Software automates repetitive tasks from creation through printing and finishing

MALVERN, PA, – Ricoh Americas Corporation today unveiled RICOH TotalFlow® 2.0, a production print management software to help print service providers streamline pre-print tasks. It directly addresses the needs of small and medium-sized print service providers in both commercial and in-plant settings who need to move swiftly through their ever-expanding schedules of increasingly complex print jobs.

Automating a host of repetitive tasks, TotalFlow 2.0 mobilizes information from job creation through printing and finishing. The three-part solution includes TotalFlow Prep software for fast, accurate print setup, TotalFlow PrintManager to optimize printing efficiency, and TotalFlow ProductionManager for advanced print management capabilities.

“As a services company, we’re committed to helping our customers work as productively as possible with our production printers,” said Tim Vellek, Vice President, Production Printing Business Group, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “That’s why we’re giving our small and medium-sized business customers software with powerful capabilities that are still proportional to the work they do every day. Too often, they have been forced to overinvest in capabilities they’ll never use. TotalFlow is the right solution to help them meet their most important business objectives.”

TotalFlow Prep helps print service providers create print jobs, quickly combining multiple files of different formats into one printable PDF file. They can perform simple edits, select the right media and choose finishing options matched to each printer. Visual ticketing lets operators quickly check key details before printing.

TotalFlow PrintManager, supporting up to five printers, automates many previously manual tasks, including job ticketing, scheduling, reporting and finishing. The software prioritizes important jobs and directs them to the devices that will deliver the best and most affordable results based on client needs. Providers can produce a variety of reports on printer usage and performance to help further optimize the operation.

TotalFlow ProductionManager offers advanced capabilities such as preflight integration, color management integration, digital print load balancing and support for up to 10 printers. With print pooling, Ricoh TotalFlow ProductionManager determines which device offers the necessary availability, throughput and quality to complete the job most effectively. Organizations can customize workflows using drag-and-drop icons for proofing, approval, PDF transformation and more. The software includes Postscript-to-PDF and PCL-to-PDF transforms to support legacy environments, and automatically compiles reports that can be analyzed to gauge performance for every job.

Other TotalFlow Features include:

• Easy integration with other vendors’ technologies through support of the Job Definition Format (JDF) industry standard.
• Web-based submission tool in TotalFlow PrintManager, enabling authorized managers to initiate jobs from any place at any time.
• Automatic integration with the Fiery media catalog, eliminating the time and risk of retyping media parameters into TotalFlow PrintManager and Production Manager to execute print jobs.

RICOH TotalFlow 2.0 will be featured at Print 13, September 8 – 12, 2013 at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL, booth # 1931.

For details on Ricoh’s full line of products, services and solutions, please visit www.ricoh-usa.com.