SYSTEM INTEGRATION -- Process Ins and Outs

There is an obvious consequence to all these efforts at system integration that in some ways would be the biggest development of all—yet it doesn't get talked about much. Whether a manufacturer needs to play in all three arenas—prepress, press and bindery—may be open to debate, but realistically the printer has to own all three processes in order to reap the full benefit of end-to-end system integration. In theory, open standards should make it possible for independent operations to cooperatively implement an integrated workflow, but in practice that would greatly increase the magnitude of the challenge.