GRACoL 5.0 to Include E-Commerce
Staff -- graphic arts online, 12/1/2000
The upcoming version of GRACoL (General Requirements for Applications in Commercial Offset Lithography) will include e-commerce as a topic as it is a phenomenon that is significantly affecting the way in which graphic arts service providers and their customers interact.
The basic role of graphic arts-focused dot-com entities is to provide software solutions so that they may integrate client systems into the production workflow and provide access to purchasing, scheduling, and asset management functionality.
60 and growing
GRACoL administrators estimate the number of firms competing for business in this arena to be in excess of 60 and increasing. Although less than 20% of print is currently purchased with systems that are partially Internet-integrated, this number is expected to triple within the next few years and reach 80% or more by 2005, say the experts.
These predictions do assume substantial increases in Internet-enabled print procurement solutions, with the establishment of underlying standards for wider integration. GRACoL 5.0 will summarize the significance of e-commerce for the graphic arts in general, and survey the market landscape to identify the key features of different solutions, categorizing the latter by the industry segment they serve.
Finally, GRACoL 5.0 will encapsulate the most important initiatives underway that are attempting to bring convention and standardization to the transmission and exchange of project specifications and graphic content over the Internet.
The benefits of solutions to print supply chain management via the Internet are compelling. Improvements in efficiency and cost, as well as increased speed to production and fewer errors in the workflow promise greater profitability in an industry accustomed to relatively low profit margins. For this to occur, the systems of all players in the process must be integrated through interoperable communication applications.
Need to standardize
Such integration implies the need for standardization, which has not yet happened. Says the GRACoL committee, herein lies one of the foremost issues related to e-commerce and its role in the graphic arts: such standardization needs to come from the printer side of the equation rather than from a variety of e-commerce companies.
To this end, the largest printers with the greatest resources have surveyed the playing field and see the opportunities. Banta Corporation, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Quad/Graphics, and Quebecor World announced in May 2000 a collaborative effort to develop supply-chain efficiencies for the entire industry through e-commerce transactions.
The Graphic Communications Association (GCA), publisher of GRACoL, has taken the leadership position on technical developments and standardization through its B2B Standards committee and Industry Architecture project, and has continued work with other industry organizations.
Also helping to further the standardization movement are Adobe, Agfa, Heidelberg, and MAN Roland, who jointly developed the Job Definition Format (JDF) job ticket standard, which is being supported by a consortium of companies involved in the e-print procurement process that have integrated JDF into existing systems.
Additionally, graphic arts e-commerce firm printCafe announced the development of printCafe PCX, a proprietary interface specification developed for customers to communicate with its plant-based management systems worldwide.
printCafe software solutions are used by over 7,000 printing facilities worldwide, and by 17 of the 20 largest commercial printers in North America.
Well-suited addition
"While GRACoL might seem an unlikely forum for a discussion of e-commerce, we feel that it is actually quite well suited," says Kevin Donley, vice president of Southfield, Mich.-based Grand River Printing & Imaging, and chairman of the GRACoL subcommittee on e-commerce.
Donley adds, "When you look at the audience-print buyers, art directors, designers, project managers, illustrators, photographers, prepress providers, and printers-and consider the fact that the Internet enables all of us to interact together in real time regardless of where we are in the process, you can see the need to extend the framework of GRACoL to include this subject."
