Web Storefronts A Growing Necessity

To compete, your in-plant must offer Web-based file submission. Customers are expecting it.

By Heath Cajandig

In the past five years, a new category of print product has emerged, as increasingly more print is created from digital "originals" instead of hard copy documents. With customers submitting job files via e-mail, floppy disk, CD-ROM, DVD, USB drive and countless other media storage devices, print operations needed a way to consolidate the methods customers used to send digital files while improving quality, speed and customer service.

As a result, Web-based file submission has emerged as the on-ramp to the production workflow. In the future, a full-featured Web storefront will be an essential component in your organization.

Quality Demands

With offset-quality output from digital devices like the Kodak NexPress 2100 and Xerox iGen3, digital color files need to maintain the same quality as their offset counterparts to maximize the final result. High-quality printing requires high-quality digital files, and these files must be managed from submission to production. This will force Web-based file submission to become the core of your production workflow.

The resolution and quality of a digital file is also critical when it comes to large-format printing, a growing niche for in-plants. Because of the large sheet sizes, these jobs require images of the highest quality possible. Don't even think about trying to accept one of these files as an e-mail attachment.

Customer Demands

At last year's Association of College and University Printers conference, Ray Chambers, of Juniata College, showed a PowerPoint slide with a picture of a college student sitting in a typical dorm room. Next to the student: a laptop, an iPod, a cell phone, a desktop computer and several other technology gadgets. A caption read: "Are you ready for him?"

Today's college students are tomorrow's customers—today's customers for in-plants on college campuses. This generation of customer has come of age in a world where computers and Web browsing have always been. And even more importantly, a time when press-quality ink-jet output can be produced in minutes with a few mouse clicks. These customers will force Web storefronts to become the primary interface for sending work to the print center.

While it is easy to categorize production printing as an "industrial" business where goods are mass produced and distributed, we live in a service-oriented nation driven by a service-based economy. And in the world of service, speed and quality are everything. Price isn't. In-plants will need to prove their value in not only saving money for their organizations, but by delivering better quality—faster.

Efficiency Demands

With more emphasis on quality and speed, one of the greatest challenges facing today's in-plant is to become more efficient. When looking at potential threats to the existence of an in-plant, outsourcing is the probably the greatest. I've often heard managers complain that some of their work was outsourced or taken to an outside printer where the price was higher. As I mentioned earlier, speed and quality, or even the perception of it, can win out over price.

When it comes to outsourcing, a Web storefront is almost always the whiz-bang feature that a vendor or outside commercial printer will pitch. In fact, even today, most Web storefronts are in outsourced or managed facility operations.

Not only does Web-based submission present well to decision makers and even customers, it is required to streamline the rest of a workflow. From getting the file prepared for a PDF workflow, to capturing a digital job ticket, the first step in any production is to get the document. To be more efficient, your operation needs to streamline and solve this problem first, before it can move on to the eventual automation of many tasks in the production center itself.

The Future of Web Storefronts

In the future, the actual file transmission will become a much smaller part of the big picture. Right now, getting the file transferred, proofed and managed is probably the greatest value of a Web storefront.

Web storefronts will improve their ability to show physical characteristics of a job. From binding, to paper colors, to folding options, customers will be able to see their documents within the context of how they will be finished.

Improvements in digital output devices will reduce the workflow headaches between the Web storefront and the actual printer. Many new color output devices can produce high-quality, economical black-and-white prints in addition to press quality color. Coupled with the ability to use nearly all common media types, complex mixed documents can now be printed on a single device.

Integration with management systems will also start to narrow the gap between offset and digital workflows. Instead of going to many different places to see what jobs are in your operation, integrated management and e-commerce systems will provide information in a single place.

Finally, the Web storefront will fully realize its value as "The Great Translator" between you and your customers. Easy to use, interactive screens will let customers build their finished products with on-screen modeling of paper colors, finishing options and document assembly. Even better, the customer's selections will be translated to a digital job ticket (JDF) that will configure the job for your equipment.

Workflow is the hot topic in the printing industry right now, and while it is hard to separate the hype from the reality, one thing is certain: if you aren't using a Web-based submission tool or commerce system right now in your operation, you will be.

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