To most of the industry, that’s CIP4, a group which has made a huge impact on print production in the past decade.
In those days, CTP and digital file exchange were changing the way artwork was handled and plates made; digital printing was in its infancy; PDF/X was new and there was still a variety of file formats to choose from.
Private networks, DAT cartridges, and CD-ROM were ‘state of the art’ and vertical cameras, phototypesetters, drum scanners, and strippers could still be found on in most printing plants. Custom automation – although implemented by a few large printers – was too expensive and complex for most printers to contemplate.
At DRUPA 2000, a ‘transition committee’ was formed to write the constitution, led by Martin Bailey of Global Graphics, who became its first chief executive.
Introducing process automation seemed a monumental objective when some were still arguing that it and the IDF job definition format couldn’t work.
The original JDF specification was written by Bill Wyman of Adobe, Peter Schellekens of Agfa, Rainer Prosi of Heidelberg, Markus Möller of manroland, and Moritz Schwarz and Mark Herkrath, both of Fraunhofer, and the XML schema behind JDF was developed by Graham Mann of Adobe. This was a Herculean task, but even at 463 pages it had to focus initially on sheetfed workflows. Although some thought inclusion of Job Messaging Format was ‘over the top’, it has since become a key component in JDF’s ability to support automation. Today’s JDF Specification (version 1.4a) is nearly 1100 pages long, and facilitates web printing, digital printing, packaging, and more. CIP4 now has about 300 member companies and more than 1600 participants.
There are approximately 25 technical and managerial working groups that continually work on the further development of JDF and promote process automation in the printing industry. Taking into account development time, education programs, sales and marketing, and integration and testing, the industry-wide investment in JDF easily exceeds a billion dollars.
Growing up
Ten years later, every printer has some software or equipment capable of handling JDF, but that isn’t the whole story. CIP4’s success was not a given, and along the way, there were some trying moments. CIP4 started off as a standards association whose mission was (and still is) to “foster the adoption of process automation in the printing industry.” Many have argued that ‘true’ standards must be established under the ISO umbrella, however there are other models to follow. CIP4 works in a way similar to software standards organisations, such as the World Wide Web Consortium where ‘standards’ are floated in draft form to the membership, allowing members to develop and test systems and provide feedback. Several iterations of a standard may be necessary before everyone can agree that it’s ready for publication. In the case of JDF, it wasn’t until version 1.1a of the JDF specification was released in October 2002 that systems could really be tested with beta users, proofed, boxed and shipped. The first major wave of JDF-enabled software and systems didn’t hit the market until DRUPA 2004.
For its success, enough vendors needed to support it, the PR task has grown to a full-time job. Former chief executive Margaret Motamed recalls that a major problem was that word spread about JDF before there were products available to support it. “For printers, JDF was only a buzzword, with a limited number of early products to implement.”
With the first version of JDF, the focus moved to the integration of products, with interoperability testing events (‘interops’) held where members could privately check the interchange with other vendors’ products. “The first of these – hosted by Adobe in March 2003 – was quite a spectacle,” says Jim Harvey, who joined in 2004 as executive director.
“There were a room full of people with laptops, a server and cords everywhere. The group was trying to create a network with all different press controllers, MIS, prepress systems and the like, yet even with firewall and other connectivity issues, folks were exchanging JDF within 30 minutes.”
Current events yield 200-300 pairings of systems, with a degree of cooperation which is amazing, “even among competitors in the market”. As JDF matured, ‘Device Capabilities’ was created to automatically check if a device could execute a given JDF command, a precursor to establishing plug-n-play compatibility.
A significant issue regarding protecting JDF from patents (that would prevent openness) was coming to a head, and in 2003 it became clear that CIP4 members had to agree how intellectual property would be protected and shared.
Controversial patent cases had caused ISO and other standards bodies to reconsider their IP policies, and no international standards organisation had been able to reach an agreement on IP policy that CIP4 could simply copy.
Bailey says he hadn’t expected to spend his time as head of CIP4 discussing law with lawyers: “The legal wrangling in 2004 was very frustrating, and at one point, I didn’t think that we could get past the problem.”
In early 2005 CIP4 members did come to agreement on an IP policy that all members were required to sign ... an accomplishment that was even reported in European legal periodicals.
Another challenge for CIP4 happened in November of 2005 when the sudden death of Jürgen Schönhut – with whom it was about to sign a support agreement – caught the organisation off guard.
By 2004 JDF-enabled products were available and the JDF specification was stable, but there was still a lot of confusion in the marketplace. “It became clear we had to create education and marketing programmes targeted towards printers, not just vendors,” says Motamed.
An online, streaming media training programme, educational seminars and user references followed. Public interoperability and workflow demonstrations were staged at major trade shows, and forums held in Spanish, German, French and Japanese as well as English.
“One of our biggest problems was developing case studies that we could share with printers,” Motamed says. “Vendors who were ready to share technical expertise, were not ready to share information about customers.
“So in 2005 we created the CIPPI awards to recognise printers who have made remarkable achievements in print automation. As a result, 60 detailed case studies have been collected and published.”
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