CIP4 Announces Details of the 2011 CIPPI Awards Program
WASHINGTON, DC—Feb. 9, 2011—The International Cooperation for the Integration of the Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) organization announced details of its 2011 annual Jürgen Schönhut Memorial CIP4 International Print Production Innovation (CIPPI) Awards Program. Applications are due Friday, June 24, 2011. The awards will be presented to the winners at IGAS 2011, which will be held September 16-21, 2011, in Tokyo.
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*
• Small Business Process Automation Implementation of the Year (e.g., companies with less than a total of 20 employees, regardless of the number of locations)*
• 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
“This program is a great way for printers to let the world know about some of the most efficient, most productive production environments anywhere,” said CIP4 executive director James Harvey. “We've learned a lot from the case studies that we've collected through this program. For instance, in a recent analysis of all case studies, we learned that the average ROI on a JDF-enabled print automation implementation is 277 percent per year, with a breakeven average of 4.33 months from going live, and that's regardless of whether the printer is a small or medium-sized operation. Past winners have also shown innovative ways of connecting to customers and growing their operations, even over the previous two years when many printers have been struggling.”
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)
• Stephan Jaeggi of PrePress-Consulting (Switzerland)
• Tetsuo Kimura of PrinTechno, Inc. (Japan)
• John Leininger of Clemson University (USA)
• Dr. Abhay Sharma of Ryerson University (Canada)
Details on the CIPPI Awards Program, case studies from previous winners and 2011 CIPPI award applications forms may be downloaded from: www.cip4.org/cippi/.
* 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 may or may not issue any one of the three awards if they decide there is no appropriate candidate.
About the Jürgen Schönhut Memorial IPPI Awards
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: 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 www.cip4.org.
Source: Press release.