Improve Production Workflow Management and Shop Efficiencies

Remote monitoring offers a range of features that lets production managers see the activity of their PRISMAsync-driven presses and actively manage them.

It’s a familiar scenario today: Flawless results are expected with impossible deadlines. Operators of different skill levels must efficiently produce complex documents while trying to control rising costs and production bottlenecks.

PRISMAsync Remote Manager from Canon U.S.A. is a multi-press scheduler and remote management console for expanded control of a customer's fleet (up to five connected devices). This Web-based tool helps shop floor operators manage a high-performing printing workflow by providing insight into their production schedules with the ability to upload jobs, edit job properties, and manipulate digital press queues from a remote location or workstation with ease.

“In the last six years, Source 3 Media (formerly Hudson Printing) has gone through a major transition. We have spent a lot of time and a lot of energy implementing standard operating procedures, implementing quality procedures, taking the time to become a G7-qualified facility, and maintaining that qualification,” said Al Carrero, owner of Source 3 Media, which is based in Macedonia, Ohio. “We needed to be able to improve our throughput, and one of the things that we are big proponents of is improved uptime.”

Carrero met with his distributor, Digital Print Solutions (DPS), and discovered PRISMAsync Remote Manager was a potential tool that was “going to be able help us manage all of our equipment a lot more efficiently than the way we were set up prior.”

To help avoid idle time, customers can benefit from the real-time status overviews and alerts provided by the multi-press PRISMAsync Scheduler from a single screen. The PRISMAsync Scheduler provides a visual guide of the jobs planned for up to five presses, which allows operators to plan production schedules one shift ahead (up to eight hours) for added efficiency. At a glance, print shop managers and operators can see the “time to completion” for jobs based on relevant settings and process parameters. And, to help achieve nonstop productivity, upcoming interventions are color coded, so operators can load media and toner and unload print output before a press stops.

Learn how Al Carrero and his company, Source 3 Media (formerly Hudson Printing), streamlined its workflow with the support of PRISMAsync Remote Manager and Canon's production digital presses. Click image to view video.

To provide expanded flexibility, the PRISMAsync Remote Manager allows production staff to submit jobs of print-ready PDF, PostScript, and PCL files via file import or drag-and-drop functionality. Additionally, users can edit job properties remotely. Now an operator can have full control over job settings, including page-level and color editing if that functionality is enabled.

Operators can actively manage and prioritize the print jobs in the queues or via PRISMAsync DocBoxes with the ability to reroute jobs from one digital press to another directly from PRISMAsync Remote Manager. The expanded capability of remotely changing job priorities, holding, reprinting, or rerouting print jobs provides users the flexibility needed to accommodate dynamic deadlines.

Operators and shop managers can now check the status of loaded media and other consumables remotely to help ensure the press is prepared to support the projects in its queue. Advanced system, media, and workflow settings of each connected press can be directly accessed from PRISMAsync Remote Manager.

For added flexibility, up to six concurrent users can access the production schedule around the clock and from anywhere in the world. The platform-independent, Web-based tool is compatible with HTML5 compliant browsers on Microsoft Windows and Apple iOS, with no additional software installation required on their workstation.

Supported PRISMAsync-driven engines include the imagePRESS C10000VP Series, imagePRESS C850 Series, imagePRESS C800 Series, imagePRESS C7011VPS  and C7010VPS production color digital presses series, the Océ VarioPrint 6000+ Series and the varioPRINT 140 series production monochrome digital presses.

“At one time, we had two shifts and one of our operators decided he was going to retire. We had two options: we could either fill the position or we could see if there was a way we could get more streamlined in our process. Today, we are able to do more work in half the time with one shift. With the help of PRISMAsync Remote Manager, we can manage all four machines and keep everything running,” said Carrrero. “We are able to batch a lot of our work now, and it makes it a lot more efficient. It’s helped us to reduce our costs and still maintain all our productivity, maintain our quality, and keep us running. We made quantum improvement in our costs when we implemented the software. I don’t really get business growth because of it, but I can handle business growth because of it.”

To learn more about Canon Production Solutions, please visit usa.canon.com/productionprinting.