Crofton, MD (September 8, 2006) - The International Cooperation for the Integration of the Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) organization announced the first and second place winners in all three categories for the annual The Jürgen Schönhut Memorial CIP4 International Print Production Innovation (CIPPI) Awards. Any printer, prepress service or publisher may apply for the CIPPI awards and awards are determined by a panel of judges without affiliation to any vendor, printer, prepress service or publisher. "The quality of the submitters confirmed that 'JDF Works' is a true statement", said CIPPI Awards Judge Patrick Cahuet of 1PRIME|concept. "Furthermore it is now proven that JDF works in heterogeneous multi-vendors environments." The CIPPI awards are given annually to the applicant with the most compelling case study in one of three categories, which are: - Most innovative use of process automation technology in an implementation, - Best cost/benefit realization as a result of process automation implementation, and - Biggest improvement in efficiency and customer responsiveness as a result of process automation. In the category of "most innovative use of process automation", second place was awarded to Mediahaus Biering GmbH of Munich, Germany and first place was awarded to Mediengruppe UNIVERSAL Grafische Betriebe Manz und Mühlthaler GmbH, also of Munich, Germany. Mediengruppe Universal is a 50-person printing company that focuses on business reports, magazines, books, promotional material, and calendars, as well as providing prepress, website design, and compact disc production services. Its implementation included the installation of a Hiflex MIS with connectivity to KBA Rapida Presses, a Kodak Prinergy Workflows System, a Heidelberg Speedmaster with Prinect Data Controller. Prior to implementation, ink key presetting was done via PPF (CIP4) files, and a key innovation of the implementation is the conversion of PPF files to JDF so that complete automated press setup is possible. Furthermore, all job costs are recorded automatically in near real-time, which enable Mediengruppe to capture 100% of all prepress process, material consumption, and cost center times and data and to automatic transfer of production data into the Hiflex MIS via JDF. According to Mediengruppe Universal CEO Albert Contzen, "Our prime idea was to avoid retyping data and so to save time in the process of job preparation. During practical usage of the JDF link we then found out that due to the more accurate and faster job preparation we could also increase our productivity throughout the entire production chain. This is because we do a lot of small production runs and a lot of job changes." In the category of "best cost/benefit realization", second place went to Tanghe Printing N.V. of Komen, Belgium and first place went to druckpunkt Druckerei Repro GmbH of Berlin, Germany. Druckpunkt's goal was to create an end-to-end "networked printing house" and that required a long-term plan that phased in areas of plant-wide automation between the second quarter of 2000 and the second quarter of 2006. With help from Heidelberg and alphagraph team GmbH (Essen, Germany), druckpunkt "was able to drastically automate our prepress workflow and at the same time we were able to reduce resources [required] to handle prepress data. On top of that, with JDF as a standard format, we could integrate our prepress workflow to other departments (administration, press, Postpress) helping us to gain transparency in the workflow and reacting faster to any process. We gained more free capacity which can be filled now and in the future. And, what is more, we see our networked printing house is ready for the future expansion." Using data from 2004, 2005 and 2006, and projections for 2007 and 2008, druckpunkt figures on a total investment of slightly more than €490,000 (approximately $615,000 USD) on hardware, software, training, testing, administration and annual updates. Based upon this investment and savings in order preparation, order management, prepress, press, and job costing and shop floor data collection, druckpunkt calculates a net present value of €3,303,402 (approximately $4,231,000 USD) for a five year return on investment of 1827%. In the category of "biggest improvement in efficiency and customer responsiveness", second place went to Das Druckhaus - Beineke Dickmanns GmbH of Kaarst-Büttgen, Germany and first place was awarded to Druckerei Köller + Nowak GmbH of Düsseldorf, Germany. Köller + Nowak is a full-service printer with 12 employees and a total revenues of approximately $2,500,000 (USD) annually. Their implementation combines Hiflex's e-business solution with Kodak's Prinergy Workflow and JDF files created by their clients in Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional. Köller + Nowak's e-business portal provides customers with online job tracking, job personalization features, online quotes and archives of quotes and orders, customer stock management, and more. For its 2005 automation congress, Germany's IRD (Institut für rationale Unternehmensführung in der Druckindustrie) conducted a survey and found out that 95% of Köller + Nowak's customers use one or more functions of its e-business portal. JDF files are created in the Hiflex system for online orders from customers known to be using Acrobat 7.0 Professional. These files are sent via email to designated customer contacts that then use the JDF files in Acrobat to process the job, attach PDF content files and submit the job to Köller + Nowak. According to Köller + Nowak, "Erroneous production data is detected through automatic pre-flight at the customers' systems before sending to K+N and delays caused by inefficient (time consuming) communication are avoided. Errors can be corrected without resulting in processing costs. As a result, K+N and their customers profit from time and cost saving(s) through a tightened communication processes between customer, prepress staff and CSRs." In addition to automatic job creation and processing of received files, the integration of customer input to the automated workflow includes many benefits, such as seamless and accurate billing process, no unnecessary correction cycles, more productivity in operations, reduced prepress labour requirements, and so on. The net present value (NPV) of Köller + Nowak's implementation is €226,505 (approximately $289,181 USD) which equals an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 262%. "This year's winning case studies marked some important changes in the industry compared to last year's applications," said James Harvey, CIP4's Executive Director. "Last year we saw case studies that focused on the interoperability between two or three systems. This year's applications showed more comprehensive implementations and the all important extension to the customer's operations. These winning case studies are not from printers just trying out JDF, but printers that are really putting it to work as a part of the backbone of their operations. And I find it interesting that, once again, the winners are medium and even small printers; examples that most printers can take to heart, not just the industry's giants." The six first and second place 2006 CIPPI case-study applications can be downloaded as a PDF file from http://www.cip4.org/documents/case_studies/2006_CIPPI_case_studies.pdf. For more information on the CIPPI awards program, please see http://www.cip4.org/cippi/index.html. 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).