Despite the potential offered by JDF to automate and integrate production there is cynicism in the market. One of the biggest criticisms levelled at JDF is that not all equipment will be JDF-enabled for years, or for some finishing kit possibly decades. But that maybe missing the point. Just because some bits of equipment in one part of the factory can't be directly linked by JDF doesn't mean there aren't benefits to be had from using it in parts where it can help improve overall efficiency....

"It's going to save you money" is the blunt answer to why you should care about JDF from Martin Bailey, chief executive of CIP4, the organisation responsible for looking after the three little letters that will be causing the biggest fuss at Drupa.

Those three letters have been adopted by the industry as a mantra for this year's show, which has even been officially called "the JDF Drupa". JDF is a handle to peg the big themes that are emerging onto. A few years back PDF was the big thing and in both cases the file formats are something easy to grab onto, but the underlying issue is workflow. PDF was all about more efficient and automated pre-press workflow. JDF expands that beyond pre-press to cover all production, and even further to cover the business aspects too.

Workflow has come to be a shorthand term for the pre-press workflow, as this has, up to now, been the area where the arrival of digital data has had the biggest impact and has led to automation or elimination of many manual tasks and processes.

The big picture

The term workflow is now being extended to cover the entire process from the moment a customer asks for a quote or places an order to its delivery and invoicing. It makes sense to consider the process in its entirety rather than as separate islands, but that needs a universal means of communicating across the factory floor and into the offices upstairs, which is where JDF comes in.

A JDF file is the digital equivalent of a job bag. It contains all the information needed for a job to be produced, and can have notes and instructions added to it, either by operators or automatically by the equipment used at each stage. Being digital it has a huge advantage over a physical job bag in that at any point anyone who needs to access the details, and amend them, can.

Before JDF came along there were attempts to come up with job tickets and electronic job bags, such as Adobe's Portable Job Ticket Format (PJTF), a sister to PDF for pre-press job instructions, and the Print Production Format (PPF) for taking information from pre-press into the press room and bindery. PPF was a success and is widely used for press presetting, but all these formats confined themselves to production.

Streamlining production only goes so far in improving the efficiency of a business and cutting costs, there is also the need for management to monitor production to make sure it is operating efficiently and that costs are accurately allocated and to keep customers informed of the status of the job.

It was these requirements that led to the development of JDF to provide a single store for all the details that make up a job. In effect it is to ensure that everyone is singing off the same hymn sheet, cutting the duplication of tasks and the need to re-enter information relating to the job in each department.

A common file with all the details of a job should allow the Customer Service Rep (CSR) to see where a job is and tell the client or, if the system allows it, allow the customer to check the status themselves. The financial director can look at the quote and the production costs to make sure the job is profitable and the production director should be able to see all stages of production and to react or even pre-empt potential problems.

A big question hanging over their adoption is where in the process and what will control and manage the JDF files?

"People consider the controller to be an MIS, but it's more likely to be a prepress workflow management system," says Bailey. "Much has been written about how JDF only works with MIS, but only 20-30% of firms can afford MIS. For small sites imposition software is used as control station for workflow. The guy controlling the imposition controls the workflow. This small and simple workflow is popular and very widespread. Today it relies on process control information being sent using PostScript. That's not so with PDF, so this workflow has not moved to PDF - JDF enables that to happen."

Drupa will be a chance to see how JDF can be used in different workflows - it's early days yet - but there are signs that there will be a range of options for how JDF is used and many will fit in with existing equipment and methods, if required. For users JDF should be transparent. Worrying about XML syntax or the JDF schema or any other jargon shouldn't bother anyone involved, all they should see is more automation, better visibility of what stage a job is at and hopefully a more healthy bottom line.

Time constraints

Despite the potential offered by JDF to automate and integrate production there is cynicism in the market. One of the biggest criticisms levelled at JDF is that not all equipment will be JDF-enabled for years, or for some finishing kit possibly decades. But that maybe missing the point. Just because some bits of equipment in one part of the factory can't be directly linked by JDF doesn't mean there aren't benefits to be had from using it in parts where it can help improve overall efficiency. Rejecting JDF out of hand because it won't work with everything is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Even if you can't network a particular piece of kit that doesn't mean there aren't ways around that. "If it is relevant you can put consoles next to equipment that is not JDF enabled," says Bailey. It may not be quite so elegant as the totally automated factory where data flows seamlessly from process to process, but a PC in the bindery providing details on the jobs coming in and taking information on jobs running through is huge benefit.

One of the most encouraging things about JDF is that it will make its biggest impact where it is implemented first and most rapidly - in pre-press and MIS. Both of these processes are reliant on software, which can be easily updated to handle JDF. You may find that your equipment is JDF-enabled by default with the next software update. As jobs become more complicated and runs get shorter, prepress and administration account for an increasing proportion of a jobs costs. So the savings achieved make a bigger contribution to the bottom line.

If you remain unconvinced then Drupa will provide a golden opportunity to see JDF in action both in dedicated areas and on the showfloor. CIP4 and Drupa organiser Messe Dusseldorf will co-organise a series of events. There will be five different events and activities dedicated to promoting the application of JDF at the show.

A "Compass Session" will provide an insight into the applications of JDF; presentations in the Innovation Arena will highlight where to find JDF on the show floor; a JDF cafe will provide demonstrations and a chance to meet with representatives from CIP4. And of course firms will be showing their own products, whether it is the one-stop shop approach of Heidelberg under the Prinect banner in halls one and two or the multi-vendor workflows shown by NGP members and in PrintCity.

"My only message to cynics is to come and see it at Drupa," says Bailey. "They will be flabbergasted by the number of JDF products."