The addressing of obstructions to productivity is a growing priority for all types of businesses, in every sector of the economy. Success demands that organisations streamline document operations to focus on customer generation and retention.

According to Hennie Kruger, DDS product and marketing manager of Océ South Africa, for businesses in an on demand environment, sustaining a competitive edge means printing jobs in shorter runs cost-effectively, and handling a wide range of native applications and PDF-based workflows developed on multiple platforms.

On demand operations face challenges throughout the document workflow, including:
* Adding personalisation to drive increased response rates;
* No way to offer Internet based job ordering, submission and proofing;
* Costly and often inaccurate manual process steps;
* Complex rush jobs from a wide range of systems;
* The high cost of proofing;
* The need to reduce pre-printed inventory and waste;
* Ensuring quality and eliminating errors;
* Using equipment to maximum capacity;
* Unifying disparate systems;
* Proprietary job tickets; and
* Insufficient job accounting.

“In addition to these challenges, businesses need to streamline the document workflow process to reduce IT support costs, manage print jobs and devices more effectively, and give work group users the flexibility to route jobs to the most appropriate output device. Productivity depends on the ability to balance workloads across all enterprise devices, improving job submission and control, enabling remote job submission using a web-based browser, and streamlining operations for IT support personnel by centralising printer management and control,” says Kruger.

Océ PRISMA for on demand printing environments provides the solution that print-for-pay operations need to handle any customer requirement that comes through the door. “Adding value and reducing costs across the entire document lifecycle, Océ PRISMA provides direct support for Océ and non-Océ devices to streamline the commercial production workflow from make-ready through bindery, archiving, and distribution,” he explains.

Océ PRISMA automates redundant tasks in the preproduction and printing processes, eliminates manual intervention, and improves the quality of documents with features like convenient, web-based order processing, and powerful digital composition, integrated make-ready and simplified digital impositioning functions.

Océ PRISMA also transforms the production and post-production process, automating one-to-one printing, making it easy to add variable data and dynamic charts and graphics to drive response rates, balance workloads across devices, unify control of disparate equipment, and reduce short-run printing costs.

“With Océ PRISMA for on demand environments, organisations can eliminate common post-production challenges like manual reprinting, complex or insufficient accounting, and limited storage capabilities. UP3i support and easy integration with existing and third party systems optimise document finishing,” Kruger concludes.