Digital Smart Factory Forum 2002

Digital Smart Factory Forum 2002
March 6-8, 2002
Hyatt Regency Airport
Orlando, Florida

DSF 2000

DSF 2001

SPONSORED BY:

Call for Papers - Deadline is November 20, 2001.

Critical response from the Digital Smart Factory Forum 2001 event was overwhelmingly positive. This forum is unique in its exclusive focus on system issues; wrestling the issues of end-to-end systems integration in the factory, automating inherently qualitative processes such as color, and linking business and production systems in ways that produce profitable results are drawing the most intense attention among industry leaders.

This forum is sponsored by the Research and Engineering Council (R&E) and IDEAlliance (formerly GCA) with additional support from Technical Association Of the Graphic Arts (TAGA).

This year's event will focus again on three categories of presentation: tutorials, white papers, and case studies. Although certain topics may command more or less overall time, we are planning on the average presentation of 25-35 minutes with 20-30 minutes allotted for additional questions and audience discussion. Tutorials will be slightly longer. Assume 45 minutes with 15 minutes for questions and discussion.

Every finished paper properly submitted will be published. The following guidelines apply:

1. Submit a short Summary of Proposed Paper articulating your topic and perspective. Also sketch the major topical areas of your presentation. Each Summary can be text only and should be no longer than 500 words.

2. The author needs to indicate their commitment to present their full paper at the conference event. Your paper may be presented and/or published on the Digital Smart Factory website. While you do not have to present to be published, it is our goal to have as many presentations and discussions at the conference as time permits.

3. Each Summary of Proposed Paper needs to be submitted by November 20, 2001, to the Research & Engineering Council: recouncil@rivnet.net.

Below are some suggestions for papers with their rationale. We are open to variations of these topics and completely new topics. Be sensitive to the need for papers with a system perspective. Papers and presentations with either commercial or product focus will be rejected.

The topics listed below are suggestions only. Do not limit yourself to our preliminary thoughts. We are looking for cutting edge thinking and practices that will help define the evolving discipline of Smart Factories.

Topical suggestions:

Tutorials:

1. Color strategies for automation - what does it take to get a reliable, flexible stream of color information to actuate and control an end-to-end color production process? What components go into an enterprise color strategy that includes process control, color management, simulation (proofing), pressroom color strategy, and setting/fulfilling customer expectations in an automated world.

2. CIP4/JDF implementations - This tutorial has potentially two sections: First, a review of XML and JDF basics. This could be a briefer version of the 2001 presentations where the origins and structure are "laid out". And also what new developments have there been in the worlds of XML and JDF?
Second, what are the classes of products announced so far? What are theirdelivery timeframes? Feature/functionality? What areas of the supply chainthat these products address? What are the dynamics/timeframes for industry conversion?

3. Database technologies and metadata - Data is the new source of value in our businesses. This tutorial articulates the anatomy of data architecture for a modern enterprise. With an emphasis on the print manufacturing organization, this basic tutorial treats the fundamentals of databases, their use, their characteristics, and how metadata is used as a fundamental tool in today¹s digital workflow environment. Also, considered is how database structures vary across a graphics sup-ply chain and finally, the
differences between such things as DAM, media asset management, content management, document management, etc.

4. XML and SGML systems, intended for computer-to-computer exchange without (or with mini-mal) human intervention, require constructs such as DTDs or schema that set formal rules for structuring documents, and require embedded parsers (e.g., validators) in systems that can verify the integrity and
structure of tagged data along each step of the business and production process.

Experienced buyers of markup-enabled systems know how to select parsers and construct DTDs/Schemas and instances to benchmark systems before buying. During this tutorial we will hear from experienced markup systems users to learn how to benchmark equipment, establish S.O.P. for markup-enabled systems, and buy smart.

Whitepaper suggestions:

1. An alternative to engineering a comprehensive automated production environment is DIY ap-proach utilizing "off-the-shelf" components. How can component packages by configured into automated workflows? What are the logical limits of automated workflows built from compo-nents utilizing scripting and such technologies as Markzware MarkzNet or Global Graphics MaxWorkflow? How comprehensive a workflow can be constructed from component parts? What are the strengths and weaknesses of such systems?

2. Page construction - The whole concept of CIM in publishing falls down if the creative envi-ronment is itself chaos. Tools are entering the market that go beyond workflow, in order to allow managers and MIS to:

- Associate metadata and rights data at the point of creation
- Enforce file naming conventions and relating documents and images to workflow database.
- Sychnronizing content and document components across locations and across enterprises.
- Extracting and metadata directly from applications

Combined with more "traditional" workflows and preflight/validation tools, the creative environment can now be automated.

3. Pressroom systems and automation - If presses are treated as "cells" of a CIM system, what do press production management systems look like? How are they "aligned" with enterprise level business ans production systems? How do new markless and register guidance systems work? What kinds of new linkages are likely between the pressroom and bindery especially given JDF? (This whitepaper could be linked with tutorials on color strategies and CIP4/JDF implementations.) Also consider: Sophisticated printers with large web presses and in-line finishing operations can spends shifts (not hours) setting up for a job. What will it take to cut this time significantly? Can/does CAD help? Also, how do distributed operations manage multiple press rooms?

Or, agreed-upon formulas for color material placement and setup on newspaper presses are common. But the overall issue of imposition-color placement instruction set needs examination.

4. Bindery systems - The bindery topic may need, in addition to whitepapers, a tutorial on the current state of the technology. Examples of topics for whitepapers: Can we learn about automated handling techniques by examining sophisticated digital color print systems? In relation to heatset web offset
operations, what are the next hurdles in data-drives-the-folder set-up of finishing lines?

After all submissions are received, the R&E Council and IDEAlliance will communicate back to each author which papers have been selected for presentation, which papers have been selected for publishing in the conference proceedings, additional details on the requirements for the full white paper, and all other pertinent information necessary regarding the conference itself.

The R&E Council and IDEAlliance wish to thank you for your interest and support in this topic area. We believe the future printing plant will be a "Digital Smart Factory". We need your help in getting us there.

With questions please contact:

Ron Mihills
Research & Engineering Council (R&E)
804.436.9922
recouncil@rivnet.net

David Steinhardt
IDEAlliance (formerly GCA)
703.837.1066
dsteinhardt@idealliance.org

Bill Davison
Point Balance
Forum Facilitator
978.456.3500
bdavison@pointbalance.com