Conference Summary
Bob Whitton

PDF Presentation (743 Kb)

Wednesday, March 6

Tutorial 1: Database Technologies & Metadata

MARK EVANS, DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS, HALO SYSTEMS, A PRINEXUS CO.

PDF Presentation (2.21 Mb) or PowerPoint (481Kb)

Data is the new source of value in our businesses. This tutorial articulates the anatomy of data architecture for a modern enterprise. With an emphasis on the print manufacturing organization, this basic tutorial treats the fundamentals of databases, their use, their characteristics, and how metadata is used as a fundamental tool in today's digital workflow environment. Also considered is how database structures vary across a graphics supply chain and the differences between such things as digital asset management, media asset management, content management, and document management.

Tutorial 2: JDF Status & Implementations

DOUG BELKOFER, DIRECTOR, THIRD PARTY INTEGRATION, PRINTCAFE SOFTWARE, INC

PDF Presentation (890 Kb)
PDF White Paper (200 Kb)

In the last year, there has been a lot of discussion about the viability and implementation of Job Definition format (JDF) and the Job Messaging Format (JMF) developed by the CIP4 organization. This tutorial has three focuses: First, a review of XML and JDF basics. Second, a discussion of new developments in JDF and JMF that is relevant to the Digital Smart Factory. Third, what is the current state of JDF implementation and product release? What product implementations have been announced? What classes of products have been addressed? What is their delivery and conversion timeframes? What areas of the supply chain that these products address and have they been successful?

Tutorial 3: Manufacturing Strategies for Automation

BILL DAVISON, PRINCIPAL, POINT BALANCE, INC.

PDF Presentation (358 Kb)

Quantification drives automation. In order for complex systems to work unattended, there must be explicit instructions guiding and actuating all components of the operation. Anywhere in the process where instructions cannot be represented unambiguously, there are interrupts and human interventions. Specifications enable automation. Prototypes are tools of for assessing that which we cannot effectively articulate. Where in the printing and publishing processes are specifications and prototypes (proofing) of the most value? Must proofing be eliminated in manufacturing? What types of simulation might we see in print manufacturing in the future? This tutorial looks at key elements of the print manufacturing process and discusses what must be done to create the frictionless system.

Tutorial 4: Rolling Your Own: If You Can't Justify a Smart Factory, How About an Above Average One?

CHUCK WEGER, PRESIDENT, ELARA SYSTEMS INC.

PDF Presentation (Not Available Yet)

Some of the pieces of what has been called a "smart" factory can be assembled from "off-the-shelf" components. This involves combining a variety of commercial and shareware/freeware programs and systems, together with some simple scripting or programming. It can often produce semi-custom solutions that meet the needs of your manufacturing processes. There are several advantages to "rolling your own" systems, and some obvious disadvantages. Although putting pieces together in this way can lead to local sub-optimization at the expense of global optimization, sometimes that's better than no optimization at all. There are fluid boundaries between commercial, off-the-shelf, and "full custom" systems; defining the proper point for these boundaries is a topic for discussion.

This session examines how one might go about tying together components for a moderately smart factory in two different environments: Mac OS X and Windows XP. What tools and skills do you need to do this? How hard is it? What kind of workflows can be built from building blocks that don't always fit together just right? The session format is one of Science Lab rather than PowerPoint lecture. We'll get some real-time experience wiring things together. We'll look at off-the-shelf software for job tracking, preflight, archiving, and other areas. Lots of opportunity for Q&A throughout the session. Plus, we'll mention XML just so this description will get extra search engine hits.

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Thursday, March 7

Panel Discussions

Panel: Automation in the Pressroom

SPEAKER PANEL
ANTON BAUER, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, MANROLAND
DAVID SODEN, MANAGER CONTROLS & AUTOMATION R&D, HEIDELBERG WEB SYSTEMS
MODERATOR: ROBERT ERBSTEIN, GRAPHIC TRANSITIONS LLC

PDF Presentation - Bauer (2.09 Mb)
PDF Presentation - Soden (1.02 Mb)

Inevitably presses will become nodes on the DSF network. Or will they? If presses are treated as "cells" in a Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) system, what do press production management systems look like? How are they aligned with enterprise level business and production systems? What kinds of new linkages are likely between the pressroom and bindery especially given the evolving JDF specification? How do new markless and register guidance systems work with color control systems in this context? How will jobs that may currently take days to set-up be handled with new automated and CAD technologies? This session will discuss pressroom technology that helps shepherd in automated print lines.

Panel: Postpress Automation

SPEAKER PANEL
RALPH PASQUARIELLO, REGIONAL SALES MANAGER OF POST PRESS, HEIDELBERG
FELIX STIRNIMANN, MANAGER OF PRINT FINISHING, MULLER MARTINI CORP.
MODERATOR: ROBERT ERBSTEIN, GRAPHIC TRANSITIONS LLC

PowerPoint Presentation (5.75 Mb)
PowerPoint Presentation (747 Kb)

The last steps in print production are often the most neglected. Binding and finishing operations, frequently integrated with mailing operations, offer printers a unique opportunity to improve profitability and provide a competitive edge. The current generation of postpress equipment is already largely computer-controlled and highly automated. Many printers, however, continue to compete with non-automated equipment and the "stoop and grunt" bindery model. The first step for many printers is to replace this obsolete equipment with today's automated postpress machines and to use modern materials handling approaches.

Although linking prepress and press to the integrated finishing area through CIP3/4 has been talked about for years, implementation is rare. When and where has this been accomplished? Will bindery operations on press -- i.e., in-line finishing ever be integrated into CIP3/4 controlled presets to reduce makeready time? Will postpress ever be integrated into a seamless production flow? This session will discuss the benefits and barriers to achieving effective linkage to prepress and press functions so as to reduce bindery cycle times and production costs.

Luncheon Keynote:

ALAN DARLING, COO & CTO, QUALITY HOUSE OF GRAPHICS

PDF Presentation (282 Kb)

As the printing and publishing industries push toward fully digital, networked infrastructure and processes, glaring technical deficiencies have surfaced. These shortcomings inhibit our ability to create effective and seamless integrated systems and processes. This further inhibits our ability to leverage digital technologies for touted cost and cycle time reduction, and increased productivity.

Many industry groups and companies have begun initiatives to address these issues. Some of these initiatives are print-focused; some cross over paper and electronic-based media. Some initiatives address industry segment-specific concerns, e.g. publishing; some address issues that apply to all print verticals, e.g. publishing, catalog, and general commercial printing. Alan looks at a wide range of initiatives currently being developed or deployed across our industry in the context of the publishing supply chain.

Whitepapers

Whitepaper 1: Structured Page Construction with PDF for Automated Workflows

JANICE REESE, VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
BILL MARCHIONY, VICE PRESIDENT, CONSULTING SERVICES, .THINK121

PDF Presentation - Manchiony (607 Kb)
PDF White Paper - Manchiony (3.57 Mb)

PDF Manufacturing is where Data meets Design. It's the transition point at which the business rules and information from the back office converge with graphic arts materials from the Marketing and Creative departments and flow into production.

This powerful workflow model allows users to manage and merge content from multiple sources for delivery to a wide range of destinations. Examples include:

• Merging versioned content (i.e. black plate changes, imprints or inkjet) with static backgrounds for proofing (either printed or on-screen).
• Late-stage impositioning that enables single-page page creation and output on the most desirable device.
• Web-interactive content customization and personalization with real-time preview/proof and direct delivery into production.
• Weapons-grade variable data imaging that supports full color, rigorous production control and data integrity at manufacturing speeds in excess of 5 million PDF pages per hour.

PDF Manufacturing leverages the skill sets that already exist in the organization, and increases efficiencies through database control and lights-out automation.

Whitepaper 2: Digital Smart Factories and the Semantic Web

MILLS DAVIS, DIRECTOR, PROJECT 10X

PDF Presentation (Not Available Yet)

The first wave of the Internet dealt with access and transmission of data. It began with the Arpanet and evolved through large-scale distributed file systems. The second wave focused on organization and retrieval of information. The World Wide Web project at CERN, coupled with the NCSA Mosaic interface became the technology that brought global information spaces to the world at large. The third wave, called the semantic web, is now under way. It focuses on analysis and correlation of distributed knowledge, and embedding of services that manipulate concepts and semantics across domains. This whitepaper reviews the current state of semantic web technology and examines its implications for the digital smart factory.

Whitepaper 3: Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) for Small Printers

JASON MANOSH, DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING
CHUCK GEHMAN, EVP & CTO, PRINTABLE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

PDF Presentation - Manosh (2.92 Mb)

Even small printers are finding that they need to interface their computer systems to those of their large corporate customers. Without significant IT personnel or Internet-savvy web developers on staff, this can be a major challenge for even the most sophisticated small printing company. This paper will outline the technologies, methodologies and techniques that may be employed to provide printer customers with the ability to execute this type of integration project. The paper will detail the steps and process for configuring integration with Microsoft BizTalk and what proprietary components we needed to add to create our PrintGateway environment, and how much effort went into building our system. We'll talk about the kind of cooperation necessary between the corporate customer and their IT department in the large corporation, the interaction necessary in the case of the Ariba network, and the involvement of outside consultants in the process.

Whitepaper 4: Digital Enterprise Culture in the Digital Smart Factory

BILL LAVELLE, INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT

PDF Presentation (353 Kb)

Why does the initial adoption of the Digital Smart Factory seem to be progressing more slowly than one might expect? After all, interest in the Digital Smart Factory is founded on the promise of high performance production and its related capabilities. Manufacturers target sales of advanced technologies, service providers offer new application models and implementation services, and printers and buyers desire to produce more for less. The answer is "technology adaptation will not exceed our basic cultural comfort levels".

This white paper will discuss the costs, performance, and change management model necessary for success. Particular emphasis will be placed on the need for print organizations to realign their operating infrastructure with emerging technologies. An operating infrastructure conversion model based on the best practices of the Project Management Institute will serve as the underlying premise. The Digital Smart Factory is a project-based manufacturing environment. As such, project "types" can be unified within print programs. Print companies must evolve their operating infrastructures from vertical and hierarchical to a horizontal and participatory. The result of this conversion creates the successful Digital Enterprise Culture.

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Friday, March 8

Survey Feedback

ROBERT WHITTON

PDF Presentation - Survey Verbatims Part 01 (169 Kb)
PDF Presentation - Survey Verbatims Part 02 (355 Kb)

Case Studies

Case Study 1: Automating Processes with Off-The-Shelf Technologies

DR JOHN ANDERSON, PROJECT ENGINEER, SINAPSE GRAPHIC INTERNATIONAL

PDF Presentation (3.81 Mb)

Case Study 2: Pressroom

STEPHEN ZISK, DIRECTOR OF SOLUTIONS ARCHITECTURE, ENGAGE, INC.

PDF Presentation (203 Kb)

Case Study 3: Bindery

FRANK MONTAGUE, MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND STANDARDIZATION, RR DONNELLEY

PDF Presentation (369 Kb)

Case Study 4: Driving Manufacturing with Automated Job Acquisition

GREG SUPROCK, TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, THE SHERIDAN GROUP

PDF Presentation (450 Kb)

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