COMPUTER-INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING -- Making Customers' Work Flow

"We believe JDF (job tickets and JMF messaging between systems) becomes the glue that holds everything together," the company exec notes. "We are building our strategy on JDF, XML and PDF."

The printing organization is trying to decouple Web-based interactions with customers from its production workflow, Jones says. "The systems will be integrated and some tools overlap, but we like to think of them as being separate. If a job isn't tied into a specific workflow, we have the flexibility to figure out a better way to produce it."