“Growth is very often associated with the practice of sharing knowledge and exchanging impactful experiences, both in our industry and as a whole,” said Ed Jansen, Vice President, Professional Services, Production Print Solutions, Canon Solutions America. “We firmly believe that with our newest industry resource, everyone who embraces its wealth of knowledge can be more prosperous as the industry continues its growth and evolution.” An efficient workflow, as most successful printers know, is at the heart of not only creating, but sustaining success. Workflow efficiency is determined by all the processes that allow print service providers to get from a concept to a final printed product with a minimum of manual steps and ‘touchpoints’ – and make sure everything along the way is optimized including document submission, prepress automation, production management, file conversion, data cleansing and optimization, mail-stream management and more. With the new publication, users will be able to leverage their strengths, identify process gaps, and more importantly create plans to fill those gaps – resulting in more efficient operations, especially when contemplating the integration of a new production inkjet press. By learning to take as many steps out of the overall process and eliminating as many human touches as possible, print service providers can reduce costs, improve margins, and shorten overall production time to become more cost efficient.
“With the development of this new resource, Canon Solutions America has not only shown why a heightened understanding of digital workflow is paramount in today’s industry, but the information it provides will give readers an unprecedented look into the emergence of workflow and its vast transformation over the last five years,” said David Zwang, Consultant, and Technical Editor for WhatTheyThink.com. “This resource is a guide for the present, but also a look into the future of workflow and how we can prepare for its inevitable evolution.” Some of the workflow steps highlighted in the resource include:
- Data input – the ability to effectively mine and analyze data that will be used as input to the document creation process.
- Document creation – design process considerations based on the intended audience, document objectives, and output channel to be used.
- Document submission – printers can receive print files in a wide variety of ways – from mainframes to FTP sites to email, CD, USB drives, and web portals, to name a few. Open solutions to support as many methods as possible lead to a much more efficient workflow.
- Document preparation – since all documents are not created equal, with the same standards, or with an output device in mind, this prepress step optimizes files for best performance and quality and ensures the document is actually ready for printing. It includes functions such as pre-flighting, proofing, approvals, file integrity checks, colour correction, imposition, and colour binding.
- Data optimization – some type of data cleansing is required for most every data entry to ensure accuracy, minimize costs, reduce postage charges, and support variable or personalized messaging needs.
- Output management – this step can be relatively straightforward or more complicated depending on how many print devices and technologies there are to manage. In larger shops, it can involve driving all production devices from a single point of control for load balancing, error recovery, reprints, printer adjustments, job scheduling, and colour management across printer platforms and multiple print locations.