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Something New Is in the Works

Automation turns web-to-print into “just add paper”

By Rebecca Trela

In its most literal sense, “web-to-print” signifies an online print order that flows directly to a machine and out the other side without human involvement. No FTP transfers, no prepress; just add paper. It’s a sophisticated process that involves complicated programming, and upfront investment is significant.

One of the industry’s most innovative automated facilities will open in May in St. Petersburg, Fla. Cox Target Media, the company that prints the distinctive Valpak blue coupon mailers, has worked for four years with print industry firms (Goss, Müller Martini, Daifuku, and Böwe Bell + Howell) to create a fully automated 470,000-sq. ft. facility. The $200 million plant will be filled with JDF/JMF enabled equipment (see sidebar), all of which uses the internet to send job messages. It will reduce the average amount of time to make one of the iconic coupon packets from four days to four hours.

“Cox Media’s goals on this project were maintaining the quantity, reducing overages and waste, and we needed to control the accounts,” says Jeff Woloshyn, a project manager for press delivery at Müller Martini, which supplied equipment and the master control system for the facility.

After years in integration meetings, says Jim Sampey, executive vice president of operations at Cox Media, two-thirds of the plant is ready. “In essence, we’ve eliminated the manual movement of product,” he says. “We’ve automated every system from when the raw plates come in to when it ships out the door. Most folks talk about automation and try to automate their press but we’ve actually mechanized the movement to the press and away from it.” Using robot cranes and vehicles integrated through a backbone software system, the company plans to “touch” only 2 percent of the envelope filler—the coupons—in the future.
“This is what our industry has been talking about for so long, but has been slow in coming,” Woloshyn says.

Cox’ facility is the newest and most innovative use of automated web-to-print technology, but the fundamental systems have been around since the late ‘90s, says Doug Stryker, manager of the print finishing division at Müller Martini. Those willing to forge ahead with technology have found enabled machines cost-prohibitive, a hurdle Cox hopes will protect their market advantage for some time.

There are ways to automate workflows that don’t utilize JDF, says Slava Apel, CEO of Toronto-based Amazing Print and an industry consultant, although they aren’t as popular—Adobe PDF workflow is one of them. “PDF and JDF work hand-in-hand, but PDF is a step below in complexity,” he says. In addition to the document information that a PDF file contains, JDF is an information “wrapper” that relays stock type, finish type, how many sheets of paper and other final data. “But designers already know how to output to PDF format, and JDF is very expensive in equipment. Who’s going to drive the adoption rate?”
As a result, most of the automation limelight gets hogged by big-budget operations, but it can be a good solution for smaller jobs or even smaller companies.

The new Cox Media printing facility in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“Our entire business is driven by short run web-to-print solutions,” says Andy Cooney, director of business development at Rochester, N.Y.-based ColorCentric Corp. Since 2002, this all-digital manufacturer has grown into a robust manufacturing facility with 70 employees. The company sells entirely through web-based distributors, some of whom sell through other companies.
“The system is entirely touch-free, where we’re relying on our machines—all iGen3s—to put together everything from business cards to marketing brochures to novels.” The low cost of an automated, digitally-printed piece allows ColorCentric to sustain an average order size of 1.5 units, with most paperback novels approximately the same price available at bookstores. In fact, the company even encourages customers to bypass proofs.

“The easiest and cheapest way to look at your book?” he queries. “Just buy one! You already uploaded and checked off all the data. It’s only $10—we’ll send it to you and then your book is in your hands.” Most orders ship within 48 hours.

“When I visited ColorCentric,” Apel says, speaking of his new business partner, “their biggest problem was not with the software or the presses but with couriers picking it up. Getting the jobs into the shop is easier than getting them out!”

The orders come through the distributor’s website first, explains Phil Wessels, president of Qoop.com in Mill Valley, Calif., and that software turns the .jpg or the .tif into a PDF. That is configured to go to various vendors, depending on the product. The information is configured to XML standards, so that from the moment the end user presses “send” to the moment the design leaves the printer, no human hand touches it. “Some facilities are more sophisticated than others,” Wessels says, “We can ‘interrupt’ the process and work on it manually at any point, if need be.”

Automatic for the People
Automation might come slowly, expensively or haltingly, but come it will. “There is already some trouble getting qualified finishing people in pressrooms,” Woloshyn says. “But eventually, definitely, the trend is toward the reduction of manpower in the industry.” Currently, the technology is most feasible for bigger companies and longer press runs. But the technology will lend itself especially to smaller jobs as it becomes affordable. “Short runs spend more time in makeready than anything else. If they can automate that process through computer technology, could they drastically reduce their job time? Absolutely,” Woloshyn says.
For years, the print industry has struggled with the personnel question, and automation knocking at the door poses it again: to what degree will new technology replace people, both in the pressroom and in the distribution channel?

“That’s something we’ve really worked on,” says Sampey of Cox Media. In 2004, the company announced to 950 employees that it would construct a new automated facility, a transition which could put them out of a job. The company offered them the option of an extensive training program, readying the workers for higher-skilled positions in the new facility or at other Cox plants. Two years of classes later—from IT courses to English lessons—have transitioned all but 50 or 100 employees to new jobs, and most will enjoy a 10 to 20 percent raise, he says.

“We felt a strong responsibility to these people,” Sampey continues, “and we needed to train employees for the new facility, regardless. In the longer-term cycle, the labor savings do make a lot of sense.” Cox has been growing and hiring rapidly for the past decade, which put the company in a unique position to expand. “Three to seven years from now is when we’ll probably fully realize what we did,” he laughs.

“We don’t discount the value of what the distributor brings,” Cooney says. “They’re doing the very hardest part, handling the interface, finding the customer, maintaining the customer. They are out there in the field, selling a toolkit we provide, and it’s unquestionable that their contribution is important to the business.”

A growing consensus of users and the greater familiarity with technology has created a snowball effect in the industry, bringing more and more firms along in the web-to-print wave.

“Basically this is the direction you want to talk about going,” says Casey Nygaard at distributorship Badger Graphic Systems, Sun Prairie, Wis. “It secures the customers you already have. It’s an excellent resource to place orders, see proofs and keep you on the edge of technology. We got into it when our bigger customers were approached by companies who could do web-to-print,” she says, and it has propelled the firm forward in successful sales.

Rebecca Trela is assistant editor at Print Solutions magazine. Email comments to rtrela@PSDA.org.

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