Montreal-based Ultimate TechnoGraphics and PrintPlanet.com have released a new whitepaper about bindery automation, written by veteran print industry analyst and leading author Richard Romano. Automation has become a critical component of the print production workflow. In order for printing companies to compete effectively in today’s challenging market, productivity and efficiency have become essential.
However, said Ultimate, workflow automation has been generally synonymous with prepress and printing automation – with binding and finishing often overlooked. The new Ultimate TechnoGraphics-sponsored Whitepaper – Look But Don’t Touch! Automating the Print Production Workflow from Prepress to Finishing – examines how this last piece of the production puzzle should not be left out of the workflow automation conversation.
As the whitepaper identifies, the drive for automation has traditionally been met with some degree of resistance. Even today, print business owners and operators raise valid questions about the cost of automation, the amount of shop disruption that might be involved, if high-tech skills are required to implement it, if it can work with their often assorted collection of multi-vendor equipment, and, ultimately, if there really are significant benefits to automating the finishing process.
The whitepaper offers a brief history of automation and a close look at the Job Description Format (JDF) – the underlying technology that allows complete end-to-end automation. The bulk of the whitepaper takes the form of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s), while stressing that complete automation, especially bindery automation, is within the reach of virtually any shop – regardless of size, equipment, technological proficiency or job variation.
- Why automate finishing?
- Manually setting up a job on the finishing line only takes a few minutes. Will automation really help all that much?
- I have too many different jobs. How would I even start to automate anything?
- I have finishing equipment of all different makes and models. How could I possibly automate it all?
- JDF is too complex, and I don’t have programmers. Does that mean automation is not something I can avail myself of?
- My equipment is not JDF-enabled. Does that mean that I can’t automate it?
The new whitepaper answers these questions and more, and identifies software solutions. Examples include Ultimate TechnoGraphics’ Ultimate Bindery software – that can take the manual labour out of prepping jobs for finishing, allowing finishing to be set up and preflighted at the prepress stage. This ensures that all job specs are compatible with the available finishing equipment, thus saving shops time, labour, materials and money.
According to PrintPlanet CEO Paul White: “A job can’t be shipped until it’s finished, so automating the entire process from ordering to finishing makes perfect sense. And, while streamlining their manufacturing process, savvy printers gain a significant profitability edge. Increasing the bottom line is a very important topic for PrintPlanet members, and we thank Ultimate TechnoGraphics for sharing this exclusive report.”
The whitepaper is available for download at www.theprintplanet.com/.