LAS VEGAS - Expanding on their long-term partnership, Xerox Corporation and EFI will collaborate to develop workflow solutions that will help print providers improve business operations by streamlining the flow of data between management information systems (MIS) and EFI Fiery -driven digital presses. The companies announced their agreement today at EFI's Connect 2004 User Conference, a four-day networking and product-training event with more than 800 registered printing professionals, partners and analysts. Print providers depend on management information systems to manage customer estimates, prioritize jobs, generate invoices and handle the business side of their operations. Yet, as printers ramp up to handle more short-run digital print jobs, more job-related information is being generated from their digital presses. With information such as job specifications flowing from MIS, and job status reports flowing back from digital presses, it's crucial that both systems be fully integrated to keep operations running smoothly, to control costs and to ensure overall productivity. "Xerox and EFI will provide integrated workflow solutions that enable customers to maximize returns on their business investments and get the most from both offset and digital equipment," said Mike Kucharski, vice president, Xerox Workflow Business Team. "We will design workflow solutions based on open standards that link Xerox digital presses to a printer's MIS operations, leveraging the information that is vital to their success." Both Xerox and EFI are proponents of JDF, the open electronic job-ticketing format developed by the CIP4 industry standards organization. The workflow solutions they develop will be based on JDF and will integrate Xerox's FreeFlow(TM) software and EFI's MIS software such as Hagen OA, providing instant feedback on job status, job completion and final billing. "Print providers are seeking affordable, open, scaleable and interoperable workflow solutions from MIS to prepress to Fiery-driven digital devices that will help them become more competitive and capture new opportunities in on-demand printing and variable-data printing," said Marc Olin, vice president and general manager, EFI Commercial Print Systems. "Working together with Xerox on these expanded workflow initiatives, we will help printers increase their productivity, reduce their production times and printing costs, and offer their customers new services and increased communication."