CIP4 Announces 2009 CIPPI Awards Program

WASHINGTON, DC—February 27, 2009—The International Cooperation for the Integration of the Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) organization announced details of its 2009 annual Jürgen Schönhut Memorial CIP4 International Print Production Innovation (CIPPI) Awards Program. Applications are due Friday, June 26, 2009 and the awards will be presented to the winners during Print 2009 in Chicago, IL. Two new award categories have been added to the program. The categories for the CIPPI awards are:

• First and Second Place - Best cost/benefit realization and improvement in efficiency as a result of process automation implementation

• First and Second Place - Biggest improvement in quality production & customer responsiveness as a result of process automation

• Most innovative use of process automation technology in an implementation*

• (New) Small Business Process Automation Implementation of the Year (e.g., companies with less than 20 total employees, regardless of the number of locations.)*

• (New) Best Digital Printing Process Automation Implementation of the Year*

• Best Process Automation Implementation - Europe

• Best Process Automation Implementation - North America

• Best Process Automation Implementation - Asia Pacific

• Best Process Automation Implementation - Emerging Markets

*) The Most Innovative, Small Business and Digital Printing awards are given out at the discretion of the Review Panel. In any given year the review panel will not issue the three awards if they decide there is no appropriate candidate.

In addition, a new application form and new procedures for the award program have been published to the CIP4 website (See www.cip4.org/cippi/). The new requirements include changes such as requiring "before" and "after" workflow diagrams and an executive summary. "Last year we saw an increase in the number of CIPPI award applications," said CIPPI review panel judge Patrick Cahuet of 1Prime|Concept. "These changes will help the review panel judges, as well as the general public, to better understand the implementation described in the application."

"Last year we also saw the first emerging market winner from Pragati Offset in India, as well as hugely innovative implementations from folks like Cox Targeted Media and Print Plaza," said CIP4 executive director James Harvey. "We expect to see more global usage of JDF in the CIPPI Awards Program, as well as further innovations. Given the economic environment, we know a lot of printers are turning to print automation with JDF to capture cost savings quickly, and it will be interesting to see what creative solutions printers and their vendors come up with to improve their bottom line in short order."

Any printer, prepress service or publisher may apply for the CIPPI awards, which are determined by the review panel of judges without affiliation to any vendor, printer, prepress service or publisher. Each application is eligible for one regional award, as well as an award in one or more of the main categories. The five review panel judges are:

- Patrick Cahuet of 1Prime|Concept (France)
- Bill Esler of Graphic Arts Monthly (USA)
- Stephan Jaeggi of PrePress-Consulting (Switzerland)
- Tetsuo Kimura of PrinTechno, Inc. (Japan)
- John Leininger of Clemson University (USA)

Bill Esler, the editor and chief of Graphic Arts Monthly magazine, replaces William Lamparter of PrintCom Consulting as a judge. Bill has followed the CIPPI awards program in his magazine over the last few years and looks forward to participating in the program.

Details on the CIPPI Awards Program, case studies from previous winners, 2009 CIPPI award applications forms may be downloaded from www.cip4.org/cippi/. The CIPPI award is named after the late Jürgen Schönhut of the Fraunhofer Institute in Darmstadt Germany. Mr. Schönhut was a founding member of CIP4 whose contribution was instrumental in creating both CIP4 and its predecessor, the CIP3 Consortium. (For more information on Jürgen Schönhut please see his biography at: http://www.cip4.org/cippi/juergen_schoenhut.html).

About CIP4
CIP4 brings together vendors, consultants, and end-users in the print communications, graphic arts industry, and associated sectors, covering a variety of equipment, software, peripherals, and processes. Members participate in focused working groups to define the Job Definition Format (JDF), PrintTalk, and other standards relevant to process automation; to study user requirements; to test product interoperability; and to develop a range of JDF software development tools. Information on CIP4, including membership details, is available from the organization's website: www.cip4.org. Or contact: Stefan Daun, Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics, +49 6151 155 575, secretariat@cip4.org. All content and ideas submitted to the CIP4 user groups and intellectual property rights subsisting therein shall become the exclusive property of CIP4.

About JDF
The Job Definition Format (JDF) is the industry specification designed to facilitate process automation and the integration of different applications and systems in and around the graphic arts industry. JDF also enables the integration of business management and job planning applications into the production workflow. JDF is based on the W3C's Extensible Markup Language (XML), ensuring maximum interoperability between different platforms and ready interaction with Internet systems. More information is available at http://www.cip4.org/.