But then as printers diversified their businesses to offer a wider range of products and services they started integrating different types of printing equipment into their production environments. In turn they started to deal with multiple RIP technologies. 

This has created a situation today where it’s fairly commonplace to find printers using numerous different RIPs. As Gareth Parker, strategic marketing manager at Ricoh UK, explains: “Many commercial printers buy pre-press hardware and software from a number of different manufacturers, and output devices will often have their own unique technologies depending on which manufacturer the equipment has been sourced from. For example, a customer may buy a CTP machine from Agfa, or a Screen Truepress or a Ricoh Pro C901 digital press and each of these will have their own front-end RIP.”

But is there an opportunity to consolidate these RIPs and in the process streamline a business’s operations? Some experts would agree that most printers have far too many RIPs on the go at the same time and that most could benefit from consolidating them. 

So what’s the truth of the matter? Why are there so many RIPs currently in use, how easy is it to consolidate them, what are the potential benefits of consolidation and could this approach work for all printers?   

The main reason that commercial printers currently use so many RIPs is due to a number of different factors, according to Jurgen Verhulst, applications specialist at SAI.

“To some extent this can be attributed to the fact that they increasingly come free in the box with a large-format printer,” says Verhulst. “In addition, there will likely be instances where resellers of a specific hardware brand will push a specific software package. In other situations it might be down to compatibility and the fact that the printer needs their hardware line-up – which might comprise several devices from different manufacturers – to operate in conjunction with more than one type of software.”  

Other pressures

The problem is that printers are often too constrained by time and budget to consolidate this aspect of the print process and invest in software solutions that could streamline their operations, adds Verhulst. That’s despite the fact that numerous benefits can be derived from workflow consolidation, according to Antony White, European solutions marketing, professional print solutions at Canon Europe.

“A unified workflow with control moving upstream from the press has advantages in terms of potential productivity gains and can improve control and co-ordination for pre-press and print operations,” says White.

It’s also possible to achieve “colour and rendering quality consistency” with centralised and fully functional RIPs, explains John Davies, business strategy and marketing manager of print production workflow solutions at Fujifilm Europe. 

Then there are the training benefits that can be derived from consolidating. “Training new employees becomes simpler so print operators’ time is optimised,” says Verhulst.

While this list of benefits might sound tempting, before attempting to streamline RIPs, printers need to review their complete production workflow – from input to output – as well as their information management (reporting, accounting, etc), pre-press and printing and finishing operations, advises White.

“Many PSPs are only using a small percentage – probably less than 25% – of the capabilities of their RIP, and before planning to invest in any changes they should seek to optimise utilisation of their current assets,” he says. 

In addition, they should consider the processing speeds of all of their current RIPs to develop an understanding of where any bottlenecks might be occurring, believes Ricoh’s Parker.

“Printers must also evaluate the higher speed RIPs that are available with digital presses and understand the value and price differential. Part of this will be building a true picture of the cost of administration (ie, preparing, handling, processing, profiling) in order to understand the value of the time and cost savings of having this administration streamlined,” says Parker. 

Finally, it’s vital that printers looking to consolidate plan ahead so that productivity software can be made as future-proof as possible and enable integration to be realised as and when required, advises Danny Morris, EFI sales director, Europe North.

“This applies to e-commerce, web-to-print and cloud-based apps as well as to MIS/ERP,” explains Morris. “JDF compliance also needs to be considered as part of the route to industry standardisation and, again, even if this is not being considered at present, its continued development will see greater implementation across cross-vendor workflows.”

The flipside to the list of potentially mouth-watering benefits outlined above is that printers could initially incur additional costs if they choose to go down the consolidation route.

“Initial investment into productivity software can be calculated overall by a total cost of ownership, which, in this type of situation, has no finite cut-off point or obsolescence time if the right supplier is chosen,” says Morris. “Users should balance initial expenditure against upgrades and revisions, working with a vendor that understands changing requirements in terms of front-ends and output devices. With the right software, time, waste and labour costs should all be reduced significantly and, in line with the right integration, stock levels, administrative tasks and accounting can also be automated.”

Davies concurs that although an initial investment is required to create a centralised RIP/workflow, it will “pay back in the long term as it streamlines the production process, removes duplication and delivers consistent quality on different devices. “These benefits ultimately turn into better performance, increased competitiveness and cost savings. Today profitability is pivotal and the ROI for this consolidation process is easily demonstrated,” he says.

Compatibility issues

But if it saves you time and money by making you more efficient, and offers a host of other benefits in areas like training, why aren’t printers queuing up to consolidate? One key reason is that although RIP consolidation is relatively easy to implement in wide-format printing, many general commercial printers can’t go down this route at the moment for technical reasons.

“Individual RIPs contain specific controls in their drivers,” explains Davies. “This means that manufacturers use different digital imaging techniques and technologies to calibrate printers or treat specific processes, such as screening. While consolidating RIP technology for rendering is possible, having one RIP to drive all devices is currently not viable until some standards are applied to print device drivers.”  

As a result, Kaspar Roos, director of production software services at InfoTrends, is also dubious that there will be significant levels of RIP consolidation occurring any time soon, although that’s not the whole story. “What I do see is that print businesses, especially larger ones with multiple production facilities, will decide to standardise on a single brand of digital front-end (DFE) because it has benefits from a workflow and training perspective,” says Roos.

This is a view shared by Alan Clarke, product and solutions marketing manager at Xerox UK. 

“Although there is little opportunity of consolidating these RIPs with digital technology, it is worth using a RIP/DFE from one vendor to minimise training and often the same brand of RIP/DFE can be monitored via a web browser so all digital printers could be controlled from a central location,” he points out. 

And even where there is a case for investing in a new master RIP – especially when dealing with a large fleet of mixed devices and the introduction of Adobe’s APPE processing – Parker feels that further education is needed in the market on this topic and it will involve some change management on the customer/printer side. It might also require manufacturers to change their approach to RIPs as well,
adds Morris.

“There will always be devices whose manufacturers show a preference for using their preferred productivity software, which might or might not be of their own development,” he explains. “A major supplier, who offers a true end-to-end workflow, is certain to accommodate the majority of present day output devices, with regularly updated or revised drivers for new machines as they come onto the market. The intention is to make it possible for a user to work with a single supplier for all requirements and this makes it easy to streamline and integrate all processes.”

Whether or not this ‘intention’ can ultimately be realised in the area of RIPs remains to be seen. But if printers and manufacturers can work together to find a solution to this conundrum, Parker, for one, feels that the benefits could be huge.

“The consolidation of multiple RIPs into a single workflow may offer considerable advantages to the user in specific applications depending on the workflow requirements. However, this depends on a number of variables,” he explains. “To implement a solution that is most efficient, printers need to have a clear understanding of what technology is available and work with their suppliers to build out a specification designed to their individual needs.”

So consolidation through collaboration sounds like it may well be the industry’s best hope.