Work It, Baby

There is no denying that the print and graphics industry is in the middle of a major evolution. Centuries of the traditional printing press being the primary technology of the market has been upended in just a few decades as digital burst onto the scene. The evolution of “putting ink on paper” has hit a critical point where the legacy systems that once supported the industry just fine are suddenly no longer up to the task.

Under the umbrella term “workflow” is everything from the way the customers submit the files to the shop, to how those files are processed for printing, to how the presses receive and parse the data into physical items, to how those printed pieces move into and around the finishing department, to how they are entered into the mail stream. And within each of those steps are hundreds — if not more — variations.

In the past, each department had their own software solutions, their own way of working and moving jobs. But competition and consolidation have made it increasingly important for printers to be as efficient as possible, which means having one, seamless workflow that can move from one end of the shop to the other. But getting there isn’t as easy as just plugging in a piece of software and walking away.

“It begins by knowing their current document workflow — creation, reproductions, distribution and archive process, and where they want to go,” said Jane Frances Nerf, Senior Marketing Specialist, Workflow at Canon Solutions America, Production Print Solutions. “Are they using an outside design service? Are they looking to be more profitable? Do they want service offerings that free up time for revenue generating activities? Are they trying to help save corporate money, increase efficiency by reducing touch points or automate routine tasks? Identifying the current document process and the explicit needs of the customer allow the printer to then begin looking at their service offerings, how they can differentiate their service from the competition.”

“I think it is very important for a printer to look at their pain points,” agreed Kevin Horey, VP and General Manager, Workflow and Finishing Solutions, Xerox. “Where does their process break down or slow down? It is important for a printer – whether they are large, medium, or small – to understand their pain points and what is out there to solve those pain points for them. Does a job get held in a certain department for too long? Is there automation in silos, but not across the entire value chain they have? A job might zoom through prepress and the bindery, then sit for days waiting for delivery; the efficiency of the organization becomes your gauge. If the shop is poorly performing, then it’s a recipe for going out of business.”

“Seamless workflow throughout their organizations is by far and large the biggest challenge we see,” said Scott Scheidenhelm, senior manager, product marketing, Ricoh USA Inc. “Often times the shops themselves are the biggest hurdles to overcome this challenge. There needs to be a willingness to allocate resources, stay focused, be introspective, and be honest with themselves to ultimately be successful. If these aren’t addressed, the success of a project/implementation will likely be compromised.”

What to Look For

But while it’s all well and good to say better, more automated workflows are needed, getting there is a much harder road. As Horey noted, no two printers are alike, and there is no one, generic answer that will solve every shop’s problems.

“The most important factor to look at in a workflow software strategy is a solution that will encompass and support your entire workflow. This includes how and when you perform any document reengineering,” noted David Day, EDP, Product Marketing Manager for Crawford Technologies.

One way to do that is to move from a model where all the software is purchased and managed in house, and going to a cloud, or software as a service (SaaS) model. “There is a significant trend to cloud and SaaS based deployment models for software,” noted Jan De Roeck, Director Solutions Management, Esko. “Many printers are no longer deploying systems in their own facilities, but access applications from within the comfort of their browser while an external partner provides the infrastructure. The benefits are that the print provider is no longer liable for the uptime (or upkeep) of the software. There no longer is a need for an extensive IT presence—at least as it is related to maintaining and hosting the infrastructure. It also offers flexibility: if a printer is confronted with a peak in production, there is an easy way to add licenses for increased service. From a business perspective, these systems can be offered from a range of payment options, such as a 'pay per click' or monthly service charge.”

“One of the most interesting and controversial developments for the future of print is the role of cloud for influencing mobile business,” said Steve Miller, Product Manager, Unified Workflow, Kodak. “Some highly vocal customers have contributed to the debate on both sides, but we see a significant need for evaluating its potential in greater detail. Moving forward, we will definitely be taking a strong look at cloud-based solutions, especially as it relates to prepress portals and providing customers with unrivaled job control and insight. In terms of the mobile capabilities cloud enables, remote job management opens up an entire ecosystem that we need to take a fresh look at. In some cases, vendors will be developing that infrastructure. But with considerable hesitation among printers, for a multitude of reasons ranging from security to availability, there will need to be a more established ecosystem of partners working in conjunction to bring a highly valuable solution to market. This might happen sooner than you may think, as other industries are already rapidly committing to cloud for a variety of their applications.”

The concept of workflow has also moved beyond just how to move a job through the shop faster, noted Graham Blanks, the Dalim Software Director of Business Operations. “What is evolving now is how you find other opportunities for workflow automation and efficiencies, looking outside the traditional print service provider prepress environment. How do you improve supplier and customer collaboration and communication, and how do you get customers to take on more responsibility and do some of the work that printers typically do, to increase efficiencies? People are also looking at additional services like asset management and e-Publication production and a closer collaborative environment for achieving near lights-out operations from the customer's creation of content to print.”

Workflow solutions also need to take into account the customer side of things. It needs to be able to pull information from consumers when and how they want to submit them, and give them access to details as the job moves through the system. “Another trend, also very important, is going mobile,” noted Katarzyna Michałowska, PR & Marketing Specialist for Printbox. “Every company should offer products both on PCs and on mobile devices. And this requires using the most recent technologies, like HTML5 and dedicated mobile apps. Having the right tools is essential. Today’s businesses can no longer afford to omit this channel of sales. Its full impact on the software for creating personalized photo products remains to be seen.”

Especially with the proliferation of digital technologies, from the file formats to the presses themselves, the ability to seamlessly integrate everything into one coordinated process is more important than ever. Even if parts of the shop are automated, if those segments don’t talk to each other, then the shop isn’t going to reap the full benefits of the investments they’ve already made, much less any new investments. There can no longer be silos or pockets of information — and it doesn’t matter what vendors the shop favors. Printers and presses, finishing equipment, prepress software and mail processing machines all need to be able to have a running conversation with one another, passing data and details from one location to the next without any need for an operator to step in and re-key anything. That is the path to true efficiency, which in turn is the path to being profitable in the print industry of the future.

It's been said before, and will likely be said again: print is no longer a craft-based industry. It has been moving toward being a manufacturing process for several years now, and that evolution is only going to speed up. While a new press is sexy, a new finisher adds capability or a new Website brings in new customers, none of them can effectively build the shop’s bottom line unless they have a good backbone, which is the workflow that runs through everything. It can no longer be an afterthought or relegated to whatever free options a vendor might offer as incentive to purchase their hardware. Shops need to evaluate their operations and put into place a comprehensive workflow solution that will set them up for success today and in the years to come.

The Elements of Good Workflow

While no two print service providers will have the exact same pain points, or need the exact same solutions, Simon Lewis, PrintOS Business Director, Graphics Solutions Business for HP pointed out that there are a few general features that every shop should keep in mind when looking for an end-to-end workflow solution.

• Openness – can it be easily integrated with other software, using standard tools and minimizing/eliminating the need for software engineers? Stay away from islands!
• Scalability – will it allow me to grow as fast and as big as I want, or does it have limits that will force me to “move on”? Stay away from constraints!
• Capabilities – will the software allow me to do different things that I don’t currently do/foresee? Or is it a narrow, point solution? Understand whether it is a tool or a toolbox.
• Multi-channel – does the workflow software recognize that print is just one channel in a multi-channel world? Does it help you with the other channels? Does it help you make print “smart”? This is important to drive value over time.
• Price – what is the pricing model, and if it’s volume-based, do prices go down as volumes grow? Make sure that cost of ownership will make sense tomorrow as well, not just today.
• Architecture/technology – is the software “modern” or is it basically an old legacy product? Be careful that you’re not betting on yesterday’s technology. It impacts all kinds of capabilities.