What is the document supply chain and what’s the value in a supply-chain view?
In response to increasing demands for both increased efficiency and increased flexibility, the document production industry has evolved a supply chain model well beyond the original scope of ADF.
Following the example of ERP systems, today’s document production factory strives to integrate and automate all functions of the document factory utilizing a set of easy-to-use utilities with access points for internal and external users to manipulate and monitor processes for increased value and efficiency.
In short, document production is moving toward a supply-chain model where the acquisition, the production and the distribution of all the elements of a document are integrated in an efficient value-generating process. Thus, the original ADF is greatly expanded to include access to the data and to its providers, unifying production by using “ERP-like” processes and utilities to streamline operations, integrate multiple environments and distribute through multiple channels.
This supply chain is open to customers internally or externally who are requesting the production of documents and who want to track the status of their requests. Documents might be requested for physical print and mail production, for electronic delivery or any combination of physical and electronic production with output to any media or via any delivery channel.
With these sorts of requirements, the term document itself has taken on a far broader meaning, expanding from the traditional world of the paper document to the world of digital media. The document supply chain model recognizes this new reality and organizes the ADF into three major steps:
- the composition of documents,
- post-composition optimization,
- and production management
Composition includes all the steps in the creation of document content, whether documents are composed in large batch volume or interactively customized in small numbers.
Post-Composition is the re-engineering of existing documents to fix or enhance them for optimized content or processing.
Production Management is the monitoring, tracking and automation of all the steps in the acquisition, production and distribution of documents.
