Heaven knows, having a print business that uses multiple printers shouldn’t feel like juggling chainsaws – but it does. A range of machines should mean you can swap jobs, load balance, and respond in real time when your client goes nuts and wants the same job on completely different media.
Far too often though, it’s chaos. Every change in substrate sends Dave into a tailspin. When jobs get rerouted, it’s as though every RIP in the room has a meltdown.
Your production schedule is suddenly on a knife edge – but this isn’t an equipment problem. It’s a software mindset problem. Nowhere is that clearer than in how most RIPs still work – like they’re in a room with their in-laws … listening very carefully to what you’re saying, but all intent on still doing their own thing.
THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
For years, we’ve been told every printer works best with this or that RIP, and each device should be paired with its own little silo of software. That might’ve made sense ten years ago, when everything was simpler, slower, and more manual.
Now, though? That’s just silly.
What you need, is the ability to move a job from Printer A to Printer B – or C (in China), or D (in Delaware) – quickly, easily, without losing time or making ritual sacrifices. If your RIP can’t support a seamless move like that, then it’s not helping you scale. It’s holding you hostage.
The only thing worse than losing time, swapping a job? Doing the same job, over and over again – and yes, we’re about to use the ultimate weasel-word, the one we all hate to see. Automation. Bring it on.
AUTOMATION-SCHMAUTOMATION
Getting things done by a computer makes sense. You know it, we know it. Tesla-owners shout it from the rooftops. And most of us are old enough to remember getting up to change the channel … but who does that, these days? Your TV remote control is just automation in a handset. Your iPhone? That’s the Yellow Pages on a memory stick. The whole world has automated everything, so why is Dave still doing mind-numbing jobs, endlessly?
The real killer for most print production isn’t the cost of media, or transport, or the electric bills – it’s repetitive tasks that should’ve been automated years ago.
Just think – how many hours does Dave waste, resizing files to job formats? How long does he spend, extending seams? Or generating cut files? Checking the same five settings for the fiftieth bloomin’ time this week?
It’s like clicking through cookie banners on websites — it’s boring, brain-dead, and utterly predictable. (The tasks. Not Dave.)
The fix? That’s simple. It’s a RIP that has built-in presets. Intelligent logic. Something that lets you say: “For jobs like this, do X, Y and Z automatically — every single time.” And then, it just happens. No reminders when Dave’s hung over. No reworks when the client changes their mind. Just files that sit in the queue, print-ready, and ready to go – getting all the little jobs done along the way. That’s not a time-saver. It’s a sanity-saver (let’s not talk about what Dave could be doing, instead).
GETTING RIPPED – AT WHAT COST?
There’s a quiet truth in print production. It doesn’t get said enough: complexity may be clever, but it comes with a smart bloomin’ price tag, too – show us a bit of software that promises the world, and we can all ignore the accountants who’ know it costs the earth. However, sometimes the best – smartest – software isn’t wrapped up in a generic brand-name you know. It’s smarter on the inside, instead.
A good RIP is something you can pick up quickly; a great RIP doesn’t ask for seventeen bolt-on modules and six days’ training. It just runs. It handles your profiling in under an hour. It reduces ink usage intelligently, without wrecking your colour – no, seriously, can you believe there are some printers who still print crap colour? – it’s the kind of software that doesn’t make headlines, but it does make a difference.
GO ON, WHAT’S THE CATCH.
There’s no catch. This is a conversation.
But if your print room feels like it’s held together by tribal knowledge, crossed fingers, and a never-ending list of ‘I’ve just got these to do…’, then it is worth asking – what if, it’s not your people that are the problem, but a room full of generic RIPs?
Good RIPs shouldn’t create bottlenecks, or need a specialist to whisper sweet nothings around the right settings when there’s a Y in the day of the week. And they definitely shouldn’t make every job feel like starting again. Your software should work as hard as you do – if not harder, to make your life easy.
So. Yes, if your multiple RIPs aren’t doing that, maybe it’s time you gave us a call.
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