Gent (Belgium) – EskoArtwork (www.esko.com) is proud to have supported 5Sept Etiquette to win the first place of the 2009 CIP4 International Print Production Innovation (CIPPI) Award in the category "Small Business Process Automation Implementation of the Year". 5Sept Etiquette, based in Courthézon near Avignon in the south of France, specializes in printing labels for the food, wine and healthcare industries. EskoArtwork and CERM (www.cerm.be) jointly developed a prepress automated workflow featuring an intelligent JDF connection between EskoArtwork BackStage workflow server and the CERM MIS system for the label industry. This joint solution was first installed at 5Sept Etiquette.

 "The 5Sept Etiquette application is unique in that this is the first time we have seen this level of JDF automation being utilized in a label converting operation," says James Harvey, Executive Director of CIP4 and the Review Panel Chair for the awards. "It was the first web-fed label printer to present an application running on JDF and it was a terrific demonstration of teamwork among two different vendors and a printer. The automation eliminated waste and enabled this company to produce an additional 9,500 jobs per year."
 
The CIP4 International Print Production Innovation (CIPPI) Awards (www.cip4.org) were established in order to recognize leading printers, publishers or prepress services that have demonstrated uncommon leadership in their pursuit of process automation technology. Annually, a panel of expert judges reviews entries in a variety of categories to weigh the relative merits of each application before casting their votes.

Added value through MIS integration using JDF
5Sept Etiquette works with EskoArtwork and CERM to eliminate duplicate information entries in its separate CERM MIS and EskoArtwork BackStage production systems using a structured JDF integration. "EskoArtwork and CERM worked closely with our IT staff to define the right specifications and implement a working solution," says Patrick Wack, President of 5Sept Etiquette.

"Beyond our main focus of eliminating duplicate entries, we also wanted to make it possible to automatically create the imposition for the plates or clichés and for the die-cut. Plus we wanted to set up an automated production planning tool, capable of following production in real time."

Within six months, the JDF interface provided by EskoArtwork and CERM was functional and being used in production. 5Sept Etiquette's production team noted an immediate and significant increase in quality and reliability. "In practical terms, we now feel like we're using a single unified system, rather than two interconnected systems," says Wack. "Reliability has taken a huge leap forward – incidents caused by insufficient or inaccurate job preparation have totally disappeared." 5Sept Etiquette has also noticed a dramatic reduction in paper waste and a general increase in productivity, allowing for the shorter turnaround times demanded by today's quality-driven customers." As a result, even in a troubled economy, we're actually growing our business in the high-end market," concludes Wack.

"This was a remarkable transition," concludes Harvey. "The operation went from a somewhat chaotic and labor intensive paper-based management system to fully automated MIS/production integration, a very remarkable achievement that shows the value of JDF integration beyond commercial printing into the label converting market."