CIM Facilitates Workflow Component Connections

As a system provider, Yves Rogivue is a man of many opinions, and that the future of integrating the production processes that constitute printing rests with computer integrating manufacturing is one of them. As one of the topics debated at a special session of Connect 2002- Printcafe's annual users conference, Rogivue, chief executive officer of MAN Roland Inc., views the Internet as a fantastic communications device, but says CIM becomes a component of the production process when it reaches the prepress suite, bindery or pressroom.

Addressing an audience of 700 printing professional in Las Vegas, Rogivue explained all CIM requires in the printing process is connecting all of a facility's workflow components, which include administration, management and production, so that every component communicates with and works within the entire integrated system.

"When that happens," Rogivue says, "you're using information as a productivity tool and every element in your workflow is suddenly performing at peak efficiency, because CIM has made the whole greater than the sum of its parts."

CIM works best under an open architecture system, Rogivue explains, which means several providers working with you and focusing on their company's specific strengths. He specified MAN Roland's process electronic control, organization and management (PECOM) automation and plant management system as an example of an open architecture system.

"We introduced the PECOM concept over a decade ago, and now it is the only press operating system that facilitates the networked printing paradigm that makes CIM a reality," says Rogivue. "PECOM was able to advance through the years because it is software based, [making it] highly modular and fully upgradeable."

One of the advantages of using the PECOM system is it goes beyond control of press operations to organize the workflow of the pressroom, while connecting the management function to the pulse of the printing plant, adds Rogivue. The system links every production factor of every MAN Roland system in a pressroom to a management information system.