(PART 3)
The Current and Future Impact or Digital Technologies and
Market Dynamics on Printing and Publishing Workflows

We often hear direct digital printing spoken of as &on-demand & printing. But a key to our future success is to realize that ALL PRINTING IS ON-DEMAND PRINTIG. Printers will have to streamline and improve their processes, enhance their quality, and broaden the value they deliver to their customers. It's all happening, right now.

So is digital distribution of advertising for publications - Known by the acronym DDAP. DDAP is already in use in the United States, and will grow. Ads are being created, maintained, proofed, and transmitted to production sites. The potential savings here total about a billion dollars in a $25 billion industry.

To summarize, our expectation, for the next several years, is that we'll see more and more documents being created, we'll see color images being obtained from a variety of sources beyond the traditional scanning of originals, and most important, we'll see rapid growth of high speed data networks that will position print in a broader business context than ever before.

Offset will remain the process of choice for a long time to come, we believe. Even what we might call &conventional& offset will remain highly competitive. The combination of a high performance, fast multicolor offset press with practical, computer-driven plate making adds up to a very powerful player in any market you care to mention. The long useful life of printing presses means printers can spread their costs over many years. They can get the press ready for a new job more quickly than ever. The new generation of presses wastes hardly any paper or ink in getting to its first acceptable copy. And computer-to-plate imaging means the press won't be slowed down by the need to wait for plates. These systems make plates faster than their presses need them. For the printer, this means the press can run virtually continuously, going from job with blinding speed. That's a recipe for profits, and for satisfied customers.

An offset litho press, in combination with digital platemaking, is a powerhouse in many settings. First, it delivers higher quality, almost without exception. Second, it delivers this quality at 15,000 sheets per hour. The range of available paper sizes is great. And advance in make-ready and platemaking have been so remarkable that this press configuration can move from job so quickly it's highly competitive even for very short runs.

Perfecting technology has ad advanced to the point that four -over four or five -over -five printing is now a highly feasible and highly economical way to handle press runs of all lengths. The printer, in other words, is better equipped to compete than ever before.

Our new study predicts the average run length for print jobs will decline by 10 percent over the next five years. More targeted and individualized printing and publishing will grow three to five times as fast as mass and even niche products.. On-line, on-demand, network printing and other &pull& forms of demand fulfillment will grow three to eight times more quickly than conventional media.

● CONCLUSION

From our study, we came a conclusion: &The mid-to-long-term direction is towards anticipatory, dynamic content, structured for a specific need context, and delivered to the right person, at the right place, at the right time.&

The trends also lend even greater urgency to the creation of meaningful and accepted technical standards. Standards development is a major activity for NPES. NPES had taken a leadership position in the development of U.S. Technical Advisory Group to the International Organization for Standardization's Technical Committee 130 on Graphic Technology. NPES also serves as administrator for the steadily expanding International Color Consortium, a body that is developing the tools we need to manage color with uniform quality across platforms, work environments, and media.

Creating these standards, and promoting their recognition and usr throughout the industry, is among our most important jobs and among the most important keys to realizing the promise of digital workflow.

(C)Japan Association of Graphic Arts Technology


｜HOME｜JAGATについて｜