At Graph Expo I had the opportunity to chat with Patrick Stuart. Patrick is the Technology Marketing Director at Bureau of Engraving, Inc in Minneapolis, MN.
Among the many things we discussed was the Is JDF Dead? discussion here at Print CEO Blog.
In the video segment below Patrick shares how The Bureau is utilizing JDF to drive process automation in the company's offset and digital printing operations.
Discussion
By Michel Jahn on Nov 04, 2008
The Power of Middleware by Cary Sherburne elsewhere at this site is 'spot on' - it will development of middleware that will help JDF thrive. JDF is not dead, nor will it "die" anymore than the file format for Microsoft word will die - it will evolve and grow. JDF is not really thriving or becoming as widely adopted as lets say, PDF because there is not a large of an ecosystem for JDF. Vendors depend on it and are thankful it exists, as it becomes a common language for process control communication, but for JDF to become as popular as PDF and as required as PDF - we need tools. PDF became useful for prepress exchange when Peter Camps invented Enfocus PitStop - a set of tools that could help use modify PDFs into what we required. What we need is the same for workflows. I think there is a very strong possibility that JDF will thrive as Peter and his team do that with Enfocus Switch - that is, build a workflow editor that is simple to use and easy to implement. Perhaps JDF will then become our industries widely used and wildly popular 'portable workflow format' PWF ?