Make Print Easier, Reduce Errors and Decrease Costs with Ricoh TotalFlow Path

Printers today are looking to decrease technology’s total cost of ownership while enabling information to flow swiftly and easily, allowing them to get more done – often meaning increased revenues and business opportunities.  Automation systems can be expensive, but without proper workflow, searching, tracking and sharing information becomes a problem. Print jobs can become disorganized and riddled with errors, costing time and money. How do you set up an effective workflow system to enable communications to run smoothly, while still keeping costs low?

Ricoh's (Booth 1931) TotalFlow Path may be the answer.  At an affordable price, users receive a solution that can integrate with current infrastructures and make printing easier and more efficient, while staying within budget. TotalFlow Path can be used to merge every stage of the print process, including typical business applications such as web-to-print, pre-press, print management and more, so you can reduce manual steps.

TotalFlow Path helps printers automate as much of the workflow process as possible to streamline information that can help improve communications, reduce errors and decrease costs. The easy to use configuration wizard allows you to modify change the way your information moves, minimizing the number of tasks it takes to complete a job effectively. Every job ticket includes information that automatically aligns with device capabilities, letting a printer customize rules for every job, or simply emulating previous successful jobs. Users can also implement fixed rules that apply conditional logic, adapting to each task to ensure the best-informed print decision is made.

An intuitive web-based user interface allows you to monitor and control your print operations to ensure efficiency from anywhere. The portal helps users track every job, toggle between jobs, make quick changes to workflow, check specific job details and set security controls to expedite print jobs and reduce operating costs. This means as an organization’s needs change, TotalFlow Path can change with it.   Because of TotalFlow Path’s open architecture, printers can accommodate many non-Ricoh software applications or even develop custom integrations to meet emerging print demands.

Some top TotalFlow Path built-in extensions enable various capabilities, including:

• Hot folder input – Monitors folders for the arrival of new jobs, increasing flexibility. The folders can be local on the server or shared folders on a different system. A job can be set as a PDF file where the user defined ticket is applied, or as a JDF file can be the job ticket and a PDF file the job resource.
• JDF input/JDF output – Receive jobs from and submit jobs to JDF-enabled applications and devices.
• Order submission tool – Allows the user to ticket and submit jobs directly to TotalFlow Path, implementing new levels of efficiency and control.
• RICOH TotalFlow Prep – Improves execution of TotalFlow Path’s automatic pre-press tasks, getting your jobs ready to go sooner.
• RICOH TotalFlow Print Manager/TotalFlow Production Manager – Allows jobs submittal to a TotalFlow Print Manager or TotalFlow Production Manager server, fast-tracking documents into the workflow. Captures relevant indexing information automatically.
• Approval – Approve jobs either manually or by email.
• Hot folder application – Integrate with external applications through hot folders. Job files placed to a specified folder and waits for the return file in a specified folder, making sure your documents are always where they need to be.
• Manual tasks – Custom tasks can be handled by an operator.
• Offline devices – Handles offline devices and records the results, which can be monitored for efficiency and adjusted accordingly.
• File output – Place jobs in a user-defined output folder, allowing customizability and special-case adjustments.

In addition, TotalFlow Path can integrate with partnered solutions through optional extensions. These include: PTI MarcomCentral, PTI FusionPro Producer, Objectif Lune PlanetPress, RSA WebCRD, EFI Fiery, Enfocus PitStop Server, Avanti Slingshot, Ultimate Impostrip OnDemand Automation.