I expect readers of this publication are getting somewhat fed up with me telling you that IPEX is coming. For readers in North America IPEX is not that significant an event compared with Print/Graph Expo or drupa. It is however important in identifying trends and how they develop. It is also a useful event for seeing regional developments that perhaps have not reached the North American market.

One of these trends that I have mentioned regularly in my writing is that of print management. In North America this still has limited acceptance, whereas in the UK it is a major part of the printing industry. A few of the largest companies in this area are well known, companies like Astron and Williams Lea, both of which have been acquired by major organizations within the past year. These two companies go far beyond print management and are world leaders in business process outsourcing. There are however many other print management companies in the UK, whose major business is as it states, print management.

I am moderating a discussion on the first day of IPEX in the Innov8 Theatre on how workflow has benefited companies. This is a roundtable discussion with two medium sized print companies who have implemented full digital workflows with sophisticated MIS systems feeding into a full factory based workflow solution. In preparation for this I have been discussing their methods of operation with these two companies to get a better understanding of how they work. What is interesting is that these are relatively small but highly efficient companies which could not operate successfully in their markets without a full digital workflow. You may well therefore be asking, what has this got to do with print management?