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Ricoh facilitates flow of information between offset and digital printers with new software

Thursday 17. September 2015 - RICOH TotalFlow Print Server enables jobs managed for offset to be seamlessly integrated into digital press workflows

Ricoh Americas Corporation today announced its new RICOH TotalFlow Print Server software, designed to help operators of hybrid print environments get the most out of both their digital and offset presses. The new offering, compatible with both the RICOH Pro C7100 and RICOH Pro C9100 series, aims to eliminate extra steps in transitioning jobs meant for offset devices to digital printers without sacrificing quality.

With more digital printers being integrated into offset environments, many organizations are struggling to reap the full capabilities of their diverse fleet due to headaches associated with shifting jobs between platforms. Transitioning offset jobs to digital costs time and introduces extra opportunity for user error – two major pain points that would encourage a printer to utilize a digital device in the first place. Usually, when a print job is set up for offset but is then required to print on a digital device, it must be manually submitted to the digital workflow and then carefully edited again to fit these new requirements. In addition to being slow and leaving the transition open to errors, these steps pull operators’ focus from other important tasks within a shop. With RICOH TotalFlow Print Server, this challenge is instantly resolved.

RICOH TotalFlow Print Server is a unique solution that fills a gap faced by printers during the offset to digital transition and offers seamless connectivity with KODAK PRINERGY Workflow 7 and Heidelberg’s Prinect, further allowing information to move unencumbered throughout a print operation. With this solution in a commercial, in-plant or print-on-demand environment, customers can now trust that their end-to-end workflow is seamless, their job management is more streamlined and effective, and their color and layout consistency between devices is improved.

“Many of our customers run operations that use both offset and digital printers, and we were seeing so many of them struggling to efficiently leverage both sides of their shops,” said John Fulena, Vice President, Production Printing Business Group, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “We knew we had to act, especially due to the lack of effective solutions addressing this need. In today’s increasingly fast-paced production print environments, digital and offset have to be able work together seamlessly, completing jobs with the quickness and quality people have come to associate with our customers’ operations.”

RICOH TotalFlow Print Server, leveraging its Rules-Based Automation (RBA), boasts the following capabilities:

Automate workshop and server tasks (such as moving files) to increase efficiency and reduce manual touch points;
Send emails to keep relevant parties up to date and allowing adjustments when necessary;
Schedule tasks to maximize efficiency by leveraging information about device availability and capabilities;
Make decisions based on data stored within a job, helping to ensure systems run as smoothly as if print experts were evaluating and handling jobs;
Interact with other machines and integrate with other applications, such as MIS, to create a unified print opera