Digital Printing and Workflow Evolution - Opening New Opportunities

Abstract

Digital and Variable Data Workflow and Presses have enabled significant new trends in the PSP Production environment. The move to very large increases in automated submission of short-run content has led to significant complexity in deploying and managing a production environment. Creation of content, managing this content through production of customer products and tracking the efficiency of this production covers the workflow deployed inside a PSP.But the world is expanding. Contemporary workflows include end-to-end solutions, routing and distribution of jobs between facilities, digital rights management, automated content generation/assembly, content storage and security. Digital printers require less and less manual tasks to calibrate and run reliably. Content generation and storage is moving to the cloud. This broad and changing set of capabilities opens new opportunities for products and services.Today we see “big bet” research efforts at HP Labs on: automated publishing, document lifecycle, and commercial print automation. Yesterday's problem of getting the RIP and imposition to cooperate with the press and finishing equipment is no longer the core issue requiring focus. New opportunities are opened. Equipment, workflow, and end-to-end solutions are capable of managing large quantities of small jobs, from different customers, efficiently, and of paramount importance, automatically.Legacy equipment and practices create challenges as businesses and customers alike grapple with systems optimized for conventional print or the digital world of the last few years. This presentation explores tension points and future opportunities opened by the rapid expansion in capabilities of digital printing presses and workflows.