AT THE dawn of this still relatively new millennium, the printing industry was all abuzz about the concepts of computer-integrated manufacturing, the Digital Smart Factory and lights-out manufacturing. Workflow integration via the job definition format (JDF) became its quest for the Holy Grail.
At the center of this automated processing was to be a management information system (MIS) feeding job data downstream to set up prepress, press and postpress equipment, with instantaneous updates from the shop floor communicated back upstream to the MIS. This revolution has yet to sweep through the printing industry, but that vision is still alive and actively being worked on.
First Implementations
DIMS!, for example, touted the fact earlier this year that it is the first MIS vendor to receive five JDF certifications, including MIS to Web Press ICS and MIS to Finishing ICS. Also, Heidelberg recently announced the first U.S. implementation of a JDF-based, bidirectional exchange between its Prinect system and the EFI Monarch MIS.
There is another pathway for integrating MIS and production, however, that already has been more widely realized—shop floor data collection and direct machine interfaces (DMIs).
Read full article at: Printing Companies are Boosting Productivity by Implementing MIS to Production Workflow Integrations : Printing Impressions.
