Darmstadt, Germany (March 16, 2006) - The International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press, and Postpress (CIP4) announced that the CIP4 International Print Production Innovations Awards have been renamed in honor of the late Jürgen Schönhut. The awards will be now known as the "Jürgen Schönhut Memorial CIP4 International Print Production Innovation Awards" (also referred to as the "CIPPI" awards). The CIPPI awards were established in order to recognize leading printers, publishers, or prepress services that have demonstrated uncommon leadership in their pursuit of process automation technology. The late Jürgen Schönhut of the Fraunhofer Institute in Darmstadt Germany was a founding member of CIP4 whose contribution was instrumental in creating both CIP4 and its predecessor, the CIP3 Consortium (See http://www.cip4.org/cippi/juergen_schoenhut.html for more information on Jürgen Schönhut). Each year CIP4 awards one printer, publisher or prepress company for their accomplishments in each of the following categories: 1.) Most innovative use of process automation technology in an implementation. 2.) Best cost/benefit realization as a result of process automation implementation. 3.) Biggest improvement in efficiency and customer responsiveness as a result of process automation. "Without Jürgen I doubt if there would be a CIP4," said CIP4 CEO Martin Bailey of Global Graphics. "Jürgen was an innovator and a pioneer. He was totally committed to establishing open standards for automation in the printing and graphic arts industries and I think it is fair to say that he was the very first member of this organization. The CIPPI Awards were established to recognize process automation technology pioneers and it is very fitting that this award be renamed in his honor." In addition to renaming the CIPPI awards, the winner selection process has been revised entirely. When the award was introduced in 2005, CIP4's Advisory Board was the body that reviewed applications and cast ballots for the winners. For 2006, an independent CIPPI Award Review Panel has been established that will select the winners and second place applications for confirmation by the Advisory Board. The Panel consists of a handful of industry notables, namely: * John Leininger, Professor at Clemson University (USA) * Bill Lamparter, President of PrintCom Consulting Group (USA) * Stephan Jaeggi, President of PrePress Consulting (Switzerland) * Patrick Cahuet, Associate Consultant at 1Prime|Concept (France) One vacancy remains open and will be filled by the time the award applications are to be judged. James Harvey, the Executive Director of CIP4, will also serve as the Review Panel Chair, but in a non-voting capacity. "Several vendors really got behind some of the applicant printers last year to help them prepare their applications," said Harvey. "It occurred to us that the majority of Advisory Board members are also representatives of systems and software vendors and the potential for a conflict of interest was there. Although there weren't any problems in 2005, the Advisory Board decided to set up a review panel of judges that are not associated to either vendors of systems and software or to potential applicants. The Board of Directors gathered and considered nominees and sought Judges who are also knowledgeable, well respected in the industry, diverse in their areas of specialty as well as geographically diverse and independent thinkers." "Judging any type of awards or recognition program is an amazing experience that allows someone the opportunity to see the leading edge applications of today's technology," said Leininger. "Serving as a judge for the CIPPI Awards Program will establish where users have moved from concept to practice and are making it work in the real world." "I'm very proud of being involved in CIPPI awards' Jury," said Cahuet."For the past 2 year, I have been giving conferences on JDF and process automation to graphic arts industry professionals. They all understand that JDF is an opportunity but most of them do not know how to handle it. Le format is seen as too much conceptual; its promises look too far in the future. That's why they all ask for real cases of JDF and process automation implementation in companies they can compare themselves with. In this respect, it will be a great challenge to judge the best practices and to choose the CIPPI Awards winners. They will for sure represent a great example for many companies in the world, and I will make sure that their experiences will be communicated to the French Market." "As a consultant specializing in PDF and JDF workflows and a member of the CIP4 advisory board since the beginning," says Jaeggi, "I am glad to serve as a judge for the CIPPI awards. These awards are a great opportunity to provide background information about successful use cases of JDF to the user community. They will hopefully play a role as a wake-up call for all the printers who still think that they don't need to pay attention to this standard." A completed description of the Jürgen Schönhut Memorial CIP4 International Print Production Innovations Awards, as well as links to last year's winning case-studies and this year's applications, can be found at http://www.cip4.org/cippi/intro.php. This year's applications are due by May 19th and CIP4 encourages printers, prepress services and publishers from around the world to participate in the program.