Canon Launches PRISMAdirect to Further Enhance Workflow Automation

MELVILLE, N.Y.—September 10, 2015—Canon U.S.A., a leader in digital imaging, has launched PRISMAdirect, a workflow solution designed to simplify order intake, facilitate order management, help reduce overhead costs and enable faster turnaround time. Featuring automated processes from job submission to help order fulfillment, PRISMAdirect solution offers users an order management dashboard and an optional Web shop module, to enable higher productivity for in-plant print centers, print shops and commercial printers alike.

“As a service business, your company is challenged every day. First and foremost, it is increasingly important to create a better bridge for communicating with your customers. Additionally, you should be automating your processes as a way to help reduce costs and cycle time. With PRISMAdirect, Canon has developed a solution that helps you deliver on those expectations,” said David Zwang of Zwang & Co.

Saving Time
Automating time-consuming steps enables users to produce work more efficiently and effectively. For businesses that receive recurring orders, the PRISMAdirect solution offers prepared settings, helping to eliminate repetitive procedures and assists them in delivering more orders.

Facilitating Customer Communication
To help ensure the continuous flow of communication between print service provider and client, the solution allows businesses to update customers regarding the status of their orders via personalized or automatic emails.

Insight
Extensive reporting and accounting capabilities of PRISMAdirect can help users gain more insight into their operation.

Streamlined Order Acquisition
Able to acquire orders from a variety of sources, PRISMAdirect simplifies the production workflow by combining job submission and order fulfillment in one centralized solution. Whether customers submit orders in the form of an email, USB drive, hard copy, via network folder, FTP folder, uniFLOW or a supported web shop, PRISMAdirect delivers a reliable, unified channel to help process incoming print and non-print orders.

The solution comes standard with a powerful order processing and management dashboard. Additionally, the optional web shop provides a convenient, online purchasing experience for buyers, allowing them to submit purchase orders for both print and non-print items 24/7. PRISMAdirect users may create an unlimited number of virtual storefronts, and modify each one to reflect the print provider’s or print buyer’s individual corporate identity.

Simplified Order Management
The order processing and management dashboard offers two powerful views, the order view and job view.

• The order view provides detailed progress status information, allowing users to manage the workflow of orders from creation to finalization.
• The job view provides a clear overview of all jobs and connected printers, allowing operators to preview, edit production settings and process jobs assigned to them.

Expanded Integration Capabilities
The makeready process can be one of the most time-consuming aspects of production work, but PRISMAdirect offers standard imposition templates. For more elaborate page programming, the solution is designed to integrate smoothly with Océ PRISMAprepare solution, an all-in-one make-ready solution that helps accelerate preparation from composition through production and reduce costly and non-chargeable print preparation time. PRISMAdirect can even allow for page-level editing in third-party PDF-based applications such as Adobe Creative Suite without leaving the PRISMA application and can be easily integrated into existing workflow systems utilizing standardized JDF/JMF interfaces.

PRISMAdirect protects customers’ previous investments by driving not only Canon systems but other third-party printers that accept PDF files for example in mixed brand fleets.

Availability
The PRISMAdirect solution is scheduled to be available in October 2015 through Canon authorized dealers and Canon Solutions America.

About Canon U.S.A.
Canon U.S.A. is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions to the United States and to Latin America and the Caribbean (excluding Mexico) markets. With approximately $31 billion in global revenue, its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), ranks third overall in U.S. patents granted in 2014† and is one of Fortune Magazine's World's Most Admired Companies in 2015. Canon U.S.A. is committed to the highest level of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all of the products it distributes. Canon U.S.A. is dedicated to its Kyosei philosophy of social and environmental responsibility. In 2014, the Canon Americas Headquarters secured LEED Gold certification, a recognition for the design, construction, operations and maintenance of high-performance green buildings.

†Based on weekly patent counts issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Source: Canon U.S.A.