Automated Workflow

JDF offers three prominent features: the ability to carry a print job from concept through completion, to bridge the communication gap between production and MIS, and to do so with most any precondition.

JDF IS AN open-standard, job-ticketing language that provides a foundation for users to build next-generation printing environments that encompass both the content and the business aspects of production workflow.

The Job Definition Format is a comprehensive, XML-based file format for end-to-end job ticket specifications, combined with a message description standard, and message interchange protocol. JDF was created to develop an open, extensible, XML-based job ticket standard, as well as a mechanism, to provide new business opportunities for all individuals and companies involved in the process of creating, managing, and producing published documents.

Building on existing technologies such as the Print Production Format (PPF) developed by CIP4 (International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press, and Postpress) and Adobe's Portable Job Ticket Format (PJTF), JDF supplies a means for printing businesses to streamline the process of producing printed material. In the past few years, the demand for greater unification of mechanized and automated systems has led to the advent of specification formats. These formats spawned a generation of systems in the mid-1990s that began to provide the ability to link certain elements of the prepress, press, and postpress processes.

Enter Networked Graphic Production

Networked Graphic Production (NGP) is a strategic initiative adopted by industry-leading companies that are working together to create a seamlessly integrated production environment. NGP links creative and production systems, management information systems (MIS), content management, Internet solutions, and more. With NGP, duplication between systems can be reduced, systems can be optimized, and the many people involved in print projects can communicate and collaborate as never before—from idea to delivery.

The members of NGP, which was spearheaded by Creo, are developing and implementing fully-integrated solutions based on JDF and other open standards. These solutions facilitate communication between technologies and people, and ensure a seamless flow of accurate information across systems and networks—enabling an environment of cross-vendor, JDF integrations to automate the printing process and increase printers' profitability.

Integration and the front end

The front end of the print production process is the domain of prepress—digital file manipulation, digital image creation, imposition, preflighting, computer-to-plate, digital proofing, integrated solutions for interoperability, and yes, JDF. All of these components and a few buckets more measure up to what remains the delicate, critical art of getting a print job ready to hit the big iron.

Recently, CIP4 reported the results of its Interoperability Event held in Vancouver, Canada. Twenty-three companies participated, testing 35 products. In all, 115 pairs were tested, with 108 successful pairings.

This was a significant increase over the March 2004 Interoperability Event in Zofingen, Switzerland, where 31 companies tested 42 products, resulting in 76 successful pairings among the 93 pairs tested. The interoperability workshop format provides technical engineers of CIP4 member companies the opportunity to test and work with a wide range of JDF solutions representing the graphic arts supply chain.

Turning to individual company activities, Ultimate Technographics, Markzware, and Vio recently announced JDF connectivity between Ultimat's Impostrip and Vio's JDF online preflight and digital workflow service featuring JDF-enabled Markzware FlightCheck Online. The JDF connectivity among these three solutions streamlines and accelerates print production, ensuring the quality and accuracy of the final printed project.

Additionally, Ultimate Technographics and Dalim Software recently announced certified JDF connectivity between Impostrip and DALiM MiSTRAL and DALiM PRiNTEMPO. Used in combination, these systems provide new levels of automation for prepress workflow, while simplifying and streamlining processes that used to require special expertise and constant monitoring by specialized personnel. The JDF connectivity between these solutions enhances production speed, and reduces common and costly errors from incompatible file formats.

"You can certainly have CIM (computer integrated manufacturing) without JDF," said Gee Ranasinha, worldwide director of marketing, Dalim Software. "JDF is just a communications standard. It would help to expedite inter-systems communications—for example, between an MIS server, or between software and hardware from different vendors."

For a CIM strategy today, Ranasinha continues, a system that only relies on JDF as it is today may not get the user where he/she wants to go in terms of integrating the entire manufacturing process. Other technology standards, such as JDBC, XML, and even SQL can be helpful.

"In fact," Ranasinha explains. "Before the first JDF standard was created, we were providing some of the so-called 'benefits' of JDF by using these other standards for clients who just couldn't wait. However, as a very active member of CIP4, we look forward to helping our customers replace those communications protocols with JDF."

Wim Delagrange, Esko-Graphics product manager for BackStage, targeting the packaging sector, asserts the best question for package printers today regarding JDF interoperability may very well be: Do you need an MIS to implement JDF or not?

"With the use of JDF, the implication is that there is something in the complete job workflow that defines the job. The MIS is the part of the workflow that defines the instructions to execute the job—where the job creation and order entry software resides," Delagrange said. "Prepress is the environment where the job is executed; not defined. We have suggested that the best way to adopt JDF is to start at the beginning: link MIS order entry with your graphic workflow servers. JDF enables all of these components to speak together. This also allows you to send important data about the job from the graphics servers back to the MIS.

"If your MIS does not provide you information via JDF, there are still parts of the graphics workflow that can benefit from JDF. There are a number of use cases," Delagrange adds. "The best example is ink settings that are passed from the workflow to the press. As a company, we have also implemented imposition, barcode, and RIP parameters, among others. You can certainly take it step by step—partial CIM with partial use cases. JDF is certainly helpful to pass along the job creation parameters as the first step of CIM, but it can also be beneficial to the pure execution of a job."

JDF at Graph Expo/Converting Expo

Agfa was just one company that worked with CIP4 to help give attendees of Graph Expo and Converting Expo educational demonstrations that highlighted the benefits of JDF connectivity. Agfa's booth was one of several stops on the JDF Show Floor Tours organized by CIP4. During the tour, attendees learned first-hand how JDF could help them in the fast-paced world of graphic arts production.

"JDF has been one of the more complex issues printers have had to face and they have been coming to Agfa to help them understand it," said Chris LaFontaine, Agfa's marketing manager for enterprise systems, North America. "Many of a printer's processes can be improved greatly with the addition of JDF-enabled products and services. When the process is streamlined and made more efficient, the path to profitability is easier to tread upon."

Graph Expo and Converting Expo 2004 also included a JDF Pavilion that further showcased interoperability of JDF-enabled products. It offered attendees an opportunity to learn more about JDF technology, see interoperability demonstrations, attend presentations by JDF experts, and network with developers currently implementing this new technology.

By Maria Alonso

PrePress Editor