Conventional workflow systems are increasingly evolving into integration platforms for the integrated print shop, with JDF and the internet giving this trend momentum which print service providers will find hard to resist in the future.
A well-managed workflow is the backbone of any production operation, particularly in the graphic arts industry. Con-ventional prepress workflow solutions control work processes from data entry through to plate exposure. Today we are dealing with a PDF workflow for which dozens of solutions are available on the market, with the most widespread including Agfa’s ApogeeX, Heidelberg’s Prinect, Kodak’s Prinergy, Fujifilm’s XMF, and Screen’s Trueflow.
Things are now moving in this market thanks to Adobe’s PDF Print Engine, which following its announce-ment in spring 2006 is now finding its way into workflow solutions. Finally - 14 years after the introduction of the data format - truly native PDF workflows based on Adobe’s technology are possible.
Up to now, PDF data has been converted in Adobe’s rips for output in Postscript. As Post-script doesn’t sup-
port transparencies, these have to be flattened. This means that transparent elements are converted, depending on complexity, into vector or bitmap graphics. This can cause problems in trapping or colour management. As creatives have made extensive use of transparency effects ever since this has been supported by the layout tools Adobe InDesign and QuarkXpress, the Postscript bottleneck has become an increasing problem.
Now, thanks to the PDF Print Engine, colour management and trapping can be applied directly to transparent objects – correct processing in the rip is guaranteed.
The PDF engine also promises increased production reliability because it is based on the same technology as the tools in Adobe Creative Suite.
This means that Acrobat 8 Profes-sional renders a PDF using the same engine as the output rip, which upgrades the screen proof. However, Adobe still hasn’t delivered certain functions of a “common renderer” it promised when it announced the print engine. Softproof in Acrobat does not allow raster preview, which means that, for example, trapping cannot really be checked 1:1. In some cases, implementing the PDF Print Engine presented the manufacturers of workflow solutions with major challenges. For example, many had already implemented their own trapping solutions, which will now be rendered obsolete by the corresponding func-tionality of PDF Print Engine.
The most radical move in this respect has been made by Fujifilm. In response to PDF Print Engine, the Japanese supplier has launched a completely new workflow solution in the form of XMF (from Cross Media Workflow).
Media-neutral
The integration of PDF Print Engine in popular workflow systems will also help the new PDF/X standards gain greater acceptance. It can be assumed that a large proportion of the workflow systems on show at drupa 2008 will support PDF/X-4.
The concept of a media-neutral work-flow, as already allow-ed by the standard PDF/X-3, will also gain in popularity with the native PDF workflow systems. The images and graphics in the PDF file are in the RGB colour space and are only transformed into the CMYK colour space of the print setup in the rip. This means increas-ed flexibility with regard to dif-ferent print ma-terials. For example, an advertisement de-signed to appear in both a newspaper and a magazine no longer needs to be processed separately.
The fact that a large proportion of workflow sys-tems take their core functions from the same Adobe PDF Print Engine robs the suppliers of a large part of their ability to differentiate.
In the future, they will no longer place the focus on functions such as better trapping but will aim to differentiate their products by means of additional functions and above all by better integration of the full workflow process beyond the boundaries of prepress.
Backbone
In fact, former prepress workflow systems are increasingly evolving into the nerve centres of fully integrated print shops. Ursula Voss-Eiden, marketing manager with Kodak's Graphic Communication Group says, “A future-proof workflow solution is compatible with all industry standards for integrated and fully automated production operations - both internally and with regard to integrating external partners.
Behind the scenes, it is highly complex but easy to operate and offers a high degree of transparency. At the same time, it is modular in design and can be flexibly enhanced with additional components so that the workflow can cover different production and print processes and can be adapted to individual print shop requirements.” Jörg Bauer, head of Prinect product management with Heidelberg, places particular emphasis on cost transparency as well as integration. He says, “The serious systems are based on the industry standard JDF. Customers want openness, they don’t want island solutions. These systems are not just integrated in the sense of an existing interface but have the ability to exchange information in two directions, that is to perform preliminary costing and above all precise final costing. The data required for this only needs to be entered into the system once, it’s managed centrally and is available to authorised personnel at any time. Management and the entire production process can be represented in a single workflow system. In addition, these systems will offer increasingly extensive web-to-print, remote proofing and archiving solutions.”
All suppliers are agreed that this integration should be based on the JDF standard - the XML dialect of the graphic arts industry, so to speak.
Even at drupa 2004, JDF was one of the dominant themes, in fact many people referred to it simply as
the JDF drupa. However, things have become quieter recently.
Nevertheless, the leading Swiss prepress consultant Stephan Jaeggi is convinced that JDF will be right back at the top of the agenda at drupa 2008, he says, “At drupa 2004, there was a lot of talk about the possibilities of JDF, but now manufacturers must prove that they have implemented JDF in their workflows and that these solutions work in practice.”
According to Jaeggi, the importance of JDF cannot be overstated, he says, “For our industry, JDF represents the biggest transformation since the introduction of letterpress printing by Gutenberg. It’s the final step from craft to industry in printed matter production. And this will have far-reaching implications for all production steps and every single job.” Jaeggi is therefore convinced that the introduction of JDF-based workflows is a matter for top management. He says, “The huge potential for rationalisation is causing uncertainty and fear among those affected. There is a risk that the introduction of JDF projects will founder on their resistance.” It’s certainly true that the projects honoured with the CIPPO award by the CIP4 committee have enormous cost optimisation potential.
For instance, the Norwegian print shop PDC Tangem reports a return on investment of more than 1,800 per cent over a period of five years with the intro-duction of a seamless JDF workflow.
In other words, the investment will pay for itself 18 times over this period. In this project, six offset printing machines and three folding ma-chines were linked by JDF with the prepress workflow and the MIS system. Product-ivity rose by 25 per cent on the offset printing machines and by 15 per cent on the folding machines.
Driver
The internet is bringing additional momentum to workflows as a process optimisation platform for printed
matter production.
Vistaprint, the world’s largest online print shop, is showing what is possible today in industrialised print production. It handles well over 20,000 print jobs each day at two printing locations, in Canada and Holland.
Arriving at intervals of mere seconds, print jobs are processed in a computer centre in Bermuda and combined into aggregated jobs within minutes.
This means, for example, that one printing plate can accommodate either 142 business cards, 52 post-cards or 9 letterheads. Everything is highly automated, from im-position and printing to shipment and billing.
The price pressure coming from the online print shops and their print factories will also force smaller print operations to automate their workflows. In particular, integration of customers will gain in importance. Here, too, print webshops are showing the way.
well as auto-mating production pro-cesses, they are also automating the cus-tomer. The customer himself uploads his digital template into the workflow and completes a digital job ticket using a webbased form.
There is also a trend in conventional work-flow systems towards integrating the customer into the production process by means of Web browsers. For example, Agfa’s ApogeeX in conjunction with Delano allows cus-tomers to use a web browser to approve a product for printing or make corrections on the basis of soft proofs.
Soon, customers’ ERP systems will be able to communicate with the workflow system of the print service provider via XML/JDF. This will pave the way for e-procurement processes of the type already common in many sectors of industry. The industrialisation of the graphic arts craft is unstoppable.
The task now for print service providers is to set the right course and prepare their workflows to meet future challenges. Introducing an integrated JDF-based workflow is not as easy to accomplish as installing a new printing machine or updating from one version of Creative Suite to the next.
