CIP3--A Giant and the Consortium
The fourth installment of Printing Impressions' year-long CIP3 focus profiles the prepress and press projections of Heidelberg—the founding father of the CIP3 consortium. Now, with Delta Technology's PressGate from Heidelberg Prepress serving as a CIP3 enabling tool for the German press maker, the megasupplier is moving closer to automating the print production process from prepress through postpress.
If one company needed to embody the objectives of the CIP3 movement—establish and implement a seamless digital workflow from prepress to postpress—it was Heidelberg. The founder of the CIP3 initiative, Heidelberg is the new name in prepress production, as well as an established goliath in the pressroom and a looming figure in postpress.
Heidelberg is CIP3.
Today, hundreds of Heidelberg personnel are working to deliver the Print Production Format (PPF) to their digitally minded, commercial printing customers. From Dr. Gerhard Fischer, head of system coordination at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, to Axel Zöller, marketing director in the United States for Heidelberg Prepress, the industry giant has focused its energies on empowering commercial printers with the integration of CIP3.
Zöller believes in its potential. "CIP3 will be the tool for linking prepress to postpress," he notes. "Heidelberg will continue to establish and implement components of the CIP3 initiative.
"It may take a few years before CIP3 sees its full potential throughout the industry, but we will get there. Heidelberg is committed, and we will empower CIP3."
Ray Cassino, CTP manager at Heidelberg Prepress, agrees. "CIP3—the integration and automation of the prepress through press and postpress workflow—will increase dramatically over the next two years. As the world's largest publishing technology vendor, Heidelberg offers cutting-edge solutions based on its unique and comprehensive understanding of publishing workflows," he reports.
"Today, more than ever, prepress, press and finishing can communicate and share information as never before," Cassino continues.
"As a result, each part of the process can work according to what is feasible for other tasks in the workflow, and create or format material so that it moves quickly and easily through each process—from design through scanning, RIPing, trapping, imposition, proofing, plate and image setting, printing and finishing."
