Jun 5, 2003
By Pat McGrew
Welcome to the HVCO Data Management Pavilion of OutputLinks.com!
In the last three columns the topic has been the relevance of transform programs, sparked by a discussion started on a popular forum by a vendor who proudly announced that print streams should not be converted. In refuting his point of view I have looked at a number of issues, including the lack of understanding of the strength of vendor offerings in our industry by consultants in many industry vertical markets.
In making my case for transform programs I also discussed the challenges associated with trying to develop such programs in house, as recommended by the vendor I was discussing. In closing the last column I explained that three times in the last 20 years I have been on the periphery of the development process for program products that manipulate or transform print datastreams. I noted that I was not the designer or programmer, but as the person writing the technical documentation for the programs I became the first line of testing and quality assurance, and worked with the designers and programmers to understand the challenges they faced in dissecting the print streams and manipulating them.
What I learned from that experience is that for experienced product designers the key is to understand the needs of the program user, what the feeds to the program will be, and what the required output must look like. In all of the efforts I have been involved in, the product designer had a vision of the goal, and designed the architecture to meet that goal. Following the initial design there were sessions with programmers to execute the vision. Incremental testing told the designer and the programmers where they would need to make adjustments to handle real data.
Then there were the initial tests with customer data and at customer sites, where we learned more about how customers wanted to use transform and print manipulation programs. We came to understand how the specific nature of their enterprise workflow required additional variations to the features and functions, and added them to the program.
By the end of the initial customer testing phase, the program products were robust, enterprise-hardened, and capable of standing up to the most poorly generated print streams. In the end, you have to remember that all of the files did print, so our mission was to be as capable as the printer.
What I learned from these experiences is that the programs I was involved with, as well as those created by other vendors across the industry are capable of doing the very things that the skeptical vendor told his customer base was either impossible or unreliable. The moral to this series of columns is that when it comes to the HVCO industry, the vendors who participate in it work hard to build programs that work effectively with the many variations of line data, AFP, LCDS and other print streams. If any vendor or consultant tells you that something cannot be done with a print stream, it may be time to look for another opinion. You will certainly want to ask for proof that any specific vendor can meet your needs and work with your data, but be skeptical when someone tells you that what you want to do is not possible.
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