According to InfoTrends’ research, more than half of the cost of producing print communications can be attributed to the processes and workflows that occur before and after print production. While these costs have come down over the past decade, companies are working to automate non-value-added processes so they can leverage staff time more effectively. With companies of all sizes moving out of survival mode, there has been an increased emphasis on workflow automation across the printing industry. Print service providers are engaging in a number of initiatives to automate business and production processes so they can increase efficiency and rein in costs.

In 2001, InfoTrends’ Cost of Business Communications study found that 86% of production costs were associated with overhead like job submission, prepress, planning and fulfillment, while the remaining 14% could be attributed to the print process itself. When revisiting the results of this study in 2009, we found that this overhead had decreased to just over half of production costs, which were directly attributed to the increased adoption of workflow automation. Printers have made great strides in automating production processes throughout the entire workflow, but we find that there is still substantial room for further automation as firms continue to seek ways to cut costs across the entire production lifecycle. So where are printers placing their automation priorities and what methods are they using to increase efficiencies?

Recent results from our Production Software Investment Outlook (see Figure 1) indicate that just over 60% of print service provider respondents are currently placing some level of priority on print production workflow automation, with around 22% of respondents placing a high priority on this initiative. In this survey, priority levels were identified as follows: