Job Ticketing in the Electronic Age

Job tickets—which have been around since Gutenberg, if only in an elementary form—have evolved from handwritten envelopes to computerized, customized, global documents. In the new millennium, that evolution continues as job tickets are transformed from mere digital versions of their paper-based predecessors to virtual windows in the production process.

BY CHERYL A. ADAMS

"Our crystal ball indicates that, not only will print buying on the Internet become widespread, but also, in many cases, the management systems that the printer uses [such as those for electronic job ticketing applications] will be run totally over the Internet, as well," says Carol Andersen, president of Micro Ink, providers of the Enterprise management system. This crystal ball prediction, she says, is why all of Micro Ink's developmental efforts are being directed toward "Internet readiness" and accessibility of its Enterprise management system.

"We believe that print buyers in the large, Fortune 1000 companies will be the early adopters of e-commerce for printing," she says. "Small business owners will begin to do this kind of buying after the waters are tested."

Along with e-commerce has come the emergence of procurement-related dotcom companies, reports Andersen, noting that this is the most far-reaching trend to affect the electronic job ticketing market.

E-commerce Interfacing
"Links are being established between the dotcom company's products and the management systems, whereby a buyer can place an order on the Internet and that order will be submitted directly into a management system database. Once an electronic order reaches the management system database in order entry, then the electronic job ticket is populated with the job information and is viewable throughout the shop," explains Andersen. She notes that Micro Ink uses its own Web browser tools for this application, but is currently working with dotcom companies on interfaces to its database engine.

Paul Grieco, president of Printers Software Inc. and provider of the E-Ticket management system, agrees that interfacing to e-commerce—and using the electronic job ticket to create a virtual bridge linking the print buyer and printers' management and production information systems—is the "hottest" trend to impact the market recently.

"Through the Internet, clients and printers can find each other. A print buyer posts job specs and broadcasts those through the entire print market, and can get info on such things as competitive pricing," Grieco explains. "Then the buyer says 'I want to go with company A,' selects that company, and puts info on the online electronic job ticket."

Online interfacing is leading a long parade of e-ticket trends. Experts say the internal integration of systems—interconnecting job ticketing info with other information and digital asset management (DAM) systems—is another important development to watch.

"Just as traditional paper tickets have carried physical transparencies and art boards, new technologies have enabled electronic job ticketing systems to carry forward the electronic equivalent by tracking digital files along with the job ticket," says Bob Long, vice president of MetaCommunications.

By integrating this within a telecommunications framework, Dror Gronich, product marketing manager at Vio Worldwide, says Vio takes this one step further by triggering its M-cast digital media asset management application at the touch of a button in the Vio Job

Ticket. "This allows Vio users to log information used to describe the digital files being transmitted from anywhere in the world, as metadata in the DAM system database," Gronich explains.

Complete Communication
Traditional applications—such as estimating, job status reporting, job cost reporting, scheduling and inventory control—are all separate applications, Grieco states, but they must all be integrated with the electronic job ticket application in the shop for the sharing of information.

For example, Grieco notes that the estimate precedes the job ticket, but is critical info to have on it. Thus, he says it is necessary to share this information within other, related applications coming from the job ticket. In fact, he claims all dynamic interactions throughout the process—estimates of incoming jobs, jobs at various stages of printing, jobs being delivered—should be integrated into the electronic job ticket.

Ken Meinhardt, president of Tailored Solutions, says job costing has traditionally required only time and material collection. However, printers now want input from the production personnel to identify current problems, so that they are not repeated on future orders. Current data collection incorporates this quality control function, moving away from simple keypad data entry. According to Meinhardt, Litho Traxx allows operators to give feedback on job components through extensive note fields that are tied to production management reporting.

This trend, also noted by Grieco, is true, two-way communication in the electronic job ticketing system, which Printers Software has been providing for more than three years.

"Any employee, anywhere in the shop or anywhere along the production cycle, should be able to access, in real time, info about that job. Not only access, but report back to the office from the shop floor to the production office," emphasizes Grieco. "Information is a dynamic process: there can always be changes, for example, to the quantity. When something changes, someone can write online and immediately update the info, and it's updated throughout the shop. Instantaneous info, two-way communication.

"In reverse, the shop floor can communicate with the office," he continues. "As the job moves along, if there are any problems, the shop can make that info available to the office. Two-way communication between shop floor and office. Most systems are one-way, only from office to shop. More advanced systems, such as our E-Ticket, have two-way communication.

"This information must be shared with other systems on the job ticket—all systems contributing to computer management," he states, noting that work is being done to integrate JDF (job definition format) as the standard tool to interface management info with production info within the printing plant. "There must be common fields like job numbers and job descriptions—a common place to find that info within the production system."

JDF Collaboration
Adobe, Agfa, Heidelberg and MAN Roland recently collaborated to create the JDF standard.

"The printing industry will see a move toward standardizing the workflow process and communication to their job management systems," Meinhardt says. "One of the main objectives in the development of our system, Litho Traxx, is the improvement of the communication process from initial customer contact through estimating, order processing, scheduling, printing, finishing, shipping and invoicing. The core flexibility allows users to define and control the processes of print production."

Emerging standards like JDF are based on XML and, therefore, have the potential to enable vendors of job ticketing and information management systems to share information across organizations, Long adds. The implication, he says, is that a customer may actually be the initial creator of job tickets used later by the printer to produce jobs electronically.

Custom Job Tickets
As the industry moves toward standardizing the job flow process through JDF, nearly all of the electronic job ticketing vendors interviewed for this article agree that customization is key.

"Every print shop has a way they like presenting information to capture job details in their own shop terminology," Meinhardt says. "Even when companies implement a job management software solution, which streamlines their communication and production processes, they still request custom job tickets designed to their unique way of arranging production information. This is why Litho Traxx, through integrated report writers, continues to support its users' needs to develop customized job tickets."

"The job ticket is always the primary focus for customization. The development tools we use today make this type of customization much easier than it was a couple of years ago," asserts Micro Ink's Andersen.

Debbie Doby, COO of PRIMAC Systems, is one of those suppliers lauding customization features. She says printers may want to use multiple job ticket layouts, tailored to the unique needs of different product lines or plants: such as one for roll-label products and one for commercial printing; one for paperback books and one for casebound books.

Grieco offers that an electronic job ticketing system should be customizable and flexible enough to provide input and output formats.

While citing customization as a key trend, MetaCommunications' Long clarifies his observation by saying, "Job tickets are not just about process control. Almost every organization in the graphic arts industry has some type of job ticket, from content providers to commercial printers. It's about the paperwork and communication that surrounds the production of a job or project, and true customization is the only way to bridge the diversity.

"Recently released systems like Virtual Ticket are designed to be used in conjunction with traditional print management systems that are more focused on process control and data collection," he adds. "New systems like this essentially take a paper-based system and convert it to an electronic one, enabling users to benefit from the electronic age."

Future Customization
The electronic age will bring about other new trends in customization. Gronich cites two: Electronic job ticketing system users will be able to tailor job tickets with their own data fields and logos; and users will be able to see the results of preflight checks in the job ticket, without having to retrieve the job file. Such advancements are being incorpor-ated into next-version technologies.

Another feature, which Gronich believes will become a trend, if not a standard in the e-job tickets, is electronic mail notification built into the Vio Job Ticket. Vio users are automatically notified via e-mail of the arrival of any job tickets, as well as any changes made to those tickets along the way. Modifications to the job ticket are automatically reported and recorded on the ticket, and the job ticket version is updated.

Furthermore, Vio's Job Ticket supports Vio's basic file-transfer service by automatically tracking, managing and logging jobs, as well as triggering file transfers and automatic e-mail notifications.

"The point of computerization is to make people more productive," Gronich asserts. "By combining digital job ticketing with the possibilities presented by telecommunications and global networking, Vio's automatic e-mail notification is an example at the forefront of this trend. Using the job ticket as a familiar and easy-to-understand window to production greatly simplifies decision-making."

Doby is also a strong proponent of automatic e-mail notification, which is featured in PRIMAC's Job Information System. Since auto e-mail messaging is based on events that occur within the electronic ticket—for example, a paper change made to the original order/estimate—Doby says, it's automatically more efficient.

"If a change is made to the job ticket, an e-mail message is triggered and sent to the individual or group of individuals who need to be aware of the changes being made," she says.

Flexibility Is Key
Features such as automatic electronic mail messaging are providing next-generation efficiencies and equally important flexibility, which is another notable trend cited by electronic job ticketing experts.

New heights in system flexibility are being built into new systems. PRIMAC's Doby says flexibility of form design, data capture and presentation are key in the design of PRIMAC's e-job ticketing software, the Job Information System.

"The other critical aspect is, of course, to make this information globally available," she says, "which is achieved with the electronic image for any user with access to a PC."

Flexibility, she continues, is one of the most important capabilities an electronic job ticket can offer, because it provides users with tools that allow easy customization of job ticket presentations.

"No two printing operations use the same exact job tickets. No two job tickets are alike," she says, "because each company has its own 'slant' on what information is important and how the information needs to be presented to the plant."

Flexibility also offers a higher level of functionality, adds Gronich, who cites Vio's Job Ticket as an example: it can also activate a soft proofing tool or a media asset management application and automatically assign metadata to media entered by the database operator.

Flexibility also means being able to access job ticket information from the road: any PC, anywhere, any time. Which is one of the reasons Tailored Solutions has cited the Web browser as another trend in job ticketing and tracking technology.

"Because sales forces wish to retrieve job information while in the field, printers are requesting access to job ticket information using Web browsers," Meinhardt contends. "Litho Traxx is a Web-enabled software solution, which will enable printers to accomplish these goals. In addition, they'll want customized Website solutions, which reflect the needs and specialty areas they serve in the industry."

Cloning Previous Tickets
And here's one last virtual printing trend (well, trend-turned-reality): cloning.

Cloning is "the ability to create a new job ticket from a prior job ticket," explains Doby. "For repeat work, as found in the insert, magazine, label and carton industries, the user can clone the jacket from the prior job and change only what is needed. Production errors or other considerations learned during the last run and stored in the job ticket can be carried forward to the next job. Version control is maintained to keep track of revisions due to change orders."

So, there you have it. Leading technology providers look into their crystal balls and prophesy the future of electronic job ticketing. From e-commerce interfacing and Web browsing to customization and two-way communication, job tickets are hot spots for technology development.

As Grieco puts it, "The job ticket format has been ingrained into every print shop. The job ticket has been around since Gutenberg, in one form or another. In essence, it is the most important document—perhaps aside from the invoice—in the entire production phase."

Top Trends in Electronic Job Ticketing

Interfacing with e-commerce by linking dotcom company products with management systems;

Integrating the electronic job ticket with digital asset management systems;

Standardizing the communication with job management systems;

Communicating in two directions: between press and prepress;

Collaborating on JDF standardization;

Customizing job tickets;

Incorporating flexibility; and

Cloning

Future Trends

Print buying on the Internet will become widespread.

Many printing industry management systems will be run totally over the Internet.