The New Print Production Mantra: Unified Offset/Digital Workflow

To meet this range of customer demands, many printers have both offset and digital production operations. Until fairly recently, these operations were considered as separate businesses, often even located in different buildings with different business names. Jobs were prepared either for offset or digital based on conditions at the time the job was received or scheduled, and if for some reason, a job needed to be moved from digital to offset or vice versa, it often had to be prepared all over again, to meet a different set of equipment specifications and requirements. While buyers were enjoying the benefits of a blended offset/digital setting, printers were facing ever increasing challenges presented by the confluence of shorter runs, faster turn times, and disparate, parallel workflows, making it difficult to gain optimum benefit from their offset and digital investments.