Ridgefield Park, NJ – October 1, 2003 – Agfa today announced that it is showing at Graph Expo in Chicago, Illinois how the :Delano Production system, a customer-focused project management tool for commercial printers, can exchange job, customer and user information with Hiflex, a provider of business and MIS solutions. The companies' cooperation enables :Delano customers to import JDF metadata, which describes job definitions, customer and user information from the Hiflex MIS system, further expanding connectivity and solutions for the Graphic Enterprise. :Delano customers can use this metadata to speed up the production cycle, and manage and automate their downstream processes, dramatically eliminating any re-keying and the chance of human error. "JDF bridges the business workflow and the manufacturing workflow, and provides additional value and automation to the complete process chain of the printing industry," said Lieven Callewaert, Agfa's Worldwide Marketing Director for :Delano. "The complete product structure and customer data of the Hiflex MIS system can be imported into :Delano with the MIS import module, eliminating re-keying of valuable information regarding production jobs." "The digitization has not only impacted production processes, but information structures have also changed. Customers are communicating directly with different departments within the printing plant. It is difficult to oversee the status of the complete print job," said Stefan Reichhart, CEO of Hiflex GmbH. "With JDF networking, business and production information is combined again as the JDF interoperability between Hiflex and Agfa's :Delano is showing." The successful Agfa-Hiflex technological cooperation is a collaborative initiative that proves the value of JDF interoperability for the printing industry.