Jürgen Schönhut Memorial
CIP4 International Print Production Innovation Awards

• CIPPI Brochure (592 KB)
• CIPPI Award Winners
• "Die Druckindustrie neu definiert" and "Schluss mit der Zettelwirtschaft!", two German articles about the CIPPI Awards program written by Erich Fritz and published in the Workflow section of the "Print & Produktion" magazine (11/2007 and 1-2/2008)

The Jürgen Schönhut Memorial CIP4 International Print Production Innovation (CIPPI) Awards were established in order to recognize leading printers†, publishers‡, or prepress services that have demonstrated uncommon leadership in their pursuit of process automation technology. The CIPPI award is named after the late Jürgen Schönhut of the Fraunhofer Institute in Darmstadt Germany. Mr. Schönhut was a founding member of CIP4 whose contribution was instrumental in creating both CIP4 and its predecessor, the CIP3 Consortium (More information on Jürgen Schönhut).

Nominations may be submitted by the printer, publisher or a prepress service, or by one of their supporting vendors on their behalf. Awards are given to the printer, publisher, or prepress service representative identified in the application, and a certificate acknowledging the award is given to each vendor identified in detail in the award application.

Each application is reviewed by a Review Panel that consists of the non-voting chair and five judges that are selected by the CIP4 Board of Directors for their understanding of the subject area and standing in the industry. (See Biographies of the Judges.) The Review Panel judges may select an application for one of more of the following CIPPI awards:

• First and Second Place — Best cost/benefit realization and improvement in efficiency as a result of process automation implementation
• First and Second Place — Biggest improvement in quality production & customer responsiveness as a result of process automation
• Most innovative use of process automation technology in an implementation

Furthermore, based upon the address list on the application for the candidate printer’s, publisher’s or prepress service’s offices, the Review Panel judges will select an annual CIPPI award winner for Best Process Automation Implementation for the following regions:

• Best Process Automation Implementation — Europe
• Best Process Automation Implementation — North America
• Best Process Automation Implementation — Asia Pacific
• Best Process Automation Implementation — Emerging Markets *

* The intention of the “Emerging Markets” category is to recognize process automation implementations by companies operating in areas where JDF-enabled process automation is not yet prevalent and the interpretation of “Emerging Markets” is at Review Panel Judge’s discretion. If no application is found by the Judges to be appropriate to the “Emerging Markets” category in a given year, the award will not be issued in that year.

Procedures

A call for entries is made in the Fall of each year and with completed applications due to secretariat@cip4.org in the form of a Microsoft Word file by deadline established for the Spring of the following year. Upon the deadline for submissions, all applications are provided by the Secretariat to the Executive Director for review in his capacity as the non-voting chair of the CIPPI Awards Review Panel. The Executive Director:

1. Rejects any obviously deficient applications
2. Requests clarifications or additional information if something appears to be missing or unclear.
3. Checks formatting of the documents to ensure the CIPPI Award Outline is used correctly (See the CIPPI awards application for the outline and the CIPPI Award Winners page for examples.)
4. Forwards all checked and acceptable applications in a document collection to the Secretariat.
   

Prior to the deadline, but only optionally, candidates may submit applications to the Executive Director at executive_director@cip4.org for a preliminary review and advise.

The Secretariat distributes the reviewer copy of the CIPPI applications to the CIPPI Award Review Panel. Each reviewer ranks all applications for the categories of “Best cost/benefit realization and improvement in efficiency as a result of process automation implementation” and “Biggest improvement in quality production & customer responsiveness as a result of process automation” with statements summarizing the relative pros and cons, as well as a conclusion statement, for each award. Each Judge also submits their selection for each regional “Best Process Automation Implementation” award and the “Most innovative use of process automation technology in an implementation” with a justification statement. The Judge’s selections will be based upon …

1. Meeting the category specific requirements.
2. Meeting the overall application requirements.
3. Best factual arguments and stated cases (as opposed to allegorical arguments).
4. Use of standards in the described implementation (e.g., JDF, JMF, PrintTalk, and others.)
5. Integration of production processes with business processes.

For each category, the application with the highest average ranking or most votes among the judges will be determined the winner, and where applicable, the application with the second highest average ranking will be determined to be the second place winner. A conference call among the Review Panel Judges will be held to resolve and ties, and if there is a dead lock on a tie, then the Review Panel Chair will cast the final deciding vote.

The Review Panel Judge’s final selections are submitted to the CIP4 Organization’s Advisory Board (its highest governing body) for ratification, but may be rejected if the Advisory Board determines that a selection has insufficient justification for a CIPPI Award.

Awards are announced and presented at a press event or reception during a major international printing show (e.g., drupa, Print, IPEX, and IGAS). Coinciding with the date of the award, CIP4 issues a press release announcing the award with links to the winning and honorable mention applications. CIP4 also maintains a permanent list of award winners on the CIP4 website with links to the winning applications and an archive of ALL applications accessible to the public and the press.

CIP4 charges a nominal entry fee ($150 USD) to help offset a portion of cost of the awards and administering the awards. Note: If a printer, publisher, prepress service or one of their supporting printers wants a copy of their award they may order them at cost (contact secretariat@cip4.org for more information.)

Applications

Applications shall not be longer than 10 pages in length (not including title page, contact list and workflow diagrams) and shall follow the out line provided in the application form. The following will be required in the application:

1. The name, title, company, address, city, state/providence, ZIP/Postal code, country, phone number and email address of the person submitting the application.
2. The name, title, company, address, city, state/providence, ZIP/Postal code, country, phone number and email address of the person who will accept the award if the award is given to the applicant … and this person MUST be from the printing, publishing or prepress services company.
3. A list of each JDF-enabled software, system or equipment product used in the subject application to include vendor name, product name, model/version.
4. The name, title, company, address, city, state/providence, ZIP/Postal code, country, phone number and email address of the vendor's representative for each product identified above that served as the primary technical, sales, or customer service contact to the customer.
5. A description of the subject workflow environment and conditions prior to implementation.
6. A description of the printer, publisher or prepress service's goal and motivation, including any quantities criteria upon which the goals were established.
7. A description of the process of selecting a solution, including alternatives and deciding factors.
8. A description of the implementation effort including timeline, participants, critical path/milestones, obstacles overcome (if any), training and testing.
9. A description of the resulting workflow, including any applicable workflow or process diagrams.

The application may be written by the applicant so that it is optimized for one or all categories of the CIPPI award and should include one or more of the follow:

1. A description of the innovative aspect of the process and an argument for why this is unique and new, with a comparison to traditional alternatives and a description of the primary benefit the innovative aspect of the new process.
2. A quantitative analysis of the hard and soft ROI factors expected and realized, to include breakeven analysis, IRR or NPV determination of hard factors; statistical and/or graphically depicted data demonstrating improvement in efficiency and or reduction of labor per job or overall; and testimonial evidence from users or customers as to the realization of soft benefits.
3. A quantitative presentation of improvements in waste reduction, quality control/measurement, turnaround time, time to delivery from order, customer satisfaction improvements, or other such customer responsiveness and quality production factors.

Note: Printers who are considering apply for a CIPPI award but need some assistance in writing their case studies should contact Jim Harvey at executive_director@cip4.org.

Supporting Publications

Evaluation of Applications

The Review Panel judges will use the following requirements and criteria to weight the relative merits of each application before casting their votes:

General Requirements:

• The legacy environment,
• The goals and objective prior to implementation,
• The extent to which systems and software from multiple vendors is included in the implementation, if applicable
• The selection process, implementation, testing, and results
• How workflow is controlled, including job and customer management, production data collection, and continuous improvement.
• Before and after workflow diagrams indicating where in the workflow automation and/or integration has taken place.

(A complete equipment list is suggested, for the subject plant or location of the application, but as a minimum, equipment identified in the before and after workflow diagrams must listed in detail.)

Specific Requirements and Criteria

1. In the category of most innovative use of process automation technology in an implementation, the applications require a description of the innovative aspect of the process that includes:
   • An argument for why this is unique and new, with
   • A comparison to traditional alternatives and
   • A description of the primary benefit of the innovative aspect of the new process.
   
   Judges shall consider:
   • What information/feature is used?
   • How has this JDF implementation transformed your business?
   • What is the impact on the workflow/ business process steps?
   • What are the benefits? (Cost savings, more value add, e.g. extended services to customers)
      
2. In the category of best cost/benefit realization as a result of process automation implementation, "efficiency" means getting the most work through your systems in the shortest time and with the least wastage. The applications require a quantitative analysis of the hard and soft ROI factors expected and realized that includes:
   • Either breakeven analysis, IRR or NPV determination of hard factors,
   • Reduction in labor costs, and
   • Testimonial evidence from users or customers as to the realization of soft benefits.
   
   Judges shall consider in reviewing the description of innovated production steps:
   • Savings of material
   • Time savings
   • Turnaround time,
   • Time to delivery from order,
   • Resulting cost reduction & increased revenue and profit
   • Reduction of administrative costs
   • And alternatively (and with less weight) customer retention
   
    
3. In the category of biggest improvement in quality production & customer responsiveness as a result of process automation, the applications require a quantitative presentation of improvements in:
   • Savings based on improved quality
   • Measurable improvements in quality production
   • Customer satisfaction improvements, and/or
   • Other such efficiency and customer responsiveness factors.
   
   Judges shall consider
   • Response time to customer requests such as request for quote, requests for production status reports of jobs, and reports on stock management,
   • Increase of orders from customers

Download application form as Word file:

• CIP4 Award Application 2008

† "Printer" is inclusive of sheetfed, web, digital, gravure, and flexographic printers of all types, including general commercial, publications, packaging, etc.

‡ "Publisher" is inclusive of all types of publishers, including catalog, newspaper, magazine, book, and trade publishers.