5 Professional Digital Printing Features (That You Didn’t Know You Needed)

Today’s print market is much different than it was only a few years ago. Multiple factors have contributed to changing customer expectations, and major manufacturers are adjusting their strategies to match. Which this in mind, here are some of the best digital printing features that you probably didn’t even know you needed.

Some of these factors are elements of broader, multi-industry patterns. Environmental sustainability is a great example – consumers prefer print hardware that prevents damage to the environment as much as possible.

Other factors are strictly print industry-related and have more to do with advances in state-of-the-art printing technology than with broad consumer trends. These factors typically express themselves as digital printing features that allow for newfound capabilities and efficiencies when compared to older equipment.

In today’s busy print environment, those features are multiplying at a phenomenal rate. The commercial benefits that they offer are giving forward-thinking print process owners key advantages over their competitors.

Invest in State-of-the-Art Professional Digital Printing Solutions

Some of the most fascinating advances in print technology have the widest implications for professional digital printing providers.

These advances promise organizations better returns on print investments, more flexibility with print processes, and greater efficiency across entire departments.

Laser Cutting

Although laser cutting is not new to the print industry, it has traditionally occupied a very selective niche corner of the print market. There is a good reason for this – the cost of laser cutting made is out of reach for most commercial print consumers, except in special circumstances when intricate finishing work was absolutely necessary.

Whereas in the past this made laser cutting a secondary option for greeting cards, labels, and direct mail prints, it is now a more mainstream feature in high-volume commercial printers. Reduced technology costs and improvements in automation serve to make laser cutting a superior choice for high-volume print runs that require greater precision than traditional cutting solutions offer.

Automated Personalization

Personalization is a common need for digital print professionals. Whether working in an enterprise environment or serving the mailing needs of a small business, there are always moments when you need to print dozens or even hundreds of documents with content that differs slightly from one document to the next.

Automated personalization allows print operators to make automate those changes. This saves a great deal of time by allowing, for instance, a direct mail printer to automatically print every individual address automatically, without operator intervention.

Managed Print Services

One of the most important benefits to today’s modern printing environment is increased connectivity and process automation. The industry has reached a point where very few enterprises actually need to keep their in-house IT team busy with print-related processes.

Managed print services let businesses scale their print needs through the automation of low-impact print workflows. This frees up time for in-house IT teams to work on strategic initiatives for improve the value of document processes and spend less time fixing broken equipment.

Managed print is a proactive way to prevent downtime and ensure optimal performance of your digital press machine for print processes and equipment.

User Authentication and Encryption

Best-in-class security definitely counts as a feature most business owners don’t know they need – until it’s too late. Printers are uniquely vulnerable threat vectors for connected enterprises because almost every device on the average corporate network connects to one, and most connect to several at the same time.

Not only do you have to contend with the constant threat of ransomware or business email compromise, but now the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is focusing on cybersecurity enforcement more than ever. This puts almost every business under the SEC’s jurisdiction in a tough predicament, and the only solution is to invest in security before your vulnerabilities get exposed.

Today’s best printers have built-in security features like user authentication and queue encryption. The former ensures that sensitive data only prints when an authorized employee is present for pick-up, and the latter ensures that digital intruders can’t exfiltrate useful data waiting in the print queue.

Print Monitoring and Fleet Management

Chances are there is a better, more efficient layout for your office print fleet. Finding out what that layout is and how much money it will save you every month is an elusive goal for busy IT professionals who already stretch their resources thin just making sure everything works properly.

However, digital print monitoring and fleet management solutions allow key stakeholders to provide responsible supervisors the data they need to perform this task. Managed print service providers have bespoke solutions that allow for efficient-boosting monitoring strategies to begin generating value almost immediately.

Want to learn more about modern, professional digital printing features that can help you save money? Call us and speak to a specialist today, or get additional details on the reprographics solutions that Kelley Create offers. Access to the reprographics production facility your organization needs to grow is only a click away!