SUSSEX, Wis.--Dec. 6, 2004-- Netherlands-based Van Gennep - M.A.C., a leading developer of planning, process and collaborative workflow management solutions for creative departments at catalogers, retailers, design firms and magazine publishers, and Sussex, Wis.-based Quad/Graphics, one of the world's largest printers, have entered into a partnership agreement that will facilitate Van Gennep's expansion into the North American market and will allow Quad/Graphics to provide its customers with a unique and proven integrated workflow management system. Under the agreement, Quad/Graphics has become a minority shareholder of Van Gennep and is authorized to directly market and sell Van Gennep's flagship product, PlanSystem3, a comprehensive planning, workflow, editorial and process management system that integrates marketing, production, advertising, and editorial departments with desktop applications. Quad/Graphics and Van Gennep will jointly address North American sales and reseller relationships to support product installation and short-term customer training. Van Gennep will handle long-term software support and maintenance. "We are excited about the enormous potential Quad/Graphics' partnership with Van Gennep has to benefit our catalog, retail and magazine customers," said Tom Frankowski, Quad/Graphics Senior Vice President of Manufacturing. "PlanSystem3 is a solid enterprise-level system that aligns with the way our customers do business and offers unprecedented, value-added solutions to improve their productivity and efficiency," he said. "Because it promotes a collaborative, organized workflow by providing everyone with real-time, graphic displays of the entire work-in-process, our customers can expect to see improvements in all areas and with virtually every employee." According to Ton Van Gennep, owner and president of Van Gennep, PlanSystem3 was created with the needs and challenges of today's designers in mind. "PlanSystem3 is designed to provide clients with unparalleled process, editorial and collaborative workflow management, including real-time content/asset management, edition/product planning, deadline and status monitoring and element tracking of all files in production at catalogs, advertising agencies and magazine publishers," he said. "By providing open, universal, easy-to-use software solutions, PlanSystem3 facilitates collaboration across all business areas and geographically dispersed locations, leading to operating and cost efficiencies never before possible." Van Gennep said that PlanSystem3 users report substantial productivity increases, allowing them to create more pages without adding to staff. "We were attracted to PlanSystem3 as a result of experience with our customers and our own internal systems," Frankowski said. "Print is becoming more personalized every day, with more versions of ads and pages focused on specific interests more than ever before. This puts a lot of pressure on our customers to produce more pages with no increase in resources, so a good system is vital to successfully move into this higher productivity environment. We realize the value of planning and tracking work-in-progress in real-time and supporting the ability to respond to change quickly to production throughput demand, and we are very pleased that we are taking a more active role in offering our customers a proven solution to these challenges." An established European publishing technology provider, Van Gennep has more than 160 successful installations of its publishing systems. Ton Van Gennep said the partnership with Quad/Graphics will significantly advance Van Gennep's continued emergence in the North American market. "Partnering with one of the world's premier printers - a company with intimate knowledge of our markets - will greatly strengthen our presence throughout the U.S. and will help us expand our development, marketing and sales activities," Van Gennep said. "Together we'll be able to provide best-of-breed solutions for our customers."