drupa 2016 will see an uptick in software advances. But none with the potential to disrupt conventional workflow expectations quite so dramatically as Cloud Computing. Our search for innovation at drupa will start with workflow and IT. We believe that after its time in the wilderness, software will again be centre-stage at drupa.
A recent series of pre-drupa press conferences involved fifteen major exhibitors. Most of them had much to say about inks, digital inkjet printing and workflow. But these are just a few areas where progress in materials science and IT drive advances in the graphics industry, specifically printing. Digital printing technologies are increasingly interchangeable for conventional print methods. However, new laser, ink, coatings and especially IT technologies, are creating opportunities for new applications and different business models in prepress, printing and finishing.
Effective management of substrates and inks at high speed without compromising quality requires intelligent software to fully get the most out of the imaging system and materials. Adding intelligence to a process improves it.
Organizing data in a very small way is not so different from organizing your socks drawer – it is much easier to access and retrieve matching pairs when they’re tidily arranged, than if they are in a total mess. So it is with data. But unlike a sock drawer the management for a prepress workflow is seriously complex. The benefits intelligent software can add to a workflow are everywhere visible from Raster Image Processing, to standard data formats such as PDF/X through to web-to-print and mobile computing.
After some time in the wilderness, software will take centre-stage at drupa. Expect a lot of overexcited hype about Cloud Computing, particularly from manufacturers coming late to the cloud model. Many companies such as Agfa have been in the cloud for years. Some, such as Kodak, had ignored it and are now embracing it. Some floated towards it only to return to earth and some seem not to have noticed it at all. Some such as Epson have operated in the cloud for a short while but have come a long way.
Storm clouds
Cloud Computing is already upon us and the relatively late coming of the graphic arts to the model is probably not a bad thing. Cloud technologies such as Google Cloud, Amazon Cloud Services and Microsoft Azure are proven and widespread. Embracing the cloud model though is another matter, hence the hype at drupa. Manufacturers will be doing their best to persuade printers that they need to sign up to a cloud service. However, the concept of the cloud is not a newcomer to the graphics business, but at drupa we will see new applications of the technology, plus some late adopters.
Hybrid
Hybrid is definitely not late coming to the Cloud, which is understandable given the company’s pedigree. As Mike Rottenborn Hybrid’s president and CEO puts it the company is “an IT company that understands packaging and a packaging company that understands IT.” Ex Artwork Systems people created Hybrid to bring their enormous native PDF workflow expertise and experience to a customer base of around 500. Hybrid partners with digital press and DFE providers, such as Fujifilm and Kodak.
Hybrid introduced CloudFlow in 2013 and has 100 users. It is an enterprise workflow system running in the cloud and supporting the Packz software suite which has 400 users and now includes a Packz PDF editor for labels and packaging. MyCloudFlow is a SaaS offering for editing PDFs using an embedded OCR application. Packz has tools for step and repeat, mixed layouts and front to back registration. Workflows are automated by combining different task modules.
At drupa the company will show its 64-bit scaleable RIP architecture, based on Global Graphics’ Harlequin RIP specifically for packaging and label production with support for PDF flattening, trapping and separation management that is fully scaleable. It includes packaging calibration curves and quality assurance tools, and Hybrid claims that it “is the fastest RIP on the market.”
Hybrid partnered with HP Indigo on the SmartStream workflow suite, so we expect to see support for its corrugated workflow soon. Hybrid is also working with Konica Minolta driving the new KM1 digital press, as well as presses from OKI and Xeikon. The focus at drupa is on extended gamut color management for packaging, matching 90% of Pantones, with variable data support and production support within CloudFlow. Hybrid also has a VDP layout tool for labels and packaging.
CloudFlow Share is “a major announcement for us at drupa, a layer of brains and compression for data sharing and management,” that is for load balancing work by linking distributed production sites and managing data across them. Warping and 3D rendering for shrink sleeves and cartons, will also be demonstrated along with a free PDF viewing and collaborative approvals tool. Rottenborn says that “by drupa 2019 Hybrid will be the largest software manager in the graphic arts.”
Ricoh’s TotalFlow
Ricoh has come a very long way very fast in the graphics industry, something it attributes to its people and customers and their ability to “execute technology to achieve their goal” as Peter Williams, executive vice president, put it. Ricoh’s cloud-based offering is TotalFlow based on Microsoft Azure. It has a suite of ten software tools supporting production print including Methis data cleansing software that ensures tidy databases, for variable data production. It can save up to 95% of the time usually taken for the task. Batch Builder running in the cloud has been expanded to support short-run and on demand books. The TotalFlow Print Server now supports connectivity to Prinergy and Apogee, a result of codevelopment work done with Heidelberg for Prinect, to support hybrid workflows.
Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes is a mailing logistics specialist that considers itself “the craftsman of commerce” and that also wants to expand its cloud ambitions. The Clarity solution suite and other tools are delivered as a SaaS platform however, Grant Miller vice president said that “at Pitney Bowes we’re focussed on how we’re going to use the industrial internet for predictive logistics analysis and predictive maintenance of machines.” The company has partnered with GE to apply data collection expertise to the graphic arts and other machines used in the mailing industry.
Direct View is a real time data tool that mailing houses can use for data analysis in the cloud to benchmark performance. Its just been launched.
Kodak’s Prinergy Cloud
The cloud has not played much part in Kodak’s workflow approach – however that is all changed. Allan Brown, general manager for Unified Workflow systems, announced a new Prinergy Cloud service. This is a customizable service deployed on site, in the cloud or in a mix of both, so customers can create their own services to support their customers in turn. This added twist sets Kodak apart in the cloud space. The software includes analytics tools and is fully scaleable. Kodak has come late to the cloud model, but this looks like a well considered offer and a foundation for the future.
Support for digital print production is improved, in response to partner requests from Ricoh, Konika Minolta, Komori and Landa. Packaging workflows will be in focus at drupa, with process automation via Prinergy and expanded use of Kodak’s MaxTone SX screening a hybrid AM screening technology that combines FM and AM dot placement. ColorFlow color management has been certified for IDEAlliance’s G7 with ISO 12647-2 in progress, and this should be on show at drupa.
Kolbus
Kolbus really should get a prize of some sort. Of the 527 founding exhibitors at the first drupa in 1951, Kolbus is the only one participating in 2016. This company specializes in bookbinding machines and 30% of its business depends on digital printing. “If it was not for digital printing we might not be here today,” according to Kai Buntemeyer, managing partner.
The company is publishing its XML protocol for machine interaction on the Kolbus website. The idea is to make system integration easier: JDF requires definition of processes and resources and this generally needs a vendor’s input. There is obviously a cost associated with this, but at least the Kolbus download is free.
HP’s PrintOS
The most Cloud hype will come from HP and despite its late arrival, will border on the hysterical. HP’s PrintOS is not actually a new operating system, since it runs on Amazon Cloud Services. However, HP considers it an operating system for the business because it organizes services to support business operations.
When introducing HP’s PrintOS Cloud François Martin, worldwide marketing director for HP’s graphic systems business, said that “today we are going to open a new chapter” and that the PrintOS is “something that was never done before and that will benefit the entire industry, not just HP.”
PrintOS is a process management platform for HP Indigo, Scitex, Latex and PageWide customers with an active HP service agreement. It’s based on Amazon Web Services cloud technology, so it can interact with other clouds. It will include third-party applications as well as HP’s and support HP and non-HP hardware, both analogue and digital. HP is making the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) available to partners and the first tools are already functioning.
Support for job delivery and management for point of sale applications is based on PageFlex. HP is working with DropBox for file sharing to be made available from March 2016 onwards. The user interface has the usual Dashboard and widgets, with remote status and reporting software, maintenance updates and so on. Besides PageFlex HP has licensed or acquired Precision Printing’s OneFlow workflow technology for uploading jobs into production. Expect ten new apps at drupa including mobile, albeit with limited functionality. ProCo in the UK is working with PrintOS and according to Simon Lewis, director of strategic marketing, “there are dozens of people backing it across the company.” There are no color management tools as yet, however support for multiple non-HP color engines is expected to be available. Conversations with Agfa and EFI et al will start soon.
Xerox
Xerox FreeFlow has been around for a long time and is one of the most comprehensive workflow software libraries around. Xerox is now reinventing the flow of work, as it puts it. This may be important as 40% of the growth of the new company, once the split into hardware and services is effected, will be document outsourcing. Xerox expects to have global reach and workflow is a major focus for growth in the graphic communications space.
Into this space Xerox is investing to capture a share of its estimate of 50 trillion production pages of which just 2% are produced with digital printing technologies. Reinventing the flow of work (let’s just say workflow) is a conversion opportunity for Xerox, part of its mission to automate print shops and new applications, using print as a link to digital communications with workflow management – the means of directing data to different channels. So far so vague, but we can also expect a lot of cloud announcements coming shortly for XMPie and FreeFlow.
Software and the cloud will be important themes at drupa. They have become increasingly important to get the most out of applications, technology and business models. Printers and publishers can exploit data at the one end, imaging, inks and substrates in the middle and finally digital finishing to support amazing creativity. Whether they have the imagination and vision to do so may take a while.
