With the shifting market directions of procurement and print production, while it is getting better, much of the current “off the shelf” workflow software and professional service offerings are developed around legacy technologies and markets. Today and going forward, they need to be developed and aligned to support newer and disparate technology and markets. Building a “one size fits all” solution will usually fall short of those goals. Ultimately, the solution needs to fit the specific needs of a PSP and their disparate customer and partner relationships.

As I have been discussing in this series, automation is now a requisite to a profitable print or packaging company, and needs to provide for centralized business and production management. When working with any data-driven system, and today that includes print and packaging manufacturing workflows, you need to be able to support getting the jobs into and through the plant in as efficient and painless ways for both you and your customers. An Intelligent Workflow Infrastructure needs to be implemented through a deep understanding of a PSPs existing and future products, markets and processes. With that it becomes much easier to develop the solutions, supporting structures, and go to market strategies for the short and long term.

As we continue the digital journey toward Industry 5.0 and more automated and integrated procurement and production processes, new skills are in demand across the value and supply chains. Onboarding the production and order data, normalizing them, and capturing and returning the resultant performance is the new prepress. Connecting and “tailoring” all of the necessary individual component solutions is a new and critical requirement for many if not most companies of any size.