TECHNOLOGY OFCOMBINING DIGITAL & FSET WORKFLOWS Dr. Mark Bohan, Vice President, Center for Technology and Research, Printing Industries of America The Magazine 10 9.2015


It is becoming increasingly common for printers to be producing offset and digital prints for the same customer. There are many technical reasons for choosing one process over another, such as the inclusion of variable data, special effects, finishing requirements, color gamut, or print quality requirements. However, in many cases the decision about the printing process is increasingly based on economic or production matters rather than the unique characteristics of the different print processes. Because of this, there is increased discussion as to whether this should be achieved with one or two workflows, or some combination in between, as this has implications on the final product and is heavily influenced by the customer’s expectations.


When Should Decisions Be Made? The later in the workflow that a decision can be made regarding the printing process provides flexibility, work simplification, and load balanc- ing within the production facility. For many years in color management there has been advocacy for late binding and applying the color manage- ment at the last possible moment in the production workflow. Com- bining digital and offset requires workflow optimization, process steps, and product expectations to obtain efficiency and productivity. Beyond the printing process, this decision will impact the entire product life in the company, from the initial sales process, estimation, job submission, prepress, production, bindery, shipping, and, importantly, billing.


When producing short-run jobs, the value of the total product in many cases necessitates an efficient and highly automated workflow. The file submission process needs to be automated where possible, with the customer uploading and/or selecting the files. Through this operation they will be entering much of the production data needed for manufac- ture themselves. There is not the opportunity to spend twenty minutes entering a job ticket into the management or prepress system—at that point any profit on the job could have been lost.


The files need to flow through prepress with minimal human interven- tion and decision making, with only the exceptions flagged to require operator intervention. While preflighting can be carried out, in certain cases the decision on the production process will need to be made prior to the job going through prepress, as certain operations, such as imposi- tion etc., are dependent on the final press being used.


Implications for Color Predictable and repeatable color is a prerequisite for switching between offset and digital. It is essential to have color management in place and know what the target output colors need to be. This could be determined by using a single gamut that is capable of being produced on all presses or using the largest color gamut on each device and obtaining pleasing appearance between the prints using calibration such as G7. The expec- tations of the color match between offset and digital will determine the solution set to be used and, in addition, the type of work that is being produced. If there are key brand colors that need to be maintained, then this needs to be incorporated into the color management.


Automating and Standardizing The use of a single workflow can allow the level of automation to be optimized to speed the flow of jobs through the facility and also mini- mize the processing errors. At each point there is a human intervention it opens up the possibility for errors to be introduced to the job. The use of logic-based decision making through the process facilitates effective flow of jobs and this can be used to decide on the most effective production press using predefined criteria.


From the production perspective, the effective switch between digital and offset will not be achieved without process control, press main- tenance, and standard operating procedures for each of the presses. Changes that are continually being made press side (either digital or offset) will very quickly ensure that the match between the processes

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