It's no secret that wedging digital printing technology into an environment that has traditionally focused on offset printing can come with challenges. While digital and offset workflows can be similar in nature, each process needs to be leveraged where it makes the most sense based on multiple factors: print application, cost, job requirements, and more. Over the past few years, "hybrid" workflows have emerged that can assess these factors for each job and make process decisions to deliver optimized results. Hybrid workflows are conceptually ideal, especially as digital printing continues to play an increasingly prominent role in production, but have they really been adopted by print businesses? Recent research data indicates that hybrid workflow is more than just hype; it's a reality for many print production environments today.

Print production workflow management software, specifically as it relates to prepress functions, rose to prominence with the introduction of computer-to-film, and later, computer-to-plate systems. With the sharp rise in print jobs being designed and laid out electronically, it only made sense to utilize software to manage and prepare these electronic jobs before they were imaged, printed, and fulfilled. You're probably familiar with the many software packages that now make up this market: Agfa Apogee, Fujifilm XMF, Heidelberg Prinect, Kodak Prinergy, Screen Trueflow, and others. These systems are designed to manage and automate the preparation of electronic files for print production.

Over 40% of production workflow management software owners indicated using hybrid workflow.

The adoption of digital printing for commercial print production created a need to more effectively manage and utilize multiple processes. As a result, offset workflow software vendors started adding incremental support for digital printing, ranging from loose hot folder connectivity through to tighter, bi-directional integration with Digital Front Ends/RIPs. Additionally, digital print vendors also developed and launched their own workflow solutions that were more focused on the digital process: EFI Fiery Central, HP SmartStream, Océ PRISMA, Xerox FreeFlow, and others. While geared toward a 100% digital print workflow, vendors also worked to make these products "play nice" with traditional offset workflows and their associated solutions.

While hybrid workflow solutions are widely available today, have they actually been adopted by print service providers? According to InfoTrends' 2011 Production Software Investment Outlook survey, they have. We asked print service provider respondents that indicated owning a production workflow management solution if they specifically used a hybrid workflow solution. As shown in Figure 1, over 40% indicated using hybrid workflow, while another 24% indicated consideration for use in the next twelve months. Furthermore, only around 4% of respondents did not know if they used a hybrid workflow, giving an indication that the concept is known and understood.