MIS -> Press -> MIS

[SlRlUS]

Hello Community,
i am curious: Has anyone a link between the MIS and the press? I am wondering if job-related data (quantity, sheet sizes, estimated make-ready times etc) will be passed through to your presses automaticly and if the press reports data back into the MIS (either via fileinterface, JMF or any other technology).
I am aware that a lot of print shops using external terminals with manual data collection for reporting back - but i want to know if the data comes back without the use of external terminals. Straight from the press back into the MIS.

Anyone else who is reading this and is not involved (yet?): Where do you see the pros and the cons on that?

Cheers,
SlRlUS

 

[Morning Flight]

Hi Sirius,

I don't think technology has reached the point where we can fully trust the hardware to communicate with the mothership without human intervention. And as long as someone with a pulse still has to look at what's coming back into the MIS before it goes out the door as an invoice, there aren't a whole lot of pros to spending a ton of money on the interface. With Digital, maybe, but certainly not with Offset.

On the flip side, during my 30 odd years as a print shop owner, there were plenty of days where I wouldn't have trusted the press operator to give me an accurate count of all the wasted sheets littering the pressroom floor. Maybe some gadget attached to the press might have been less concerned with staying on the payroll!

I no longer own that print shop. These days, I keep busy writing software for more than 4,400 other printers. Take a look at the attached job ticket produced by the Gold Edition of Printfire Morning Flight. Not much to fill out by the press operator, either with pencil or on a keyboard. Unless you're running heavy iron, it's probably not worthwhile to try to automate that minor part of the production cycle. Just another thing waiting for an expensive service call.

All the best,
Hal

 

[Dennis Ryan]

Hello Sirus, I see you are a vendor but you or someone with Heidelberg presses might want to check out the Prinect Pressroom Manager. This is a JDF/JMF workflow solution for the pressroom designed with the primary function to receive JDF from an MIS source and prepress and to generate presetting data for the networked and integrated presses. With JDF this can be more than zonal ink key presets. Then via the bi-directional nature of the interface, JMF status messages can be used to provide up to the minute job tracking as well as cost data collection which can be returned to the MIS system with little or no manual input. The amount of presetting and reporting depends of course to the generation of the printing press.

Check out Heidelberg - Prinect Pressroom Manager - Overview

 

[SlRlUS]

Hello Dennis,
thanks for your answer. I am aware of the Heidelberg equipment. I'm dealing with the same kind of software as you do, but for another german press manufactor with three blue letters. ;-)

I'm currently having an issue with Heidelberg Prinance regarding the connectivity with Signastation in order to marry JDF and CIP3, but that's another story.

My intention by asking those questions in the initial posting is to figure out how "the outside world" - the printing industry - is soaking up that topic. Especially the US printing market seems to be a little JDF-tiered. Well, not only JDF related but speaking in general when it comes to add the press into an automatic workflow (data transfer via ODBC, fileinterfaces (your BDE files for example) and so on).

All the best,
SlRlUS

 

[SlRlUS]

Hi Sirius,
On the flip side, during my 30 odd years as a print shop owner, there were plenty of days where I wouldn't have trusted the press operator to give me an accurate count of all the wasted sheets littering the pressroom floor. Maybe some gadget attached to the press might have been less concerned with staying on the payroll!

I just visited a print shop which pays their operators a mix of a fix salary and a share depending on their productivity and efficiency - i think the need for accurate data here is mandatory. I don't think that anyone requires data which is ready for the outside (invoices) without a control instance. However, the lack of human interference seems to produce better data than "hand-written" informations - according to my experience.

 

[James Mauro]

MIS to PRessroom

MIS to PRessroom

All modern Heidelberg Speedmaster presses posses the ability to accept job information from MIS that can be used to preset many parameters on the press, besided only the ink presetting data (PPF). Additionaly, these presses can also produce an enormous amount of production data that can ultilately be delivered to a print management system (MIS). When integrating a Speedmaster press with the Heidelberg MIS, Prinect Prinance, it is possible to integrate the press and Prinect Prinance directly. However, our preferred method for MIS integration is through a recently introduced plateform called the Prinect Pressroom Manager.

The Pressroom Manager is an integration system contructed with JDF as its DNA and is required for integrating a Heidelberg press (or several) with a JDF tested and proven MIS. In this workflow, the MIS delivers a JDf to the Pressroom Manager, which also collects the ink presetting data (PPF) for ink presetting calculation. The data are combined into a single file that the press uses for very thorough press presetting, of course depending on presetting capability of the press. As the press is running, production data are transferred in real time to the Prinect Pressroom Manager, where users can observe press production and performance. In addition, the Pressroom Manager delivers this production data, as JMF (Job Messaging Format) to the integrated MIS, whether it is Prinect Prinance or any other connected JDF-enabled MIS. Incidentally, there are many JDF certified MIS from around the world that have been verified to work with the Prinect integrated environment, whether in the pressroom or in prepress.

As you can see, it is possible to realize MIS-press integration...

I hope this helps,
Jim Mauro
Heidelberg USA, Inc.

 

[mark_anderson_us]

Hi Sirius

As others have mentioned, it is certainly possible to send JDf to the press for auomated setup (assuming press is capable), and to get JMF messages back about status and costs. however, there are several practical concerns:

You may need a very expensive upgrade. I had a clinet who would have had to pay $50K to get this on two sheet fed presses. Another who bought a brand new press and had to pay in excess of $75K for electronics and software upgrades to support JDF/JMF.

Assuming you already have what's required, or money is no object, you then have to deal with several other issues:

Mapping of user ID's and operation codes to those in the MIS. this becomes a real pain if you have presses from different vendors. Also, the messages you get may not be much use. I did some work for a press vendro at GXPo a few years ago to convert their ASCII files to JMF messages. this had vendor had about a few dozen stop codes (reason for stoppage). in the JMF message you got "stopped". Any decent MIS will give you shift, crew and machine perfromance reports. Stopped is no use to anyone for this.

The other issue is reliable delivery. If you're using the messages for costing or perfromance (that will affect pay an/or bonuses) you make make sure you don't lose messages. Support for reliable delivery of JMF is new in JDF1.4. Some vendors have added proprietory support in prior version, but I'm not aware of any press vendors who support this (there may be some). Many vendors just use fire and forget. they send the message, if it's gets lost, tough. No-one knows about it. Messages can be lost due to network, software and hardware failure (or just bugs).

We had a customer in scandinavia who was thinking about adding JMF support to two of his presses. in the end, he bought our shop floor data collection with DMI instead. Cost was lower and quality of data was much higher, and more importantly, consistent from all machines around the plant. The units can run standalone incase of network or main server failure and will transfer information when the server comes back on lne. All users, operation codes, etc. are centrally managed and accessible on all devices (web and sheet-fed presses, folders, stitchers, etc.). Also, the users have one app to learn and the company has one to support It doesn't matter who's press, or piece of bindery equipment I'm using the UI uis the same.

Finally, JDF complicates upgrades. You get an upgrade from your press vendor that now uses JDF 1.4, but your MIS only supports 1.2 or 1.3. What are you going to do?

JDF/JMF does have it's place and will be successful, but IMHO right now SFDC with DMI is way better for the shop floor right now.

Regards

Mark

 

[chiefy]

We manage 6 sheetfed presses and currently run Heidelberg Prinect (awaiting prepress manager upgrade). We have been aiming and working towards JDF/JMF intergration with our MIS system for the last 18 months. In theory it sounds and looks great and data recieved back for job analysis, make ready etc is great but we have been held up by lack of knowledge and ownership. Our IT are not given enough time or resource to adapt our MIS to configure the relevent data, they blame the Heidelberg and expect it to work out the box, Heidelberg generally blame MIS that they have not adapted their software to the current marketplace expectations and MIS blame everyone and then say we have to spend on the next upgrade. We also felt there were too many holes in the current press room manager/data control package but i am very excited by the demo i have seen or prepress manager and press room manager combined in the latest upgrade. Unfortunaly i still see problems between our own IT and MIS getting together with enough brain power to solve the scripting and customising of data.
I know Prinect very well and am trying to increase my knowlege of our MIS and JDF to be able to understand and solve the obstacles myself.