Crofton, MD (November 30, 2007) - The International Cooperation for the Integration of the Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) organization announced a reorganization of its annual Jürgen Schönhut Memorial CIP4 International Print Production Innovation (CIPPI) Awards program and the deadline for 2008 applications.  The awards program is being expanded from its original three award categories to seven. The new 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
- Best Process Automation Implementation - Europe
- Best Process Automation Implementation - North America
- Best Process Automation Implementation - Asia Pacific
- Best Process Automation Implementation - Emerging Markets
"As CIPPI Award judges, we recommended that the additional regional Best Process Automation Implementation awards be added to the program based upon our experience with the 2007 awards program," said CIPPI Review Panel Judge, Bill Lamparter of Printcom Consulting. "We had two outstanding candidates last year that were competing in the same category; one from Europe and one from Japan. We selected the one from Europe for first place because it involved the integration of two printing companies and their customer, illustrating cross-company integration with JDF. The Japanese applicant had achieved end-to-end plant integration, and while that was a remarkable leap over other printers from Japan and Asia, as German and English language interfaces for JDF-enabled equipment have been around longer and European printers have been more aggressive in implementing JDF. The new regional categories allow the Judges to recognize that printers from Japan, Germany, China, India, South Afric a, Brazil and so on are different and have different challenges they are working with."
Another key change to the CIPPI awards program is that each application may be considered for all award categories and may be selected to win more than one award. "We issued two special honorable mentions this year to companies that applied to one category, but were clearly suited to another category," said CIPPI Review Panel Judge Stephan Jaeggi of PrePress-Consulting. "A 2007 application from R/T Associates demonstrated end-to-end digital printing automation and would have been the clear choice for the most innovative category, but their application was for another category. By allowing single applications to be considered for all categories, we expect that there will also be more applications for the CIPPI awards program in general."
The deadline for the 2008 CIPPI awards program applications is March 20, 2008. "This is a short cycle for the CIPPI awards program." said CIP4 Executive Director James Harvey, "There is usually a 12-month cycle for the program; however, this will enable us to present the 2008 CIPPI award winners at drupa 2008. We believe that highly-efficient, automated print processes is going to be at the top of the shopping list for most drupa attendees and the examples the CIPPI awards program provides to printers looking for innovative ideas and direction can be of great value. We will hold a special reception for the winners at drupa, the perfect gathering spot for printers from around the world."
Any printer, prepress service or publisher may apply for the CIPPI awards and awards are determined by the Review Panel of Judges without affiliation to any vendor, printer, prepress service or publisher. The five Review Panel judges are:
- Patrick Cahuet of 1Prime|Concept (France)
- Stephan Jaeggi of PrePress-Consulting (Switzerland)
- Tetsuo Kimura of PrinTechno, Inc. (Japan)
- William C. Lamparter of PrintCom Consulting Group (USA)
- John Leininger of Clemson University (USA)
Details on the CIPPI awards, case studies from previous winners of the CIPPI Awards and 2008 CIPPI award applications can be downloaded at 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).