to their customers (not just “brochure-ware”), such as job submission, simple specifications, online catalogs, and job status information, and they need ways to increase their traction and business with customers via the web. These companies are ready to take it to the next level by adding even more functionality to their web presence.

In the past, printers couldn’t compare one web-enabled system to another. This is changing very rapidly, and at Drupa, you’ll see many examples of functional Internet-based products from many companies. Web applications for print have finally matured enough to become a product category. It’s no longer about e-commerce, it’s finally about what it should have been all along: doing business with customers in the most efficient way possible.

No One’s Buying JDF!

Originally appeared in On Demand Journal

By Chuck Gehman

March 1, 2004

One might say that JDF (Job Definition Format), the CIP4 organization’s industry-wide XML standard for interoperability has been, a solution looking for a problem. The burgeoning standard, in development for a few years now, set as its ambitious goal the complete description of prepress, press and postpress processes in an XML (Extensible Markup Language) specification that now is reaching for 800 pages.

This lofty goal of “everything (i.e., software and machines) talking to everything else (i.e., presses and finishing equipment)” still hasn’t quite been reached, but today, thanks to the work of almost 200 companies cooperating in CIP4 (www.cip4.org), and the work of many hundreds of individuals from the member companies, JDF products are emerging that actually work and provide real value to printers seeking to increase their productivity and competitive advantage.

At the recent On Demand Conference and Expo, JDF in the real world was demonstrated in a CIP4 and Advanstar (the promoters of the show) hosted “JDF Tour.” Interoperability between several software and workflow vendors’ applications was shown in an educational venue that was assisted by several RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) students.

EFI, HP, Objective Advantage (a software development and consulting firm focused on JDF) and Wave Corporation (makers of the popular MediaBank Digital Asset Management system), as well as several other companies, demonstrated the ability for JDF files to be created on one system and acted upon by another.

The tour created a mock workflow for a fictitious company called “Kimono Bank”. Kimono’s three branches in New York, San Francisco and Miami all work with different advertising agencies and print service providers, who each employ their own workflow.

In this demonstration, JDF provided the glue that allowed Kimono to work with these different companies, but still leverage their print assets across the corporation. For example, a job submitted by a user at the San Francisco Kimono branch using EFI’s exchange could be output at a print service provider on a CTP device driven by EFI’s own OneFlow, or on an HP Indigo press at another print service provider. Once the job is completed, it can be stored in a web catalog application for future re-ordering by the Kimono staffers in Miami, or archived at the company’s New York ad agencies in their MediaBank Digital Asset Management system.

Thanks to the JDF standard, all of this was accomplished without re-keying the job information, and without having to “import” or require the user to manually “translate” the metadata (the information about the job).

This is a simple demonstration that clearly drives home the power of JDF, and repeats of JDF tours like this are essential to help potential users fully understand its benefits. The conversations to date about JDF have been about “nuts and bolts. Now we are beginning to show real applications that drive home the importance of adopting this critically important standard.

That’s the key: JDF isn’t about XML and software—it’s about addressing many of the challenges that the industry faces. As we approach Drupa, we’re going to see a lot more applications emerging that employ JDF in really useful ways that help users, in both print buying companies and at printing companies, expand their capabilities to become more efficient and profitable by producing more work in less time with the same or less labor.

The bottom line: no one’s buying JDF for its own sake! What we are buying with JDF-enabled applications is solutions to problems that can’t be solved any other way.

e-Commerce and Job Submission: Content Meets Commerce

Originally appeared in GATF Technology Forecast 2004

By Chuck Gehman

We’ve reached the point in the printing industry where we should no longer talk about “e-Commerce” as a standalone subject. Entering 2004, an integrated business and production workflow that incorporates content and commerce has become an essential part of business for printing companies of all sizes.

We shouldn’t focus on ways to combat reverse auctions, or sites that provide buyers with the ability to send print RFQs to multiple sites for quotes. Instead, by offering compelling, functional and integrated online services to customers, their perception of the Printer changes from a commodity supplier producing goods that can be anonymously procured to a value-added service provider. The discussion is more about the next generation of workflow—where the customer’s workflow is “connected” to our own via Internet applications.

The Landscape Today

In their recent study, entitled “The New Corporate Print Customer: A Profile of a Market in Transition”, July 2003, CAP Ventures (www.capv.com) confirms the premise that very few corporate customers are using their own print e-procurement systems today. According to CAPV, only 14% of those surveyed said that they employed a system for either print or paper procurement. They were also asked whether their print providers offered such a solution, and over 59% of document owners and 48% of print buyers said they did not know.

According to CAPV, in their March 2003 study entitled, “The U.S. e-Print Infrastructure Market”, more than half of the print providers surveyed said they offered Web-enabled services to their customers. This disparity in results between the two surveys can only mean that either Printer’s sales forces are not effectively promoting their online solutions, or the functionality of those solutions are not meeting the needs of their corporate customers.

In the July report, CAPV goes on to say that they “believe that integration of Web infrastructure with production systems and back-office business systems is critical for print providers to realize the full benefits of the technology. Until this integration occurs, Web solutions will primarily have value as customer acquisition and customer retention tools, and will remain a cost of doing business.“

Fortunately, as we enter 2004, the “year of JDF” (Job Definition Format, www.cip4.org, an industry standards initiative that promises to make such integration possible), web-based solutions that provide such capabilities are emerging and are, in fact, in use by some printers today. Market segments in the industry that are benefiting by offering such integrated online workflow applications to their customers include the small quick print shop, digital on-demand facilities, corporate InPlants, sheetfed and web offset commercial printers, packaging printers and specialized corporate identity printers.

Drivers for Adoption of Online Technologies

Printers and their customers are discovering that there are numerous benefits to be found in working together online. For both, the primary drivers are increased employee productivity and cost savings. Printers specifically can benefit from restored profitability due to the increased efficiency and the ability to offer value-added services. There are numerous ancillary benefits for printers, including better customer service and customer lock-in.

Drivers for printing companies to offer these services include:

• Need to improve sales and customer service productivity (keep sales people selling new jobs, not chasing status on work in progress or delivering proofs)
• Need to minimize manual order entries, decreasing chance for error; integration between internal business systems (like accounting, estimating, production systems, etc.) and the web site provides this benefit
• Desire to link incoming jobs with estimates, costing and production workflow (again, integration provides this link)
• Need to automate job progress through departments, and control change orders and track digital job files
• Increase internal and external communication and improve customer service (if the system used by production personnel and CSRs in the plant has status information, you should be able to share a subset of that information with customers and sales people via the web)
• Need to offer value-added services (mailing, fulfillment, on-demand, etc.)

While a relatively large number of printers have web sites today (by some estimates, more than 85% of printing companies), very few have sites that are actually “functional” and provide real services to customers (as witnessed by the CAPV survey results). Most today are still “brochure-ware” sites that briefly introduce the company and its technical capabilities. Many printers have “request a quote” button on their sites, but they typically provide a single form (often either too complicated or conversely, too limited) that sends an email to a sales person or the owner with some basic information—there’s no direct connection to estimating or to workflow, so the information must be manually interpreted and re-keyed into another system.

Printers who have adopted functional web sites today have, in many cases, done so in response to pressure from competitors offering such services, or upon the request of an important customer. This tracks closely with the way Printers have traditionally adopted most new technologies, and isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it explains why, despite much of the hoopla (both positive and negative) of the last few years, these applications are now beginning to achieve widespread acceptance—most customers weren’t asking for them before. Today, print buyer customers want their Printers to deliver such services because:

• Most print buyers are not experts in printing processes and technologies (in fact, successful print procurement managers tend to move quickly up the ladder into what are perceived as more “important” corporate commodities like raw materials used for manufacturing)
• Want to move most print buying from a corporate procurement function out to the document “owner” (i.e., the creator or user of the printed product), while still maintaining control over print spending
• Desire 24/7 customer service, and want to delegate the lion’s share of this support to the Printer rather than directly supporting end-users
• Need higher value interaction with suppliers (i.e., don’t want to call for status information, preferring to spend time working on new jobs and other ways to improve their own service to their internal customers)
• Want self-service status, billing and shipping tools

Anatomy of a Fully Integrated, Web-to-Print Operation

What are the things that a printing company web site needs to do to provide real value to the print-buying customer and to internal operational needs? How does this translate into better customer service and increased efficiency in the print manufacturing operation? Figure 1 outlines the range of functionality that a robust, full-featured printer-delivered web site, integrated with business and production systems, should provide.

The ability to specify a new job, and to submit simple specifications of the job for estimating is the first step in the process. Only a limited number of print buyers will want to provide complete, technical specifications for jobs that they want quoted, but that ability should be provided. For everyone else, a “quick ticket” should be provided so that the minimal required amount of information about the proposed job can be submitted.

In an ideal world, once the job has been submitted for quote, it will flow directly into the estimating system so a print professional can “fill in the blanks”, and deliver the fleshed-out spec back to the customer in an interactive process.

Once the customer has decided to move forward with the job as quoted, a robust web offering includes the ability for customers to deliver files via a simple transfer method. These files should be associated (in business and workflow systems) with the quote that has been previously provided to the customer.

Figure 1: Anatomy of a Fully Integrated, Web-to-Print Operation

Source: EFI, Inc.

As we all know, it’s a rare job that is actually complete when the digital files are first sent to the printer. There are bound to be changes, and a web-integrated content management system allows those changed elements (i.e., images, graphics, pages, text) to be delivered from the customer to the printer easily and with version tracking. It’s also important to track changes that impact work in progress at the printing plant (in prepress, for example), so they can be associated with change orders and an approval workflow and later be billed back to the customer (preventing miscommunication and billing disputes).

Once the job moves into prepress at the printing company, customers should be able to view page proofs of jobs (i.e., softproofing and/or to download files for color-managed output on a local proofing device), and to approve or decline them.

For many print applications, variable print is becoming an important component. So an integrated web solution should offer the ability for customers to both create “versioned” documents (i.e., typesetting their own business cards), as well as to “customize” template-driven variable documents by applying pre-programmed business rules that provide the ability to programmatically change out text, images and database-supplied content (i.e., one-to-one marketing applications).

Integration with mailing list providers and corporate databases are becoming another essential touch point for Printers offering web site solutions. For example, an insurance company may want their agents to order customized brochures (with their own office address and the agent’s name, as an example), and then choose from a list of customers and prospects to which they can mail the brochure. The Printer will receive orders from agents around the country via the web site. Workflow automation features turn the orders into optimized print jobs (where multiple orders are ganged on the same press run) incorporating the agent’s customized data as well as the customer-specific data from the mailing list provider’s database.

Many jobs today will incorporate elements that are printed offset, some items that are pulled from finished goods inventory and others that are printed on-demand. The web site needs to allow an order to be built that supports all of these type of job elements, and allow multiple ship-to destinations, as well as pre-built and build-on-the-fly kitting for fulfillment applications.

Workflow integration can be as simple as digital files landing on a file server at the printing company, or as complex as automatic settings-correct PDF generation, automatic soft- and color-managed hardcopy- proofing, whether at the Print manufacturing site or at the end-user site.

For some customers, Printers may desire to provide workflow integration that goes as far as actual output (for example, on digital variable jobs: customer places the order, digital files are chosen, and the job automatically enters a particular “workflow” pipeline, where they are processed and automatically output on a digital press. This type of automation can be particularly suitable for InPlant work, but is beginning to see adoption in commercial print, too.

While most Printers don’t want their customers to see all the “ups-and-downs” their jobs go through as they move through the production process, they do want customers to be able to login and see the status of their jobs at the level of detail the printer wishes to communicate. Since this job status may well be tracked today inside an existing print management system, we need the ability to populate status fields out to the web site.

Any robust, integrated web application should also provide email notifications to both the Printer and the customer upon major events (i.e., order received, order in process, proof sent, proof approved, change order, order shipped, reorder, inventory low condition, etc.)

At completion, the job is shipped, and it is a necessity for the customer to be able to view status on the web that this has happened, when, by what carrier and when they can expect it to arrive at its destination.

Accepting credit cards for smaller jobs, and processing corporate payments electronically or interfacing to corporate procurement or ERP systems (like SAP,) are becoming necessities for Printers, too. An invoice should be presented to the corporate customer in the way they desire, and the web experience should support that. The more accurate the invoice, the more timely the manner in which it is presented, results in the higher the likelihood of its getting paid more quickly.

Finally, respecting and supporting the sales relationship is a delicate issue with online systems. A system should be complimentary to the personal relationships between buyers and their reps at the printing company—not work at odds with them. For larger jobs, the ability for the sales person to view the invoice, add markups and/or make corrections in an interactive workflow with plant personnel is a huge value-add.

Summary

Restoration of shrinking margins, the ability to handle more complex work (and shorter runs), while controlling costs and at the same time capturing additional market share via value-added services are all key goals for successful printers in 2004.

By offering a workflow- and business- integrated, functional web site that provides better service while streamlining both your customer’s business processes and your own internal operations is a key way to achieve these goals. All of these things are possible today, and are key ingredients for the successful Printer in the future.

Offset and Digital Convergence: It’s About The Workflow

By Chuck Gehman

Originally Appeared in OnDemand Journal

November 2003

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CIM COMES TO FLEXO

Originally appeared in Flexo Magazine, November 2003

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

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

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

COMPUTER INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES PROMOTE SAVINGS FOR FLEXO PRINTING APPLICATIONS

By Chuck Gehman

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

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

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

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

The CIM Approach

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

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

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

CIM Tools Available Today

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

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

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

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

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

Applying CIM to Flexo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Benefits of CIM

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

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

What Does It Mean?

The following are commonly-used CIM terms:

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

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

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

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

Digital Smart Factory 2003: Moving from Vision to Reality

By Chuck Gehman
Originally appeared in High Volume Printing magazine

July 20, 2003

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Sidebar:

Upcoming Digital Smart Factory Events

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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