Wilmington, DE, June 5, 2008 – Associates Graphic Services,  a graphic communications company in Wilmington, DE, has been selected as a first place winner of the CIP4 International Print Production Innovation Award. Each year the International Cooperation for the Integration of the Process of Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) association recognizes outstanding and pioneering digital print applications and integrations.  Winners were announced yesterday during the CIPPI Awards Reception at drupa 2008 in Dusseldörf, Germany.

“I can’t tell you what an honor it is to receive this award” states Dave Zamorski, Chief Operating Officer of AGS.  “I knew we created something incredibly efficient, customer friendly, and I guess you could say sexy as graphic production goes” Zamorski added.

AGS was honored as the winning entry in the “Biggest Improvement in Quality Production and Customer Responsiveness as a Result of Process Automation” category for its excellence in JDF-based production automation.

At the beginning of 2007, AGS began work with one of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the US.  This application would add another 6,000+ -user North American customer base to its already full line up of storefront users. This new business added an estimated 200-300 new line item orders per day. In order to meet this increased demand, AGS employs Pageflex Storefront so that each of the pharmaceutical company’s users can customize and order documents including sales literature, pads, booklets, labels and appointment cards,  by simply using their Web browser.   From there, each order is seamlessly sent to Objective Advantage’s Symbio, which automates the prepress, printing, finishing and shipping processes. By implementing Pageflex Storefront integrated with Symbio, AGS eliminated the need to hire 10 new staff members, reduced turnaround time on new jobs and increased annual profits substantially.

“We are thrilled to see one of our customers receiving the CIPPI Award at drupa,” offered Anna Chagnon, president and CEO of Bitstream, Inc., maker of the Pageflex Storefront software (NASDAQ: BITS, www.bitstream.com). “The large volume of work AGS completes each day for these customers demonstrates the capability of Pageflex Storefront to streamline production and create a tangible return on investment.”

“This is an absolutely AMAZING win for AGS!” stated Stephen McWilliam,
Executive Vice President,  Avanti, who supplies the JDF-based business management software used by AGS. McWilliam’s added,  “CIPPI's have long been the domain of large European print shops. AGS is obviously a lean mean fighting machine. This really puts them on the map.”

CIP4 is a not-for-profit association and is registered with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission as a Standards Development Organization. CIP4 is a global organization established in Switzerland with representatives in several countries. 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.

For more information on drupa, visit www.drupa.com. To learn more about CIP4, visit www.cip4.org.