Workflow/MIS/Web-to-Print

Don't tell the Blue Valley School District of Overland Park, Kan., that the digital age is cutting into the need for hard copy documents. Its Printing Services operation has been humming away all summer, delivering on as many as 40,000 job orders to satisfy about 3,100 teachers at 35 schools.

Held in the sleepy state capital of Harrisburg, Pa., in late April, the 47th annual Association of College and University Printers conference brought together nearly 100 higher-ed in-plant managers from all corners of the country—and from four other countries.

Hot Products for in-plants, including InfoPrint ProcessDirector (IPPD) a modular software and Océ PRISMAproduction software, :Apogee 7 workflow management suite, inkjet papers, FSC-certified paper and more.

For Years, the in-plant at Steelcase Inc. received jobs in a variety of disjoined ways: e-mail, FTP and even physical drop-offs. Back in 2006, only about 40 percent of jobs were submitted electronically to the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based in-plant, mostly via e-mail. This had begun to take its toll on the productivity of the five-employee shop.

Now in its 18th year, the On Demand Conference and Exposition tried something new this time when it moved south of the Mason-Dixon line to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Not everyone was happy with the results. Though some exhibits were packed at intervals, others were not so busy. Perhaps the absence of key companies like Xerox, Kodak, Presstek and Standard caused some potential attendees to skip this year's event. Or maybe D.C. was too far for the Northeast day trippers who attended previous years' shows in Philadelphia, Boston and New York.

The University of Arkansas recently added a Kodak Magnus 800 CTP system, Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow and an HP Designjet Z2100 inkjet proofer, which was color profiled to the in-plant’s five-color, 20x28˝ Komori.

Trisoft Graphics is using Prinergy PowerPack Workflow and InSite PrePress Portal to create an integrated solution that minimizes time while allowing them to deliver on their commitment to excellence.

Marco van der Veer, Dir. Of Marketing, introduces the software development and full imaging system options available from Blackware. They have a partner with Kodak for more than 15 years.

Oscar Planas, Kodak VP of Marketing, Prepress Solutions, provides an overview of the technology that Kodak will showcase at IPEX.  Kodak's innovative prepress solutions bring greater efficiency, productivity and quality to the commercial print, publishing and packaging markets. At IPEX, Print service providers will experience exciting new technologies from Kodak that strike at the heart of some their toughest challenges. Innovation that will help customers maximize production efficiencies, improve return-on-marketing-investments, and grow and optimize their business.

There are dozens of viable Web-to-print solutions, and trying to figure out which is the best fit for your shop can be a daunting task. The first step is to determine what you want to accomplish with a print e-commerce offering.