JDF application in future digital printing
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The Computer Integrated Manufacturing System (CIM) has been around for more than 30 years and has achieved great success in many industries. However, the printing industry is lagging behind in this regard. People have only seen it as a way to improve the new technology in recent years. This does not mean that the printing industry's demand for automation is less urgent. On the contrary, due to the increasing number of short-run jobs, the printing volume is decreasing, and the price is getting more and more intense due to fierce competition, but the printing jobs are becoming more and more complicated. In view of these circumstances, the automation reform of the printing industry is already urgent. In order to maintain turnover and profit, it is urgently needed to develop a fully automated digital printing workflow that will make the printing industry more productive, flexible and transparent.
The emergence of JDF has greatly changed the situation. JDF is not only a highly flexible and comprehensive solution, no matter how many devices are needed for printing jobs, no matter how complicated the printing job, JDF can establish an effective communication channel between all aspects of the printing process. From the time the customer places an order to the final product delivered to the customer, JDF is able to connect the management information system in the printing process with the actual production process. In addition, JDF is able to connect the two most important components of the printing program, MIS (Management Information System), to actual print production.
1. Digital printing workflow and its core
The digital workflow is to integrate the three processes of prepress, printing and postpress into an inseparable and fully automated system with digital production control information and management information, so that the digital graphic information is completely and accurately circulated and finally processed. Made into a printed product. The pace of application of CIM technology in the printing industry is relatively slow, and there may be some problems in the application of automatic control technology. A further complication problem stems from the lack of a consistent communication standard in a multi-vendor environment that allows disparate systems to communicate easily while the job is being processed. This is why JDF was born.
In early 1999, the four members of the CIP3 Association, Heidelberg, Manroland, Agfa and Adobe, jointly developed the first version of JDF and established the JDF Alliance. The alliance's commitment to combining management information and production content with hardware and software is in line with the original intention of the CIP3 Association to advance the integration of post-press processing and printing processes. So on July 24, 2000, the two major alliances reached an agreement - the CIP4 Association was established, and the intellectual property of JDF was directly transferred to the CIP4 Association. JDF is a fully automated workflow that is rapidly evolving due to its ability to make print production more efficient, more flexible, and more transparent. This standard sets a milestone for the application of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) in the printing industry.
2. JDF
JDF (Job Definition Format) is a job description format, which is an XML-based definition format. That is, the printing task can be regarded as a job that goes through many production processes, and JDF provides a format for describing such a job according to the production process. This format allows the user to clarify the necessary controls in each process, direct the production unit to perform the production process, and can be used to exchange between pre-business management and post-production execution. It provides a common framework for the system to communicate with each other and to illustrate the work process. Because it allows different devices and software programs to share information for a more modern and organized production process, JDF makes CIM solutions possible.
3. JDF's outstanding features
3.1 JDF is applied to the whole process of printing, and can give a unified standard format for design, prepress, printing, postpress and delivery.
3.2 JDF bridges the gap between information processing services and management information services. It tracks print jobs and related equipment in real time, as well as pre- and post-press data processing.
3.3 JDF can establish a communication bridge between customer requirements and actual production processes by defining two production-independent and production-related workflows.
3.4 JDF can define and track processes for a variety of users, and it can be combined with a single workflow across the industry, including media, design, print, web, and e-commerce companies, without being limited to a fixed process model.
3.5 JDF can integrate a wide range of products from different merchants into a seamless workflow solution. JDF will be the foundation for the various systems that vendors will develop in the future, and will have a crucial impact on the future of fully automated workflows.
4. The superiority of JDF
In the field of printing, there have been some standards in the past, PPF, PDF, PJTF, etc., but any format can not cover the entire process of printing industry from business management to production management to resource management, as well as pre-press, India and post-press. JDF is based on these technologies and is compatible with these formats. It combines these technologies and other standards to become a more effective and powerful standard. This made JDF quickly develop into a formal standard and was recommended as an industry standard.
Moreover, JDF has a strong tree information structure, and the encoding method is based on XML, which is very flexible. Can solve different problems (as shown in Figure 1).
5. The goal of JDF
The goal of JDF is to create a digital "job package" that is used to describe and exchange information on different parts of the process, at different stages of the print job, and to describe print jobs in all existing states. Unlike other job ticket formats, JDF can describe all processes from submission of jobs to pre-press, print, and post-press. The method is to convert each step in the production of the workpiece into a node in the JDF file. A JDF node is an XML element, which can be related information about the production process, such as folding, binding, and cutting; It can be information about the product, such as the final printed product; it can also be both. Each individual node, ie each process, is determined by input and output resources. The inputs to a process include the various resources used by the process and the various parameters that control the process.
Built on the CIP3 Alliance and Adobe's PJTF data format, JDF covers all aspects of the print workflow, making prepress, print, and postpress integration. JDF builds a bridge of communication between MIS and product services, enabling timely tracking of print jobs and equipment, as well as pre-press and post-press data, making pre- and post-calculation possible, providing a way for customers to The order is the method used to describe the entire process of the final product delivered to the customer. Let the print buyer make a request to the printer through a web page dialogue, and the customer can also ask for vague requirements related to a specific product.
It can be seen that JDF can effectively communicate existing workflows and allow parallel work. JDF supports dynamic data exchange, allowing you to understand the various materials and usage used in each different production process, as well as information about related equipment, job progress and job waiting management, greatly improving the transparency of production. It provides a detailed description of the print job at both the production and customer levels. It leverages existing technology and acts as a leverage between existing standards. And because of the XML language, object-oriented design, the implementation will be relatively simple.
The digital printing work system is the mainstream of development in the next ten years. Due to the characteristics of the production organization of the printing enterprise, we cannot adopt the pattern of other industries one-sidedly in the research and implementation of information integration of printing enterprises. It is necessary to study and discuss the information integration mode suitable for the development of printing enterprises in combination with the characteristics of printing enterprises. And JDF is the essence of the automation of the printing workflow, which will implement the CIM system for the printing industry. JDF will be the standard for describing and controlling individual processes and entire workflows in the printing industry, supporting continuous production control, the ability to offload and combine orders, and drive automated workflows from multiple sources, including printers and prepress equipment suppliers. Effective cooperation between. Suitable for any printer, which allows all manufacturers, vendors and printers to develop JDF-based workflow systems.
In the future, JDF will be able to clearly define what to print and how to print it, regardless of the source of the file, and who will print it. When this happens, the printing industry will make strides towards a true computer integrated manufacturing system concept.