Customers want print faster than ever, in shorter runs and with less notice. When a competitor can quote in minutes and ship tomorrow, the printer who needs two days to get a job onto press loses the work, often without ever knowing why.
Demand for speed is not going away
In FESPA's 2018 Print Census, 72% of print service providers said customer demand for fast turnaround was increasing, and 61% said runs were getting shorter. More recently, GelatoConnect's State of Intelligent Print Production 2026 report found 78% of printers believe they must modernise within the next 12 months, and 35% said the need was immediate.
Shorter runs mean more jobs for the same revenue, and every job carries the same administrative load whether it is 50 copies or 50,000.
Where the time actually goes
Modern presses are fast. In most printers we look at, the delay is not on the press at all. It is in the queues before it:
- Waiting for a quote to be priced and sent.
- Waiting for artwork, then waiting for someone to check it.
- Waiting for a corrected file after a problem is found.
- Waiting for proof approval, often by email.
- Waiting for imposition and scheduling to be done by hand.
Each wait is small. Added together, they turn a job that needs an hour of press time into a job that takes days to leave the building.
Faster without burning out the team
The usual answer to turnaround pressure is longer hours. That works for a while, then people get tired, mistakes rise and good staff leave. Automation attacks the queues instead:
- Automatic preflight checks files the moment they arrive and tells the customer straight away if something needs fixing.
- Online proofing and approval replaces email chains with a single click.
- Rules based imposition and ganging prepare press ready files without someone building each one by hand.
- Connected job data means the MIS, prepress and press all know what is happening without anyone typing it again.
None of this makes the press run faster. It makes sure the press is never waiting.
Find your slowest queue
Pick ten recent jobs and write down the time each spent in each stage, from order to dispatch. The biggest gap is where to start. In our experience it is almost never the press.
// how we can help
We trace real jobs from order to dispatch, show you where the time goes and which fixes will shorten turnaround first.
Also useful: PDF preflight automation
Sources: Great expectations: tougher demands from print customers (FESPA, Print Census); Print service providers say they must modernise (GelatoConnect, State of Intelligent Print Production 2026).