Connecting the Dots: Bidirectional Communication Between Avanti Slingshot® and RICOH ProcessDirector™ (infographic)

Automating production—using customizable workflows to establish job rules and processes—can eliminate manual touchpoints and optimize repeatable work, while collecting valuable tracking and performance data. 

Connecting those two processes with bidirectional communication provides a powerful single source of truth for every job that passes through your operation.

Avanti Slingshot’s print business MIS provides end-to-end visibility and control of your business processes, and both are enhanced when it is combined with RICOH ProcessDirector’s automated production workflows. Information flows back and forth to keep your team informed and eliminate manual transfer of key information, using industry-standard JDF, XML and XMF communication for file integrity.

This infographic connects the dots from beginning to end.

1. Avanti Slingshot can serve as a single input point for all job submission avenues—web-to-print, estimates and email orders—sending complete job information to RICOH ProcessDirector, which automates prepress and production functions. (As an alternative, established FTP transfers into RICOH ProcessDirector can be completed, with customer data and job ticket information sent automatically to Avanti for tracking.)
   
   
2. As each step of RICOH ProcessDirector’s automated production workflows is completed, data is sent back to Avanti, including job completion status, time to complete the job, materials used and job tracking for compliance.
   
   
3. From that data, Avanti completes the information cycle by generating cost reports, invoices, inventory updates and more opportunities for business data analysis.

The benefits of all this? 

• Reduced manual entry of data.
• Lower risk of error.
• More effective use of employee time.
• Accessible real-time job status updates for customer service managers.
• Single source of truth for all job information.
• Cost reporting to allow comparisons of estimated vs. budgeted vs. actual.
• Better business decisions based on data.
• More jobs completed in less time with more confidence.

Want to learn more about the benefits of combining Avanti Slingshot and RICOH ProcessDirector? You’ll find more details in our latest e-book. Download “Better Together: Avanti Slingshot + RICOH ProcessDirector—Keeping Pace With Changing Needs & Opportunities.”

If you aren’t sure where to look for opportunities to increase productivity in your own business and production workflows, schedule a no-obligation workflow evaluation with Avanti to learn more about how Avanti Slingshot and RICOH ProcessDirector can work together to eliminate bottlenecks and errors, free up staff for customer-centric tasks and move more jobs through your plant more quickly.