Getting Work Flowing
 Ricoh has alliance partnerships with numerous software and finishing suppliers that enable us to create systems to solve your production printing business needs. Sometimes the solution is obvious, while in other cases there might be several ways to approach the situation. The approach that will work best for you depends upon your unique situation, needs, applications and strategic direction.
In each issue of this newsletter we’ll take a quick look at how one of Ricoh’s alliance partnerships can address frequently found challenges in in-house production environments. It is doubtful that you’ll find the exact answer to your problems with these examples, but you might get the spark of an idea, and you’ll see how we at Ricoh Production Printing Business Group like to work. We want to understand your specific needs and to propose carefully designed answers to your production printing challenges. We like to solve problems.
In this issue, let’s consider a mid-sized, in-house CRD with multiple digital color and monochrome printers. They have 2 key needs at this time:
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They need to update some of their print technology but can’t afford to upgrade everything all at once. They also don’t want the risk of consolidating to one or two very high volume machines, yet this strategy means they need to effectively manage and balance their workload across a variety of production printers. |
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They need to grow their volume from more of their corporate customers. They’ve found that many of their potential clients don’t know how to submit digital jobs (e.g. they don’t know the email address or the ftp site of the CRD) or they just find it easier to print locally. |
One further constraint is that this CRD has purchased complex workflow systems in the past that went unused. While they need a solution, their management is unwilling to make a large investment in money or time on what is viewed as “an experiment”.
What if there was a cost-effective way to set up and manage print queues to preview, print, archive and reprint jobs to any printer in the shop? What if older printers and new, reliable Ricoh production printers could easily be clustered to split large jobs between them? What if there were ways to automate production workflows for automatic job routing, user notification, archiving and management? What if there was a way for end users to easily submit jobs with an electronic job ticket directly to the CRD as easily as printing to the hallway printer? What if this didn’t require an advanced degree to set up and use? What if it was actually affordable?
Ricoh has partnered with ATI to provide systems that do all of this. ATI’s doc-Q-manager provides an integrated workflow across a wide variety of printers, with special Ricoh production printer drivers built in. Their doc-Q-ticket product delivers a simple way for clients to submit work into the print shop. In combination, they provide a straightforward and efficient production printing workflow all the way from a user’s desktop through printing in an in-house print shop. The system is simple, elegant and expandable.
This is an entry to mid-level workflow system that is easy to install, use and afford. It is designed to solve challenges like the ones described above with minimal investment and risk. If, however, you need more sophisticated solutions, Ricoh can deliver those as well. Let us know your needs and let us work with you to find the best answers. |
