Customizing Production Printing

Many in-plants are requesting print vendors to provide solutions that include customized software addressing their specific needs.

by Sam Errigo

With the conversion to digital production printing systems, in-plant managers are finding that front-end software used to design and manage documents is critical to achieving efficient workflows. As a result, many in-plants are requesting—or in some cases requiring—print vendors to provide solutions that include customized software addressing their specific needs.

In the past, customized solutions usually involved proprietary software and were often expensive to maintain and upgrade. Today, however, vendors can provide a customized solution by integrating existing, off-the-shelf software with their printing platform, or by modifying software to fit an in-plant's needs.

The main goal is greater productivity through automation. Customized document printing programs reduce operator involvement and add new features. Here are some success stories:

Dallas Independent School District

The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) prints more than 10 million pages of achievement tests and related documents annually using two Heidelberg Digimaster 9110 Network Imaging Systems.

"The district combines customized software with in-line bookletmakers to enhance efficiency and reduce expenses," says David Vines, executive analyst in DISD's Research, Evaluation and Testing Department. He notes that the department normally runs two eight-hour shifts, but during peak periods, it operates two 12-hour shifts.

The district prints some 300,000 tests each year, along with pre-coded answer sheets and reports for court, state and federal education agencies. All told, the department cranks out nearly two million pages each month.

Two of DISD's applications required custom software: producing the pre-coded answer sheet and printing serial numbers on each test.

"The serial numbering was an important requirement for us," Vines says. "In the past, we used a semi-automated method for numbering with the Xerox DocuTech system, but it wasn't convenient or straightforward. The customized software provided by our print vendor is much more efficient."

The department also precodes 800,000 answer sheets a year because, according to Vines, students often don't pay a lot of attention to the part of the sheet where they identify themselves.

This customized printing solution handles higher volumes without the need for additional staff, which the district finds very attractive.

Agri Stats

Personalized statistical reports are another application that requires customized software. Agri Stats Inc, of Fort Wayne, Ind., produces detailed monthly statistical analyses for poultry companies. Each analysis compares a company's individual data with industry-wide statistics.

Agri Stats collects information from 93 percent of U.S. poultry companies, crunches the numbers and reports back to each subscriber, telling it how it compares with its peers. Each company orders several of the analyses for use by employees. Agri Stats produces more than 6,000 books a month, totaling more than 2.5 million pages.

In the past, this workflow was handled on copiers and was a very labor-intensive process. Today, customized software enables a network of three high-volume printers to accept PCL data, convert it to a TIF format and produce the entire contents, including bleed edge tabs.

Being able to print the chapters and tabs simultaneously greatly speeds production over the previous method in which tabs were inserted into each section by hand. In addition, this customized solution allows operators to balance workloads by printing to all three machines, while keeping each company's analyses on the same device.

"These analyses contain proprietary information," notes Shelly Mahlan, Agri Stat's director of product management. "It is absolutely imperative that each company receive their data and no one else's. With our previous system, it was necessary to have a series of checkpoints to make sure that each analysis was accurately produced. Today many of these checks are built into the production process. One of those automated checks is that all analyses for an individual company are produced sequentially on the same device to prevent errors and expedite post-production processing."

After each book is produced, a heavy cover is applied and the book is tape bound. The new customized printing process has reduced staff from four to two, trimmed production time by 20 to 30 percent and enabled the staff to take on new jobs.

Seminole County Public Schools

Joel Renda, print manager for Central Florida's Seminole County Public Schools, supports 43 schools as part of a voluntary program in which document production is centralized for greater cost savings and efficiency. He had several software requirements that would improve efficiency in a tightly run shop that handles 5 to 8 million copies per month.

Renda challenged print providers to supply a comprehensive front-end software package that addressed the following needs: the ability to print to any networked PostScript printer, a user-friendly Internet Remote Print (IRP) capability, an operator-friendly Quick Print interface, document archive and recall, accounting capabilities and remote scanning capability. It also needed to be flexible to changing work requirements.

Now operational, the print production system does all the above and more. It prints to all of the center's networked PostScript printers, including a Heidelberg Digimaster 9110, a Canon Imagerunner 400, a Xerox DocuTech 6135, a DocuTech 6100 and a DocuColor 12. It provides modules that include an invisible Internet or intranet link to the copy center for more than 3,000 teachers. It provides accounting and bill back functions for all copies, plus a new Quick Print Screen for operator programming. It also provides cluster printing.

The print vendor provided Renda with all these features by writing new software to meet his specifications.

"I wanted a vendor to write the software that would meet my needs, integrate it into their printing solution and then support it," he says. "Not many vendors were willing to step up to that challenge, but I did finally find one that would."

Sam Errigo is vice president of digital marketing for Danka Office Imaging in St. Petersburg, Fla.