awards 
The International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press, and Postpress (CIP4) has announced a new name and a new panel of judges for its awards programme. The CIP4 International Print Production Innovations Awards have been renamed in honour of the late Jürgen Schönhut.

The awards will be now known as the Jürgen Schönhut Memorial CIP4 International Print Production Innovation Awards (also referred to as the CIPPI awards).

The late Jürgen Schönhut of the Fraunhofer Institute in Darmstadt Germany was a founding member of CIP4 whose contribution was instrumental in creating both CIP4 and its predecessor, the CIP3 Consortium.

CIP4 CEO Martin Bailey of Global Graphics says that without Jürgen, there would be a CIP4. “Jürgen was an innovator and a pioneer. He was totally committed to establishing open standards for automation in the printing and graphic arts industries and I think it is fair to say that he was the very first member of this organisation,” says Bailey. “The CIPPI Awards were established to recognize process automation technology pioneers and it is very fitting that this award be renamed in his honour.”

In addition to renaming the CIPPI awards, the winner selection process has been revised entirely. When the award was introduced in 2005, CIP4’s Advisory Board was the body that reviewed applications and cast ballots for the winners. For 2006, an independent CIPPI Award Review Panel has been established that will select the winners and second place applications for confirmation by the Advisory Board.

The Panel consists of a handful of industry notables, including: John Leininger, Professor at Clemson University (USA); Bill Lamparter, president of PrintCom Consulting Group (USA); Stephan Jaeggi, president of PrePress Consulting (Switzerland); and Patrick Cahuet, associate consultant at 1Prime|Concept (France).

One vacancy remains open and will be filled by the time the award applications are to be judged. James Harvey, the executive director of CIP4, will also serve as the Review Panel Chair, but in a non-voting capacity.

“Several vendors really got behind some of the applicant printers last year to help them prepare their applications,” says Harvey. “It occurred to us that the majority of Advisory Board members are also representatives of systems and software vendors and the potential for a conflict of interest was there.

“Although there weren’t any problems in 2005, the Advisory Board decided to set up a review panel of judges that are not associated to either vendors of systems and software or to potential applicants. The board of directors gathered and considered nominees and sought judges who are also knowledgeable, well respected in the industry, diverse in their areas of specialty as well as geographically diverse and independent thinkers.”

The CIPPI awards were established in order to recognise leading printers, publishers, or prepress services that have demonstrated uncommon leadership in their pursuit of process automation technology.

Each year CIP4 awards one printer, publisher or prepress company for their accomplishments in each of the following categories: most innovative use of process automation technology in an implementation; best cost/benefit realisation as a result of process automation implementation; and biggest improvement in efficiency and customer responsiveness as a result of process automation.