It's the Workflow, Stupid.” With apologies to the November U.S. electioneers, that may become the rallying cry for this year's big North American printing show. The unique business climate for the run-up to Graph Expo 2008 will increase the show's value as a technical forum and an opportunity for research and development by printers. Optimizing production processes through software and best practices will be critical factors.

Single-page snapshots (beginning on p. 36) of trends in platesetting, digital printing and offset presses on display in Chicago find the hardware is almost impossible to disengage from the greater imperative of networking operations together. As the show opens its four-day run Oct. 26, machinery manufacturers are expected, in most cases, to be exhibiting equipment.Most are. But, in some respects, the metal on the floor is secondary to evaluating the process. A key take away from this show will be process management—optimizing workflow, materials handling, manufacturing, business and sales and customer interface processes.

Workflow, once an alternate term for prepress, now encompasses the entire scope of managing the print manufacturing process, starting at any point in the supply chain and heading both upstream and downstream.

On the broadest level, machinery is more intelligent, and designed to link to systems and to other machines. One example is Komori's AI capabilities on its sheetfeds and webs. These presses learn as they go, recognizing repetitive patterns in start-up and anticipating likely makeready scenarios.

These days, capital equipment manufacturers are as likely to sit down with you and analyze your business practices as to spec out a printing press. Much more important than seeing this show will be being at this show—and stepping outside the traditional dialogs of pressroom, prepress and finishing.

“Contemporary printers realize that a workflow is not departmentalized,” says Ray Cassino, prepress product manager at Heidelberg, “but is a concept that starts from the moment a job is accepted to the moment it is delivered and invoiced . . . and everything in between.”

If all this smacks of JDF, that's no surprise. The JDF initiative directed by the CIP4.org group is one technology that enables all this to happen. As confusing as the messages about JDF have been since its invention, this year a concerted effort by a number of manufacturers, CIP4 and the Graphic Arts Show Co., finds “JDF Works Print Shop Live!” on the show floor (Booth 3646 if you are reading this there), running real jobs. Adobe, FoldRite, Avanti, Kodak and Duplo have teamed to output versions of the “Must See 'Ems Guide.” (The guide itself and the technologies in it are must sees, by the way.)

The details just became available: A Digital Printing Guide will be created in Adobe's InDesign Server via a web browser interface with a FoldRite folding template and the source PDF. JDF job intent, folding parameters and business ordering information will then pass through to Avanti Print MIS, where the job is captured and organized, and JDF and JMF (Job Messaging Format) files are created and passed to Kodak's Prinergy prepress workflow and Duplo's DC-645 Slitter/Cutter/Creaser. Kodak Prinergy will prepare the job through multiple prepress operations and send the job to a Kodak NexPress M700 Digital Press. Printed sheets will then be transferred to the Duplo DC-645, which is set up automatically according to the JDF provided by Avanti.

“This workflow is about as automated as possible,” says Mark Egeling, a Kodak regional marketing manager. “The entire lifecycle of the job only requires that operators at the NexPress M700 and Duplo DC-645 move the paper, select the job and press 'go.' It's amazing how streamlined a fully automated workflow using digital printing, automated postpress, web-to-print and JDF technologies can be.”

EFI and Heidelberg are hosting two additional JDF Works Print Shop Live! sites located in the Heidelberg (Booth 1200) and EFI (Booth 2000) displays—this year the two exhibitors are next to each other.

At the EFI JDF Works Print Shop Live! site, EFI Digital StoreFront operators can submit jobs directly via JDF/JMF for unattended printing and inline finishing on Canon's imagePRESS C1 with the imagePRESS Server Q2.

At the Heidelberg JDF Works Print Shop Live! site, a job may be generated by either the Heidelberg Prinect Prinance system or the EFI Hagen OA system. Attendees will see the Job Messaging Format (JMF) in action. The job is transferred via JDF from the MIS to the Prinect Integration Manager, through prepress, pressroom and postpress management. It will follow a path that continues through the Heidelberg demonstration plaza, where attendees will observe the JDF file being sent to the Speedmaster XL 105 and into the postpress area.

Agfa exemplifies the networking of the printing process. It's user group will gather Monday during the show, and learn about the latest branding behind the :Apogee Suite, :Apogee Prepress v5.0, Portal v5.0, PlateMaker and Ink Save among other applications.

“Printing and prepress processes are more complex than putting ink to paper,” says Susan Wittner, marketing director, Agfa North America. “Our customers are expanding their business opportunities by offering new solutions by enhancing their printing output with tools that differentiate them from the competition.”

In the run-up to the show, EFI announced EFI Prepress Integration will soon be commercially available, commencing with integration between EFI Prograph and the Kodak Prinergy Workflow. Previewed at EFI's user group Connect 2008 in July, it is “only the first iteration of the JDF-compliant EFI Prepress Integration Suite,” says Jeff Palser, EFI Prograph product manager. The system is expected to support “just-in-time” plating through Prograph and Prinergy and Kodak Insite Unified Workflow System. The system would eliminate building fixed imposition templates. Prograph dynamically scales impositions to the size of the product being produced and the press being used. Changes are implemented instantly.