JDF:  The standard in systems connectivity in a Dalim Software production environment

How will your business work in the future?
Imagine a ‘total production workflow’ solution for the graphic arts industry that embraces every facet of production – be it from the viewpoint of client, design, premedia, press, finishing, distribution, eCommerce and beyond.  A solution where businesses can deliver faster and higher quality services, more accurate production feedback in real-time; and one that ensures applications and systems – even from different manufacturers – can seamlessly interact with one another.

Imagine a 21st century production paradigm that pushes the industry towards more of a manufacturing process, applying manufacturing parameters – and best practices -  to production.  While a job is being processed, a continual data stream of job metadata is fed into costing, billing and MIS systems. Prepress production systems are polling and working intimately with production databases, reporting on how much time each portion of a job took. Job elements, pages and proofs are automatically tracked as to their individual production status within the entire job. Statistical analyses can be triggered from the click of a mouse to ascertain profitability per job, customer or cost centre.

Such a process architecture is no longer wishful thinking:  JDF is here.
The JDF vision is to create a universal standard for content creators, prepress service providers, printers and post-press services (including binderies and finishers) enabling everyone involved to communicate and transmit the details of a print job through digital workflows from creation to completion.

While this has possible for a number of years already, using such applications as DALiM TWiST and DALiM MiSTRAL together with open database, communications and protocol standards, the JDF-difference is that everyone involved will use a standard set of descriptions, implementing a process that is totally independent of application, system, platform, or even language.

Dalim Software, in close cooperation with other industry vendors, is pioneering new and more efficient ways for businesses to conduct business by using JDF as the common communications format. Today, the governing organisation for the JDF standard is the International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress, otherwise known as CIP4. With nearly 150 vendor members, CIP4’s purpose is the development and promotion of vendor-independent standards for the graphic arts industry.

As a long-time active partner of the CIP4 Organisation, our participation in the creation and ongoing development of JDF is consistent with our long term philosophy of the implementation of industry standards.  With more experience of standards-driven production than any other major vendor in the industry, we provide your business with next-generation capabilities that allow your company to best address today’s commercial challenges.

Meeting the challenges of today - & tomorrow

JDF, or Job Description Format, is a “language” created with the aim of standardising the exchange of information between different applications and systems in the graphic arts industry. While not a data format in itself, JDF can be described as a “metadata” format (metadata, or “data about data”, describes the form, function, intent and process of the actual file data itself). 

JDF is essentially a standard for a digital file – any digital file -  that describes every possible specification required to produce any type of print job. While the exact job specifications can be tailored to the type of work, examples of such data could be the number of pages, colour and ink settings, binding type, deadline - even shipping instructions.  JDF also defines all the processes and resources needed to complete the project, and allows everyone concerned to see its status in real time – wherever they are – at any production stage.

JDF is written in XML (eXtensible Markup Language), a simple yet versatile file format that has long been utilised in Dalim Software applications for inter-systems communication.  For example, XML-based communication is used between Dalim Software’s online softproofing system, DALiM DiALOGUE, and the DALiM TWiST automated production workflow server.  XML was chosen as the basis for JDF since the format is already widely accepted – XML is virtually ubiquitous in the publishing, editorial and catalogue industries, for example – as well as being a well-established IT industry standard, with a wide range of development tools available.

“Islands of automation”

As various stages of the production chain have become more automated and more efficient, each distinct stage has become more isolated – so-called “islands of automation”. Different manufacturers adopt different inter and intra-systems communication.  Some vendors - such as Dalim Software - adopt an open-systems model, while others choose a more proprietary model.  The result is the same:  while each production stage may be automated, communications across systems have been poor. This manifests itself in the form of each department – advertising agency, design house, corporate marketing department, premedia, print, finishing and distribution – all having to re-enter the same job details when the job enters their own system. Such a process clearly creates error opportunities and adding a significant amount of unnecessary time.

By using JDF, this production fragmentation becomes minimised and the process becomes more streamlined.  Once ‘Request For Quotations” have been sent and the job given to the most suitable company, the JDF file is passed on to the workflow system where the job instructions are carried out. Based on the JDF file’s job details, the workflow system can decide how best to route it.  At every stage, one system talks to another to find out if it can handle a particular part of the job, at the same time each system can keep the workflow system and Management Information System (MIS) updated.

JDF:  At the heart of Dalim Software production automation

Leading the industry with ‘production-proven’ JDF-powered applications, Dalim Software’s experience with JDF has lead to a number of “industry firsts”.

Job ticket import and export

All  legacy JDF job metadata is maintained upon input and output allowing seamless data exchange, for example with regards to imposition information or page assignment. This even includes remote, web-based file submission and preflighting using DALiM SWiNG, DALiM TWiST, DALiM PRiNTEMPO or DALiM MiSTRAL applications.

The Industry’s first JDF-based file preflighting engine

Dalim Software’s unique and powerful file preflighting engine is JDF-based, allowing job ticket information to pass transparently between Dalim Software servers and third-party systems.  For the first time, premedia and print companies are freed from being forced to use vendor-specific, proprietary preflighting technology to track and manage files and check their validity for purpose. Using DALiM SWiNG, DALiM LiTHO or DALiM TWiST, operators create “print-predictable” files of virtually any format that precisely meet print specifications.

Award-winning automated JDF-driven imposition

Dalim Software’s award-winning DALiM MiSTRAL and DALiM PRiNTEMPO solutions allow JDF imposition templates created from the industry’s premier imposition applications to be assigned to pages in the workflow.  An imposition is automatically generated ‘on-the-fly’ and can be sent to a proofer or output device in seconds.  Using Dalim Software’s unique technology the imposition can be edited, pages changed at the last minute – even an entirely new imposition template assigned – all from a standard, platform-independent client using a unique ‘drag-and-drop’ interface.

Third-party systems interoperability

Using JDF-based communications allows every Dalim Software workflow solution to communicate with third-party hardware and/or software systems such as other prepress workflow systems, MIS, editorial  and production planning systems.   Active participation in CIP4 cross-vendor interoperability testing have proved systems communication with a number of other vendor products – including competitive systems!

Multiple benefits with transparent integration

JDF-driven Dalim Software workflow solutions bring numerous benefits to graphic arts professionals working in all areas of the industry, and is the driving force for the adoption and implementation of the JDF standard.

Greater production automation

Always a strongpoint of Dalim Software systems, JDF allows greater automation, thereby allowing increased throughput, the reduction of costs due to both operator error and less manual intervention; and an overall increase in process efficiency.

Greater Control

Production processes, status, costs and deadline management can all be handled with a higher degree of precision and efficiency.  Cost analyses are more accurate and more immediate, based upon real-world metadata generated at the precise moment of production stage completion.

Enterprise-wide solution

JDF-powered Dalim Software systems link previously unconnected automation system together, allowing users to plan and monitor the job with a higher level of granularity than ever before.  For the first time, the process of “workflow” doesn’t come to infer mere pieces of the production workflow chain, such as premedia or print production.  Rather, the “workflow” refers to the complete print project, from its concept to its delivery. Each system that touches the project – from job initiation to MIS, premedia, print, finishing and delivery – interacts with each of the other systems in a user-transparent fashion.

A more distributed, connected production paradigm

With more and more businesses leveraging the Internet as the preferred communications vehicle for supplier and customer interaction, JDF easily embraces new business opportunities such as eCommerce and eBusiness.   JDF-aware Dalim Software systems allow seamless job distribution of jobs amongst multiple locations, suppliers, partners – and even customers.

User transparency

Since JDF-enabled devices communicate directly, little to no user intervention is required.  In fact, many participants of a JDF-enabled Dalim Software production system may not even know that the system utilises JDF at all! Such low-level systems interoperability ensures that companies adopting a JDF-driven solution experience minimal learning curves, reduced administration and training costs and greater uptime.

Not the future:  JDF is now

Over time, as standards for the graphics industry are defined and implemented, the line from Creation to Completion grows ever shorter, straighter and simpler. In the same way as PostScript^TM emerged as a ‘de facto’ standard for the more reliable exchange of data in the graphic arts industry, JDF and XML  - probably supplemented by other formats - will form the basis for the reliable and predictable distribution of most “publishable data” to various print and publishing media. JDF not only delivers greater accuracy in cost and estimate determination by connecting production and management systems together; but also in more efficient and effective use of available resources. Users are able to choose a new piece of equipment based purely on its technical and/or commercial merits, rather than whether it can be integrated with their existing production equipment.

 Dalim Software’s extensive experience with not only JDF and XML, but in the adoption of both published as well as de facto industry standards such as PDF/X-1a, Pass4Press and  PDF/X Plus, place Dalim Software users in a unique position to exploit future business opportunities faster and more completely than their competition.


NB:  "JDF", the JDF logo, and the JDF and JMF icons are trademarks of the CIP4 Organization