The printing industry in South Africa faces increasing pressure to innovate and streamline its processes. Customers are demanding faster turn around times and lower prices, with a decrease in print runs.
Realising this need, Dewald Rosema started his own companies in June 2006, Exell Technologies - established to fulfill and facilitate the gap between equipment/systems and production/business processes in the printing sector - and PrintingQuestions.com, an on-line service that caters to the country's printing industry.
Rosema started his career at France Telecom in 1995 and by 1998 he moved to the United Kingdom where he completed various IT projects. He returned to South Africa in 2000, joining stock broking firm BJM. Rosema then moved to commercial printing company Ultra Litho.
“While working at Ultra Litho for just over four years, I was fortunate enough to be exposed to some of the latest trends in regards to technology in the printing industry. Having had the experience of managing the implementation of a world class MIS package, Hiflex, I quickly realised the problems so many printers are faced with today,” Rosema explains.
“The industry is in the early stages of a technology upswing - one of my favorite expressions is that the print industry is heading into the dot com boom, and although a few years behind most production industries, they are finally catching up,” he adds.
“The main reason I started my own ventures was to provide the graphic-art and print industries with an almost one stop information and service provider - someone that can assist the organisation not only with standard IT related problems, such as user desktop support, but also more in-depth workflow analysis and process automation. After all, a printer who is not automated by the year 2010 will not benefit from the enormous financial benefits the soccer world cup will have to offer,” he notes.
And thus Exell Technologies and PrintingQuestions.com were established.
Rosema's Exell Technologies is the only genuine locally based company with ties to the International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CPI4) and he sees these ties as a great advantage.
“This gives me a support base and places information at my finger tips - by becoming a member I now have thousands of developers, support staff and managers that work with me to provide clients with real live case studies and tested solutions – and these organisations are a vendor independent source of information,” he explains.
Rosema is keen to dispel the myths surrounding CIP4's JDF (Job Definition Format) : “One of the biggest misconceptions in the market today is that JDF is a product, something you buy in a box and install. CIP4 and JDF is the same thing, by this I mean JDF is a standard based on XML which is controlled by CIP4.”
“In no sense is JDF the complete solution to any printer or packing organisation's problems - it is merely a glue or transport method to connect multi vendor applications and/or systems.”
According to Rosema, the concept and standard of JDF will most definitely assist organisations with their production process automation, but it will not provide a working solution out of the box.
“Each business is different, even though it may be producing similar products,” he says.
Rosema points out that while companies might market a JDF system, there is no such thing as JDF application.
“Many suppliers and vendors out there will also promise the world with the JDF connection abilities of their system - but in fact you – the customer - will be the testing pilot for it,” he adds.
Although completely vendor independent, Exell Technologies has a local representation agreement with Hiflex Germany, a Print specific MIS (Management Information System) which has won numerous international awards and is also the only true JDF MIS system in the world.
“Although this may not be the cheapest solution – in our opinion it's one of the best,” asserts Rosema.
He emphasizes that Exell Technologies intends to remain vendor independent as its main focus is not to sell systems to clients but to assist clients in finding the best possible solution that suits their requirements.
He adds that not many South African companies have made the transition to a JDF/CIP4-compliant workflow process. “I know of a few companies who have spent millions and still can't get it right,” he says.
“Too many companies out there don't plan – and if they do, they don't stay within their project plans.”
Rosema has exciting plans going forward, with a clear focus on Exell Technologies becoming the preferred – if not the only – total solutions provider to the graphic-art and printing industry in South Africa. He also intends growing Printing Questions.com into the biggest on-line information and service locator on the African continent.
In 2007, Rosema will once again present his highly successful seminars on an introduction to JDF with an added 2 day PDF/X conference which will be presented by the world wide renowned Mr. Stephan Jaeggi.
Visit our PRESS OFFICE: Specialising in software licensing and workflow consulting, mainly focusing on production process automation and supplying all required software and hardware platforms such as Adobe, Quark, MAC and more...- more....
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