The Graphic Communication Institute at Cal Poly hosted 27 of the world's leading graphic arts standards experts, including several Cal Poly graphic communication professors.
 
The group was on campus for the joint meeting of three organizations: the Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards (CGATS), the U. S. Technical Advisory Group to ISO Technical Committee 130 – Graphic Technology (USTAG), and the Print Properties and Colorimetric Council (PPC).
 
"Cal Poly recognizes the importance that standards plays in the graphic arts," said Harvey Levenson, head of Cal Poly's Graphic Communication Department. "Similar to other manufacturing processes, print media has to maintain the highest quality consistency to remain a viable and wanted medium for editorial and advertising applications. These meetings provided substantial information for updating curriculum in the area of standards."
 
The four-day meeting was led by CGATS chairman Ray Cheydleur of X-Rite, USTAG chairman Dave McDowell of NPES, Print Properties Chairman Steve Smiley of SmileyColor LLC, and Joe Fazzi of IDEAlliance.
 
"Holding the PPC meetings at Cal Poly fulfills a goal of IDEAlliance to include educators in our programs," Fazzi said. "Schools such as Cal Poly are the frontline in developing future leaders in print. It is important that we keep current not only in theory but in what market drivers influence our businesses."   
 
CGATS focuses on national standards, writing standards where the need exists. The committee works to improve the efficiency of national standards development, facilitates information exchange, coordinates multidiscipline standards activities, and is a liaison for international standards development. CGATS has standards, either approved or in draft, related to pallet loading of printed material, metrology, terminology, plates, process control, electronic transmission of publication ads, digital data exchange, color data definition, design workflow for packaging, ink and color characterization for packaging, digital data exchange, and color data definition.
 
"At the Cal Poly meeting, an important new set of proposed U.S. standards were introduced and reviewed by the committee," Cheydleur said. "The committee enjoyed its time at Cal Poly and enjoyed seeing the facilities and interacting with the educators who will bring the next generation of experts to the industry and to CGATS."
 
USTAG focuses on international standards for the graphic arts through committees on terminology, prepress data exchange, process control and related metrology, media and materials, ergonomics, safety, color management, management of security printing processes, environmental impact of printed products, post press, and printing certification requirements.
 
"The key focus was to establish the U.S. positions with respect to a number of international standards currently in ballot and to prepare for the upcoming ISO meeting to be held at GRAPH EXPO in Chicago," McDowell said. "One of the significant issues addressed was the interaction of process control requirements and color characterization data in the definition of printing aims used collectively by customers, designers, print buyers and printers in the graphic arts workflow."
 
The Print Properties and Colorimetric Council is responsible for intelligence gathering and evaluating printing, proofing and colorimetric technologies and workflows. It is responsible for developing and implementing proofing, digital press, G7 System, G7 Expert Certifications and G7 Master and G7 Process Control Master Qualification programs. The council defines and implements specifications development, process control and workflow education and qualification programs. Research and intelligence gathered by the PPC Council has considerable influence on North American and international standards efforts through ANSI/CGATS and ISO.
 
Meeting discussions included establishing printing aims based on a shared near-neutral gray-scale (G7, TR015); expected uncertainty for colorimetry instruments; printing standardization and its future direction; printing from digital data; CGATS standards; document management; electronic document file format for long-term preservation; extensible metadata platform (XMP); process control for the manufacture of half-tone color separations, proof and production prints; and safety requirements for graphic technology equipment and systems.
 
The group also discussed the management of security printing processes; calculating the carbon footprint of print media products; process control for halftone color separations, proof and production prints for offset lithographic processes; radius determination of printing cylinders; prepress digital data exchange; reflection and transmission metrology; color and transparency of printing ink for four-color-printing; publication gravure printing; proofing processes from digital data; prepress digital data exchange using PDF;  exchange suitable for color-managed workflows (PDF/X-3); and prepress digital data exchange --XYZ/sRGB encoded standard color image data (XYZ/SCID).
 
The groups that met at Cal Poly are administered by NPES, the Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies, formerly the National Printing Equipment Association in 1933.