The British Printing Industries Federation's (BPIF's) Technical Standards Committee has redefined its remit and set fresh objectives in line with its future work programme.

New terms of reference and priorities were debated at a meeting of the Committee held on 17 September under the Chairmanship of Pureprint Technical Director Aaron Archer, who now takes over from previous Chairman and Committee founder Peter Arnel.

The Committee's overall purpose will be to influence and promote standards relevant to the printing industry and to develop best practice guidance on technical matters. It will consult with BPIF member companies on the content of these and will provide explanatory communications to them.   

Its specific objectives will be to:

- Evaluate and critique any proposals for any new BS, EN or ISO standards, or proposed revisions to existing BS, EN or ISO standards, where these are deemed relevant to printing companies. This includes print-specific standards as well as any generic standards that are widely used in the printing industry, and will involve inputting into key influencers such as the ICC, ECI and the Ghent Work Group.

- Receive reports from any sub-groups established to prepare specifications for, or guidance on new or revised standards relating to specialist areas.

- Encourage effective representation of BPIF members' interests on appropriate bodies involved in the development or revision of print-specific standards, in order to ensure the Technical Standards Committee can input into their work.

- Consult with representatives of printers' customers and with BPIF members and associate members prior to adopting any position in relation to any standard and to take full account of views and comments received in response to those consultations.

- Define scheme requirements or provide best practice guidance for companies seeking to achieve graphic technology standards and other support that would assist them to achieve certification to these standards.

- Gather best practice from printing companies, suppliers and customers, and to publish this to member companies as a whole.

The Committee, which will be meeting quarterly, is to operate as a steering group, with individual members of the Committee selected on the basis of their technical expertise in a particular technical subject. Committee members are to be selected from a broad range of different specialist areas, with each member expected to lead a sub-group of experts in their area as and when the development or revision of standards in those areas is considered necessary.  The Committee is to manage these sub-groups on a project-by-project basis, receiving regular progress reports from them, and commissioning or de-commissioning sub-groups as necessary.   

Committee Chairman Aaron Archer says: "We now have a strong Committee in place with a wide range of expertise and company experience. Our primary task must be to influence the content of standards that impact on our industry, to ensure they are workable and sensible and offer real benefit to print companies. However we also want to give practical guidance to the industry to help explain and support the adoption of standards, in order to help raise the bar for our industry as whole in terms of its quality and operational performance. So we shall therefore look to develop best practice guidance as well as standards. We also have an important role to play in informing and educating suppliers and customers with regard to standards-related issues insofar as these impact on printers, and we will be working closely with representatives of companies from both of these groups".