Details:
Summary:
Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is becoming increasingly important and forms a central pillar within print production workflows. Each process throughout the production workflow is having automated systems introduced that are either software or machine driven. This may be features such as automated imposition or servo motors to help machine setup. These are creating very effective individual systems with high production rates. The underlying feature with new product development is improvement of throughput as a result of the systems, and has been the focus previous TAGA papers [1]. The connectivity between these different systems is critical to ensure effective implementation and ensure that we do not have the so called "islands of automation." To achieve this connectivity one of the main methods being implemented is a JDF-enabled workflow. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of an automated system within prepress to transfer data between different devices and impact the productivity. The paper describes an experimental and analytical investigation to quantify the direct time savings, increased productivity, and management information captured with automated systems and JDF connectivity in the production facility. This project has focused on the savings that can be made between the following areas of production: 1.Prepress workflow systems 2. Management Information Systems The time savings from automation and JDF are quantified under the different production scenarios for the complexity of jobs. This shows that the benefits gained are a combination of the automation and JDF, the increased complexity of the job provides greater benefit of the JDF-enabled system. This is combined with benchmarking information on job throughput to provide the projected savings for different production environments.