R
icoh has released Clickable Paper in South Africa
and discussions with potential customers are al-
ready underway.
Clickable Paper has the ability to provide immediate
one-touch access to up to six different online resources
such as video or multimedia, web sites, e-commerce por-
tals and social networks.
‘You simply point your smartphone or tablet camera at
a clickable page and the app for iOS and Android takes a
picture that references back to the cloud where the con-
tent owner makes whatever content they want available
via the six or fewer links,’ said Vaughan Patterson, sales
manager for the production printing business group at
Ricoh SA.
Unlike QR codes, Clickable Paper can actually refer-
ence any image including a logo on an item of clothing, a
T-shirt or, as the name suggests, a page in a book, maga-
zine, newspaper or any other printed material. The links
it serves up take people to specific content instead of a
general web page that requires further interaction.
‘The technology was piloted in Europe, field-tested
and proven,’ said Patterson, ‘and applications are almost
boundless.Peoplecanscananadvertinanewspaper,col-
lect a digital coupon and get their discount for a product
when they buy it in store. Or they can simply scan the
cover of a book and access interactive content instead of
using a bundled CD or DVD.’
The technology works by storing the clickable page
in the Ricoh cloud and with the imminent release of an
authoring tool, content owners can create and change
content as they wish, over any period of time, while the
clickable image remains the same, which is another key
difference between Clickable Paper and QR codes. There
is no need to issue a new image as is the case with QR
codes.
Although the Clickable Paper logo can be printed on
the page to inform the reader that the images are hot
spots for more interaction, the technology doesn’t require
visible marks of any kind on printed materials, so there is
no need to design around a barcode that can detract from
a document’s appearance.
The commercialisation of Clickable Paper follows a
number of successful pilots in the Netherlands, France
and the United Kingdom where the technology has been
deployed by businesses in commercial print, publishing
and luxury goods manufacturing across a range of appli-
cations that include books, newspapers and magazines.
One of the pilotswas UK commercial printer Barnwell
Print. The company was keen to modernise the user’s ex-
perience with the printed page and increase the value of
print to enhance its breadth of services and support its
clients to grow their own businesses.
Clickable Paper was incorporated into a 4000 run of a
274-page book enabling readers to watch a video about
fishing. Barnwell Print also used the technology success-
fully in an advert for Norwich Theatre Royal in a monthly
town magazine with a circulation of 40 000 to encourage
readers to order theatre tickets online.
‘When we saw Clickable Paper, we immediately
recognised its enormous potential,’ said Julian Barnwell,
MD and co-owner of Barnwell Print. ‘Clickable Paper ena-
bles publications to be used as a portal to direct readers
to all kinds of extra information or entertainment. It brings
printed publications into the world of interactive, multi-
channel communications and offers the real-time tracking
of reader response that has heretofore been difficult to
achieve with a printed publication.’
Dutch business magazine De Zaak chose Clickable
Paper to reinforce subscriptions and advertising levels
by offering a value-added service to subscribers. The
monthly publication, with 155 000 readers and a 17 000
subscriber base, chose to enrich its articles with links to
its website and other information sources. Chief editor
Armand Landman, said, ‘With Clickable Paper, we added
something special to our printed magazine. We can now
easily bridge to our online platformwhere our readerswill
find a wealth of additional information and services. This
allows our readers to have fast, easy access to a broader
range of material via their smartphones, with the printed
magazine as the base.’ He has called it: ‘the next page in
journalism’.
Ricoh has won the France Xplor Grand Jury Award
for innovation in Paris for Clickable Paper technology. The
jury selected Clickable Paper based on how Ricoh and
the luxury watch manufacturer, Bell and Ross, created
a customised app to add impact to the launch of a new,
ceramic watch at the prestigious Baselworld watch and
jewellery show in Basel, Switzerland inMarch.
Ricoh SA 0800 111 014
T
here is an increasing realisation among senior exec-
utives that the finance function and the supply chain
function in the enterprise have to work together.
Traditionally, CFOs monitor supply-chain matters but tend
to work more closely with COOs than with supply-chain
executives. But rising internal and external costs, emerg-
ing new markets, shorter product life cycles and ongoing
economic uncertainties are elevating the role of the sup-
ply chain and the supply-chain leaders within a company.
Nowcollaboration between the functions to ensure align-
ment between the business strategy and the supply chain
strategy is becoming a necessity – with the organisation
seeing bottom line benefits.
At the SAPICS Conference 2014, Jay Reddy, a prin-
cipal procurement specialist at Sasol Polymers and a
lecturer in the UNISA MBA programme, will speak on
how finance can work with supply chain functions for
the overall cost and profit benefit of the business. In a
talk entitled, ‘Supply chain resilience and supply chain fi-
nance – an oxymoron?, Reddy tackles the thorny question
of organisational alignment and functional collaboration
within the enterprise.
‘The financial impact of supply chain activities on the
business is often not well understood, and the cost and
profit benefits of closer collaboration and planning be-
tween the departments not clearly appreciated,’ he said.
‘In traditional supply chains, the role can be considered
operational, whereas aspects of supply chain strategy,
such as how much inventory to hold, where and for how
long, can materially affect both the top and bottom lines
of the company’s financial performance.’
Reddy’s dynamic presentation focuses on recent
technological and process advances which are available
to the supply chain professional who engages with ven-
dors. These focus on mitigating risk of supply, optimising
inventory, evaluating the total cost to the business of early
settlement discounts, and generally reducing the supply
side risk.
Formoreinformationonthe36thAnnualSAPICSCon-
ference & Exhibition, being held at Sun City from 1 to 3
June 2014, please visit
E
FI has announced two powerful EFI Fiery digital front
ends (DFEs) for the newXerox Versant 2100 Press.
The Xerox EX 2100 and EX-P 2100 Print Servers
Powered by Fiery set the standard for colour accuracy and
image quality by using a new 10-bit, 1200dpi process-
ing technology at the digital front end. Processing tinted
text and graphics at these resolutions produces sharper
edges for an exceptionally crisp, clean appearance. The
new Fiery Ultra Smooth Gradients feature goes beyond
traditional 8-bit rendering to help eliminate ‘stair stepped’
gradient shades common in digital printing of vector im-
ages. To the print service provider, these technology ad-
vances mean higher print quality, less rework, and more
satisfied customers.
‘Commercial printers, corporate in-plant print depart-
ments and graphics firms demand the most out of their
digital printing investments, and the new Fiery servers
deliver on their most urgent image quality and colour ac-
curacy needs,’ said Robert Stabler, senior vice president,
Xerox Graphic Communications Business Group. ‘Fiery
servers are unique in their ability to increase shop auto-
mation and productivity with their seamless integration
to EFI MIS and Web-to-Print products as well as leading
prepress workflow solutions.’
The newDFEs are based on EFI’s Fiery FS100 Pro plat-
form - the first DFE platform to carry a 100 percent perfect
pass rating from VIGC’s PDF RIP Audit. As a result, users
can eliminate trial-and-error approaches to output using
Fiery technology that ensures that complex design ele-
ments like overprinting and transparencies print correctly
the very first time.
Another key benefit of the Fiery DFEs is their tight in-
tegration with Xerox FreeFlow Workflow Collection and
FreeFlow Core, providing customers with additional time-
saving automation and operational efficiency.
Designed for graphics-intensive jobs and complex,
variable-data work, the Xerox EX-P 2100 Print Server in-
cludes Fiery HyperRIP technology, which processes com-
plex files up to 40% faster than other DFEs.
‘The advancements in creative design software over
the last five years are pushing the boundaries of digital
frontendsandcolourprinters,’saidMarcoBoer,vicepres-
ident, IT Strategies Inc., a market research consultancy.
‘The introduction of EFI’s new Fiery EX and EX-P servers,
coupled with the newXerox Versant 2100 production col-
our digital printer, could not be timed better to handle the
exponential processing power required to correctly render
complex design capabilities, such as transparency reveals
andgradualshadowtransitions,andmeeteverincreasing
customer expectations on output quality.’
Unlocking value in supply chain finance
New EFI Fiery DFEs for Xerox Versant 2100 Press
Ricoh’s Clickable Paper provides a mobile,
interactive experience
Printed on 128 gsm Hi-Q Titan Gloss supplied by
I
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