Ricohs new TotalFlow 2.0 gives small to medium printers business-focused features. The new product, which will be available in South Africa at the end of October, automates a host of repetitive tasks and mobilises information from job creation through printing and finishing.
The production print management software to help print service providers streamline pre-print tasks that directly addresses the needs of small and medium-sized print service providers in both commercial and in-plant settings. Print service providers in this range have often been forced to over-invest in features they don’t need, said Anthony Ho, manager of the product and solutions support division at Ricoh SA. TotalFlow focuses on their most important business objectives.
It is a three-part solution that includes TotalFlow Prep software for fast, accurate print setup, TotalFlow Print Manager to optimise printing efficiency, and TotalFlow Production Manager for advanced print management capabilities.
TotalFlow Prep helps print service providers create print jobs, quickly combining multiple files of different formats into one printable PDF file. They can perform simple edits, select the right media and choose finishing options matched to each printer. Visual ticketing lets operators quickly check key details before printing.
TotalFlow Print Manager, which supports up to five printers, automates many previously manual tasks, including job ticketing, scheduling, reporting and finishing. The software prioritises important jobs and directs them to the devices that will deliver the best and most affordable results based on client needs. Providers can produce a variety of reports on printer usage and performance to help further optimise the operation.
TotalFlow Production Manager offers advanced capabilities such as pre-flight integration, colour management integration, digital print load balancing and support for up to 10 printers. With print pooling, Ricoh TotalFlow Production Manager determines which device offers the necessary availability, throughput and quality to complete the job most effectively. Organisations can customise workflows using drag-and-drop icons for proofing, approval, PDF transformation and more. The software includes Postscript-to-PDF and PCL-to-PDF transforms to support legacy environments, and automatically compiles reports that can be analysed to gauge performance for every job.
Other TotalFlow features include:
Easy integration with other vendors’ technologies through support of the Job Definition Format (JDF) industry standard.
Web-based submission tool in TotalFlow Print Manager, enabling authorised managers to initiate jobs from any place at any time.
Automatic integration with the Fiery media catalogue, eliminating the time and risk of retyping media parameters into TotalFlow Print Manager and Production Manager to execute print jobs.
