Archive for the 'CGATS' Category

#33: Thoughts on GRACoL 7 and Standards in General

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on May 4, 2006
in CGATS, GRACoL, blogging, conferences, flexography, guidelines and specification
. 1 Comment

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of this week I was in Louisville at the FFTA Annual Forum & INFO*FLEX exhibition.  It was my first time attending this event and I was impressed.  We even got to spend Tuesday evening at the Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom theme park in Louisville.  I must say it was fun not having to wait in line for any of the rides (the park was closed to the public).

I was busy assisting one of our distributors (ColorManagement.com) with booth duty Sunday and Monday, but I did manage to attend several technical sessions focused on Color Management Tuesday.  One of these sessions was about the still fairly new Printing Across Boarders (PAB) initiative.  At the urging of Adam Dewitz over at Printmode.net I resumed receiving e-mail from the [pab] forum several weeks ago, so was interested to hear what was happening.

The primary focus of the presentation by Gerald Gerlach of Integrity Graphics was the GRACoL 7 (G7) methodology.  It was during this presentation, and over the subsequent 24 hours that I began to solidify my current overall feelings about G7 and more importantly about graphic arts standards in general.

For my entire career in the graphic arts (more than 20 years now) I have nibbled at the edges of the standards community.  I have always found it fascinating and have felt I had something to contribute.  While my main role in life is now selling, I am still a pretty fair graphic arts technician when I need to be.  I have not been more involved in the standards community for one reason; time.  Those who carry the vast majority of the standards load in this industry do so as volunteers.  While they may be on a company payroll somewhere I assure that only a very small percentage are paid to do only standards work.

These people give up evenings, weekends, and other valuable personal time so we can have graphic arts standards.  I wish to say to all of you (and you know who you are) THANK YOU!  So, perhaps instead of standing on the sidelines and criticizing (constructive or otherwise) all of us should be saying “how can we help you.”

While I do not completely agree with the G7 methodology, I do agree it is a step forward.  I believe this because our competition in the Graphic Arts industry is not other printers.  It is other communication mediums.   Can you imagine television succeeding without any standards?  Can you imagine the internet succeeding without any standards?

We as an industry need the ability to print an image consistently anywhere in the world.  This is the true goal of G7 as far as I can tell.  While I feel in the case of many printers this means you must “dumb down “ your press, the trade off for regional, national, or international print buyer makes this consequence of the methodology worth while.  Any printer can still apply their “secret sauce” technology to specialty jobs.  Just because you can print to G7 does not mean you must print to G7.

In conclusion, I want to ask the working members of BRIDGS, CGATS, FIRST, GRACoL, SNAP, & SWOP….How can I help?

On Standards, Dues, and Barriers to Entry

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 12, 2006
in CGATS, GRACoL, ISO, blogging and guidelines
. 11 Comments

I have been getting a good deal of pressure to post my position on GRACoL G7, and have been holding off for one very simple reason. My comments will “go against the grain” as one fellow blogger put it. As one who was not involved in the process I feel that it would be somewhat counterproductive to take such a position. Which brings me to my point, why was I not involved in the process?

As a life long (adult life) student of marketing, I am very familiar with the concept of barriers to entry, and try to set them very high for anyone who chooses to play in my game (color measurement software). I think that in the professional world where one company is trying to win and to a certain extent must do so at the expense of another barriers to entry are a great thing.

Where I feel barriers to entry have no place is in the creation of industry wide standards. Let me illustrate with two examples. ColorMetrix is a dues paying member of NEPS (excellent organization providing exceptional benefits to members). As a small company our dues are a very reasonable and affordable $295/year. Payment of these dues gets us several high quality research reports each year AND membership on any CGATS group we wish to participate in. CGATS by extension provides access to ISO. It seems to me even a start-up company can afford $295/year.

Idealliance on the other hand, appears to have a minimum annual dues cost of $2,500. For a small company like ours, folks, this is a barrier to entry. Remember, this is like admission to the club; it just gets you in the front door. You still need to pay for all your own drinks. Or in the case of GRACoL all your own travel, etc. to the pressruns and any meetings being held. It is also not a one time fee, but an annual fee. I can maintain my membership in NPES for almost 10 years for that same $2,500.

This is a bit of a rant (which I have tried not to do here), but I can’t help but wonder if this barrier to entry is intentional. If you have never commented on a JimRaffel.com post…this would be the one.