Ten Years After: CIP4 and the Creation of JDF

Yet, between 1998 and 2000 Adobe, Agfa, Heidelberg and manroland created an XML schema, whose function was to serve as the keystone for printing automation. The companies decided to entrust the XML schema to the former "CIP3" organization, on the condition that CIP3 reorganize as an open and global international standards organization. In 1993 Gerhard Fischer and Udo Blasius of Heidelberg had asked Jürgen Schönhut of the Fraunhofer Institute to help form CIP3, which was a consortium of manufacturers working towards print automation and the creation of the Print Production Format; popularly called "CIP3" and used today in ink key presetting systems. The CIP3 organization was selected by Adobe, Heidelberg, Agfa and manroland at drupa 2000 to create CIP4. A "Transition Committee" was formed to write the new organization's bylaws, decide how to organize the association and create a legal foundation for the association. Martin Bailey of Global Graphics, who would become the first CEO of CIP4, led the Transition Committee and Stefan Daun of Fraunhofer became CIP4's Secretariat. Just 40 companies belonged to CIP4 when it was formed in July, 2000. Introducing process automation to the printing industry wasn't just a monumental objective ... some argued for several years that it wasn't possible, and that the Job Definition Format, or JDF, couldn't work.