Ways to Take IPDS Printing to the Next Level
Many organizations rely on mainframe and AS/400 systems to generate critical business documents using legacy AFP formats. While efficient, these documents are locked into proprietary print workflows that offer little flexibility. iCONVERT™ provides a bridge to unlock and integrate these documents into modern, strategic print production platforms.
Originally designed as a tactical solution for routing mainframe print streams to desktop printers, iCONVERT has evolved into a versatile transform engine. It can emulate AFP printers to host systems while distributing output to virtually any networked device. This alone eliminates the need for IPDS printer controllers and supports unlimited scale.
However, iCONVERT’s biggest impact comes from breaking down silos. Organizations can freely manage print output alongside other jobs by converting IPDS streams into open formats like PDF. This interoperability unlocks the potential to optimize workflows using document re-engineering, implement white paper factory models, and leverage finishing automation.
Document Re-engineering
Legacy AFP documents often contain printer-specific commands for barcodes, MRDF codes, slip sheets, and inline finishing. iCONVERT can strip these artifacts to create a format-neutral document. This simplified file can then be enriched by adding color, images, logos, and other custom enhancements before final production. Companies leverage re-engineering to migrate legacy documents onto new print platforms cost-effectively.
White Paper Factory Workflows
Many legacy jobs utilize pre-printed shells or digital form overlays. Maintaining inventory is cumbersome and wasteful. However, by replacing static pre-printed components with dynamic underlays, iCONVERT enables seamless white paper factory workflows. This reduces waste and overhead while adding flexibility to update document templates easily.
Automated Finishing
Production printers rely extensively on embedded finishing commands for functions like stapling, hole punching, and booklet making. Migrating jobs to new devices often requires translation of these intricate instructions. iCONVERT simplifies conversion by capturing legacy finishing codes upfront. This data integrates seamlessly with solutions like Solimar® Print Director™ Enterprise (SPDE) to standardize device communication.
By unleashing documents from proprietary environments, iCONVERT delivers strategic value beyond convenience printing. Its flexibility will continue meeting evolving needs – whether enhancing legacy documents or pursuing advanced print simplification. As a customer concludes, “What is best today may not be in the future.”
iCONVERT can be used as a cost-effective way to enable mainframe printing for today and can offer organizations strategic benefits as their needs evolve. Mainframes are still an essential part of many enterprise I.T. infrastructures. These systems generate high-volumes of transactional print. They also distribute reports and other printed output to users across the enterprise.
For years, organizations have been looking to move print and other non-core functions from mainframes to lower cost platforms. This frees up valuable CPU time for core functions and extends the life of these aging mainframes. iCONVERT is a powerful transform engine that can route mainframe and AS/400 output to any centralized or networked desktop printer. Not only does it reduce the load and extend the life of mainframes, it opens up many new opportunities to optimize enterprise print and print operations. Let’s get to it.
Different organizations have different needs. These needs change over time. What works today may not be the best fit in the future. iCONVERT deployment options handle a wide variety of configuration and performance scenarios. The top line shows how iCONVERT can be used to drive printers directly without the need for a DFE, providing the printer can accept a native print stream such as PostScript, PDF, or even PCL. The middle configuration shows iCONVERT installed directly on a Windows based DFE. This negates the need to purchase new hardware to run iCONVERT. iCONVERT can be installed on a server and then used to send output to DFEs, for applications where performance and flexibility is paramount.
Many IPDS solutions connect with a single output device or require hardware for each printer. Not only can iCONVERT support more than one device, it can support hundreds or even thousands of devices without the need for special IPDS cards. iCONVERT can print to virtually any printer. They need only to support PDF, PostScript or PCL. iCONVERT is ideal for driving high-speed production printers in a centralized print environment. It also handles distributed output across an enterprise with hundreds or thousands of desktop printers equally as well. This makes it a great solution for any organization needing mainframe output management. We have a case study on our website that highlights customer successes there.
iCONVERT breaks IPDS jobs out of their workflow silo. This one is huge. A lot of possibilities open up once mainframe work is liberated from a point to point workflow. Mainframe output can be integrated with the rest of your output. iCONVERT is a gateway to output management systems such as SPDE, BARR, and others. Once outside the IPDS silo, there are a lot of possibilities for mainframe jobs.
iCONVERT gives your IPDS print work access to modern production printing platforms. Host jobs can now be managed the way that other jobs are managed. Here you see work is handed off to document re-engineering and output management systems while being tracked and managed by a dashboard. For Solimar, these pieces are Rubika for re-engineering, SPDE for advanced output management and transformation, and the SOLitrack visibility dashboard. Document re-engineering allows for stripping work of print specific features like barcodes and imposition, then optimizing them to create final output for whatever production workflow is needed. Organizations use this to batch like work together, add color, logos, images and more to legacy documents, and then output them to any device or production line they choose.
Re-engineering gives operations, power and control over how and where work is produced. After document re-engineering, jobs can be handed off to advanced output management systems like Solimar Print Director Enterprise or SPDE. This enables conversion from and to a wide variety of print data formats, powerful queue management, color conversions using ICC profiles, tracking and accounting, ReadyPDF, our powerful PDF optimization engine, and much more.
Managing cut sheet print jobs that call for inline finishing like tray pulls, jog or stapling can be very tricky. iCONVERT can handle many of these finishing translations alone. If that isn’t enough, SPDE and Rubika can help by ingesting almost every type of finishing information, they can add, remove or modify, and then output them to about any other method. Using Rubika, we can add finishing commands to files that never even had them, or even convert existing finishing commands into barcodes to drive offline finishing processes. This is key for moving work from one cut sheet device to another, splitting jobs across different cut sheet devices, and for reprint workflows. Using document re-engineering, operations can reprocess those old mainframe jobs to work within modern white paper factory workflows, replacing preprinted shells with electronic overlays. The white paper factory workflow streamlines and requires very little human intervention. This saves huge money on things like warehousing and management of inventory of preprints.
White paper factory workflows are great for disaster recovery or overflow printing to another white paper factory. It removes the dependency of inventory management and preprinted stocks. Reprints are simplified. Unlimited changes can be made to digital preprints without the hassle and expense of physically preprinting. Obsolescence is a thing of the past. Visibility and tracking of jobs as they move through operation is more important than ever. SOLitrack, Solimar’s dashboarding solution, tracks everything iCONVERT and all Solimar and third-party products are doing. It can also track manual processes, tracking jobs, gathering job metrics in a database, enabling advanced troubleshooting, historic reporting. It gives operations a leg up on their competitors, ensuring fast turn times and conformance with SLAs.
Sure, iCONVERT allows non-IPDS printers to print jobs for mainframes, but it enables so much more than that. iCONVERT is a flexible, cost-effective solution that allows IPDS output to break free from its silo. Opening up whole new world of possibilities.
