In the soup

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Greater automation is essential in allowing printers to cope with larger numbers of short run fast turnaround jobs, and the key to that automation lies in improving workflow processes. The modern workflow is made up of several disparate systems, including Web2Print, prepress, finishing, accounting and so on. The management information system, or MIS, has traditionally integrated with all of these systems in order to build up a picture of how they are performing. But with the advent of the Job Definition Format the MIS gained a new role in helping to automate the overall workflow.

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JDF does quite literally define a job, and all the different processes that each job needs, but it is the MIS that checks that each process has been completed and advances the job from one process to the next. It is theoretically possible to use JDF without having an MIS, but realistically you need an MIS to make a JDF workflow, both to push the work through the system and to understand how the system is working and make the most efficient use of all of the resources.

So, one would think that anyone making use of JDF would be using an MIS and that most people using an MIS would be using it as part of a JDF-enabled workflow. But strangely enough that doesn’t seem to be the case, with most MIS vendors reporting that only a fraction of their customers have a JDF-enabled workflow, or “single-figure percentages” according to Paul Deane, joint managing director of Shuttleworth.

Some vendors have said that the issue with JDF is that it needs fairly modern equipment and a lot of printers are still using older kit that predates JDF. This might be the case with finishing equipment, but most printers are running with reasonably up-to-date prepress workflows, and all of the prepress workflows and platesetters make extensive use of JDF. All modern presses have JDF-enabled controllers, and many older press controls have been updated from CIP3 to CIP4, or JDF.

It is worth remembering that JDF was first proposed in 2000, that there was an outline of the system by 2002 and the first products began shipping around 2004, in time for the ‘JDF drupa’ of that year. So any equipment bought in the last five years should at the very least be capable of accepting JDF information from an MIS, and providing JMF feedback.

Rather, the issue seems to be not so much about whether the hardware is JDF-enabled, but more one of whether or not the printer’s mindset is JDF-ready. Deane explains: “There are all sorts of issues around taking advantage of JDF and JMF and you need a far more structured and disciplined approach to how you estimate if you want to take advantage of JDF, because that estimating process forms a first critical part of the JDF workflow. So, it has to be done in a structured manner so that it can take advantage of all the benefits that JDF will deliver further down the line.”

He continues: “That can be a bit of a challenge if you tended to estimate on a fairly ad hoc basis prior to putting something like JDF in. It’s not just about the technology, it’s also about the processes that printers undertake themselves, and they have to realign some of their processes to take advantage of JDF and that can be the most challenging element of it.”

Some vendors believe that part of the solution lies in building more flexibility into the way that JDForganises individual jobs. But most also acknowledge that printers need to invest in better training for their staff. Steve Richards, sales manager for Optimus, explains: “You’ve got people in customer services who before just dealt with the status of information and where it needs to go, but in a JDF workflow they’ve got to know where that’s going to be produced within the factory, so they need a different skill set.”
Other vendors believe that a better approach is to build more flexibility into the way that the MIS handles JDF. Gerard Marneth, founder and CEO of Dims, says: “It is very important for our customers that there are less and less people touching jobs. If you look for instance at the JDF connectivity, it is now more automated. So if you change the job then the system automatically updates your prepress workflow systems. And if you change the job from the prepress workflow then that automatically updates your MIS. More and more integration means that less people touch the job and the delivery times are shorter. I expect that within a few years there will be no prepress people anymore that need to touch the job at all.”

Yet other vendors claim that automation isn’t really so important, at least as far as an MIS is concerned. Deane points out: “The benefits that an MIS delivers in traditional areas is still as relevant today as it’s always been in that if you want to speed up your estimating process, make it more consistent and improve the communication that you provide to your customers, then you need a back end system to do that. And if you then want an effective order processing stock management and costing system, then you will need some form of MIS.”

He goes on to say that the next stage is to add some level of integration, but for many MIS developers, that simply means using a direct machine interface, such as a camera counting sheets coming off a press. Deane says: “The majority of customers will be using some form of data collection so the majority of Shuttleworth users will be using our Shop Floor data collection system so they are operator driven, but people will be logging on and off their work and information is coming back real time into the MIS. The benefit of JMF is that it begins to take the operator out of that equation, but as far as the MIS is concerned it doesn’t matter if the information or the data comes via a data capture suite or via JMF or via a time sheet, although obviously that is out of date by the time you put it in.”

But does this mean that many printers are opting to install data collection systems rather than use the JDF that’s built into their kit? Ross Edwards, marketing manager for Tharstern, says that JDF appeals more to bigger printers: “We’re finding it very common that a lot of printers combine a JDF workflow with traditional shop floor data capture, so that the JDF devices are for prepress and press and the machine monitoring comes into play for the finishing equipment, which is a much more common and realistic approach.”

Many MIS developers are now concentrating their efforts on digital printing, where the one-size-fits-all approach of JDF works very well, and where there is a more obvious need for automation. As Deane points out: “You cannot make money out of digital if you process work in the traditional methods that litho printers have done in the past, so you have to take a fresh look at how you process the work, and that goes down to how you are creating the orders, what you are doing with your paper work, and how you are reducing the amount of hand building that goes into that process.”

He adds: “As printers do move to larger volume, lower value transactions then the pressure comes on the administrative support to improve that process so obviously things like Web2Print are extremely efficient ways of pulling work, or pulling orders into a business, but then you have to have the back-end systems that are able to process that work in an effective manner.”

More and more printers now have a web presence and are starting to implement Web2Print systems, and most of the MIS vendors are looking at ways to integrate or include this within their systems. Richards says: “I think that e-commerce Web2Print is going to drive MIS more and more. People want to automate things, but don’t know what their costs are, how they are going to track and trace things, or how they are going to send out a campaign to someone, so I think that it’s the catalyst.”

Another element worth considering is customer relationship management, or CRM, which can help a print business manage its customers with the minimum amount of fuss. In the past many MIS would have expected to integrate with a CRM system, but most now offer their own CRM module and consider it a core element of an MIS. A good CRM package can help a printer cut down the number of staff needed to deal with individual customers, and is an essential prerequisite in moving towards a more hands-off automated workflow.

Does automation matter?
Automation is clearly more important to some areas, such as short run digital, than it is to others. But nonetheless, some level of automation will help every sector in the print industry become more efficient, and given the current financial situation, that can only be a good thing.

All of the MIS vendors are keenly aware that it is not enough just to deliver business critical information, and in any case there are a number of budget systems that can do that quite well. But rather, most developers believe that future growth in the MIS sector depends on becoming the driving force in a fully automated workflow. This is partly because the overriding trend within the industry is towards a large number of short run, fast turnaround jobs, often with very little profit margin, and the onlyway to make these jobs viable is to automate the processes around them.

But the MIS vendors also know that their systems are expensive and that the only way that customers, particularly in small and medium sized companies, can continue to justify the cost is if they can replace skilled, and therefore expensive, members of staff. So, one way or another, we are going to see more integration between systems, and greater automation.

Clearly, JDF is the best way to achieve this, if only because so much equipment now incorporates it. But it is a serious cause for concern that after so much effort has been expended in developing and delivering JDF as a working concept, that so few printers have implemented it to any degree and let alone use it to build an end to end workflow from estimate to fulfillment. That is something that the CIP4 organisation will need to urgently address.

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