Workflow Words for 2018

If you remember any words for the start of your Workflow Year, remember Mass Customization, Smart Print Manufacturing, Dashboards, and Automation. These are the concepts that will dominate the talk track as everyone drives towards print optimization. The concepts aren't new, and they are particularly hard to harness. They often require transformation, however, and that is where the hurdles occur.

Let's start with Mass Customization. This is the process of using technology to produce personalized or micro-customized products close to the cost of production for generic products. Personalized t-shirts at the cost of generic t-shirts or highly-targeted marketing collateral at the cost of mass-produced collateral meet this brief. Companies like Cimpress/VistaPrint, Gelato and Amazon are among the giants who have mass customization platforms serving customers today, but they are not alone. Printers around the world are building workflows that allow them to serve markets with custom printing of all types. From Goof.Buzz in Japan to InkRouter based in the US to Else.Shoes out of Italy, the number of niche and mass market participants will grow throughout the year.

Smart Print Manufacturing (SPM) is another piece of the puzzle. Back in October 2017, my colleague Ryan McAbee set out to draw a box around Smart Print Manufacturing on his blog (read it here). It is a story of streamlining and optimization of every facet of print manufacturing, using a combination of automation techniques and just-in-time lean manufacturing so that you produce at the lowest possible cost of manufacturing. What set SPM apart is that it assumes an approach that relies on a technology stack that includes analytics, access to big data, business intelligence and dashboards, cloud computing, cyber-physical systems to translate data to actionable information, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications, and robotics form the infrastructure. While that stack makes it look like an initiative for only the largest of printers, any size operation can benefit from creating a technology stack that adds more automation.

Dashboards. They are a part of the talk track from many of the hardware vendors and many of the software vendors. The essence of a dashboard is to give you a single place to see all of the relevant information to the business to a related set of tasks. You might have a general business dashboard that tracks income, outstanding billing, past due invoices, orders for raw goods, and similar information. You might also have a dashboard that is specific to a department or set of departments, like a dashboard that tells you how many jobs are waiting in prepress, how many are queued for print, how many have been preflighted, how many of the preflighted jobs had errors. There is no end to what a dashboard can tell you, which is why many of the print hardware vendors are adding desktop and mobile solutions that provide that view. If a vendor asks you "Can I talk to you about our dashboards?" - just say yes. See what's on offer. It might free up time by centralizing the things you need to know!

Automation. It's at the root of much of what will happen in 2018. Printers of every size have opportunities to automate some or all of the workflows. Adding automated file interrogation to Web-to-Workflow environments can weed out the files that are ready for print from those that contain low-resolution images, print outside the print window, and other common issues. Automating the process of taking job specifications and matching them to print devices, finishing devices and scheduling is also possible. The best place to start is with your current workflow provider(s) to see what is possible with your currently installed solutions. If you find gaps, start to reach out to your network and ask for ideas in your LinkedIn groups. There is a lot of help available, and many trailblazers have hard-won experience to share.

Start you year off with these four concepts firmly fixed in your mind as you set off on the road to a profitable 2018.