Creating an 'intelligent' workflow

Automation and updating your processes will reduce time and error in your production cycle.

How efficient is your workflow? How wisely are the resources available to you being used? Regardless of how smoothly their operations appear to be humming along, most publishers agree that there's always room for improvement. At many magazines, certain tasks are still needlessly duplicated at different stages of the game--for example, advertising insertion-order information being keyed in by both ad sales and production instead of being captured from the beginning in a commonly accessible database.

Factor in the number of manually performed or initiated tasks that are repetitive, or that just plain don't require human interpretation, and it all adds up to a tremendous waste of valuable resources--which means a drain of money from your budget.

These glaring, frustrating realities exist in part because of the time and expense involved in finding and implementing workflow solutions, but also because there is no such thing as a "standard" workflow. Because every production department is run differently, what might work for one company may not be possible at another. But as the business of manufacturing magazines becomes increasingly door-to-door digital, many publishers are exploring how process automation and managed workflow can help them work smarter and more efficiently.

Fewer hand-offs

Production departments are continually accommodating the learning curves that new technologies have presented over the decade. Publishers are still becoming acquainted with computer-to-plate technologies, for instance. "But if you look at the larger picture, it just takes less time to manage digital information," says Kathleen Davis, director of manufacturing at The Taunton Press. "So, from a print production point of view, we've been able to add publications without adding people."

The Newtown, Connecticut-based publisher of special-interest magazines such as Fine Woodworking and Threads has added three titles to its roster over the past six years, and Davis says that the ability to integrate processes has made that possible. For example, to map each issue, Taunton's advertiser information is automatically downloaded from an ad sales database into Managing Editor Inc.'s ad layout software, then imported into QuarkXPress for page layout.

Indeed, the more digital the workflow, the more opportunities to automate tasks. Automation doesn't eliminate actual processing time, but by sequentially linking tasks to occur, human hand-off time--and the potential for error--is minimized. "Human beings are prone to forgetting steps or doing them in an inappropriate order," says Alex Brown, president of Printmark, a consulting firm in East Montpelier, Vermont. "One of the greatest values of process automation is the intelligence inside it--every task that needs to be executed is remembered."

Scripting vs. software

Publishers can buy off-the-shelf systems, purchase specifically designed scripts, or write scripts of their own to automate tasks. Editorial management systems from companies such as Quark Inc. and North Atlantic Publishing Systems Inc. work based on the status of "metadata" tags that are attached to all files that enter the systems. When a status changes, the server "triggers" the system to automatically perform an action of some sort. But this option is still not only priced out of the range of many publishers (packages such as North Atlantic Publishing Systems and Quark Publishing Systems cost upward of $10,000), but often requires a dedicated server and regular maintenance, which many smaller publishers can't justify.

Scripting, which works on hot folders or directories that prompt processes, exists at the other end of the pricing spectrum. AppleScript allows you to link disparate software and, equally important, can be written for virtually every Macintosh-compatible application. (Visual Basic is the Windows version of scripting.) Most people who have tinkered with AppleScript agree that it's easy to learn, yet many publishers haven't explored this free tool that is built into every Macintosh start-up disk.

"It's very accessible, but I think it's still one of those things that people don't have a whole lot of time to play with and explore," says Regina Marsh, director of operations at New York City-based Cantor Design Associates Inc. "Once publishers get past that, I think they can find enormous opportunities to streamline many processes."

Targeting prepress

Printers and prepress houses have become highly automated businesses over the past decade, but publishers are just finally getting into the loop. Indeed, prepress is the area most suitable to automation because many tasks at that stage don't require human interpretation or judgment.

Script routines or software can save publishers time by, for example, automatically substituting high-resolution images for low resolution, or batching files so they can RIP and proof overnight and be ready the very next day.

Michael Weinglass, vice president/ manufacturing and production for Easyriders Inc., says that he's constantly looking for ways to automate the points in his workflow that he considers inefficient. The Los Angeles-based publisher does all of its prepress in-house. For example, Easyriders' prepress operators were formerly wasting time RIPping and proofing all of the individual page files for the company's 12 magazines. After researching the problem, Weinglass found a batch-processing Quark extension that automated the process. "These are the kinds of things you cannot start to put a value on," Weinglass says. "That's freed up a guy to do other tasks--to do more quality control of the pages that were actually coming out."

Time Inc. is working toward automating workflow from the release of edit pages all the way to receipt at the printer, says Frank Scott, director of prepress development. "You can only imagine that, as a weekly, we get pressure from the editorial side to close later--then on the production side, we're always trying to close earlier. You're always caught between a rock and a hard place," Scott says. "But providing control and automation of the workflows will allow us to shave time off on both sides."

Start automating early

When converting any publication to an all-digital workflow, you need to educate your staff about how jobs and responsibilities will change. This is a good time to evaluate areas in your workflow that could be improved, asserts Linda Manes Goodwin, a San Francisco-based production consultant who specializes in digital transmission. "This is a fabulous opportunity to make decisions such as 'Are we doing it this way because this is how we've always done it, or is there a better way to do it?'" she says.

Changing the culture

"Publishers could use this [an all-digital conversion] as an opportunity to change the culture," adds Goodwin. Simply retooling processes such as proofing can make a difference. For instance, "Instead of coming back from lunch at 1 p.m. and finding a proof that's been on your chair for an hour and a half, we'd say, 'Okay, we're going to RIP your pages at 9 a.m. At 11:15, you will meet in the conference room and you will have an hour to proof these pages."

Make people accountable

Phillips Business Information is in the process of converting all 13 of its books to CTP. The Potomac, Maryland-based publisher has eliminated all bluelines, at a savings of close to $5,000 per issue, according to Bill Wynne, director of production and distribution. "We're making people more accountable--the editor accountable for copy, art accountable for making sure books are correct when they first go out--all of which forces the printer to do his job, too," Wynne says. "All parties work together to cut costs."

The company saves money

Publishers can also streamline processes by critically evaluating roles across departments. For instance, before you can repurpose content, you must have the rights to do so. Designating the editor or art director who handles these assignments to automatically "tag" content with this type of information or any other identifying characteristics as it enters the department is a way to wisely distribute what might otherwise be a lengthy, backend chore.

Magazine workers tend to get really focused on their own jobs. However, given the right tools, workers can execute their job flow fluidly into the most modern, up-to-date manufacturing processes. That will save the company money.

Jo Bennett is a former associate editor of FOLIO:.

Tips to remember on the road to automation

* Expect job functions to change as you automate your workflow. As you eliminate manual or overlapping processes, some members of the team will be freed up to take on other tasks.

* It requires discipline and communication to reap the full benefits of automation. Automation won't come to your rescue if you don't adhere to schedules or regularly observe the last-minute dash to close issues.

* In many cases, your solutions are going to be only s good as your printer's technologies. Look for standards to emerge regarding the flow of information--such as portable job tickets and electronic data exchange--to improve communications between you and your printer.

* A well-structured and maintained database is a key part of most automation solutions.

The graphis experiment: pages to go

The processes involved in building pages--getting text and images, then dropping them into page layouts--are tedious and time-consuming, but necessary. While most publishers are looking at production and prepress for opportunities to automate processes, on title, New York City-based Graphis, is currently exploring how it might automate the laborious tasks of dropping text and graphics into page layouts by using just AppleScript, Filemaker and QuarkXPress.

"We're trying to remove production tasking from the creative workflow so the designer can spend more time on the actual creative process," says Regina Marsh, director of operations at New York-based Cantor Design Associates Inc., which is implementing the project in conjunction with I.M.A.G.E. Inc., a consulting firm specializing in publishing systems integration. The goal of this project is to allow the art director's work to begin with pages that have been built by the computer, based on master pages.

The innovative process is still being fine-tuned and hasn't been fully implemented yet. But once the scripting routine was written, it was tested on Graphics' poster annual (a layout that is much simpler than the magazine's layout). It took less than five minutes to build layouts for the 500-page publication, Marsh says-all at the push of a button.

The 23,000-circulation magazine for graphic arts professionals is an ideal candidate for the experiment because it follows classic Swiss design, which is very clean and gridlike. But this project could prove a valuable lesson for publishers who want to streamline their workflows.

"I don't think anyone has sat down and looked at how much of a designer's job is production, as opposed to creative," Marsh says. "It may be an assumption that you need somebody to sit there and draw the picture box and get the picture."

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