May 2011: RIT Launches Printing Standards Audit Certification

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May 2011: KEE Consultants Joined RIT for Gravure Day 2011

Representatives of industry, academia and the international standards community met to discuss "What Drives Print Global?" at Rochester Institute of Technology's annual Gravure Day event. Nearly 50 RIT undergraduate and graduate students, faculty members and invited guests participated in the March 31 event and learned how standards are helping print become a global industry.



KEE Consultants, an international standards consultant based in France, added a global perspective to the event. Elie Khoury, CEO of KEE Consultants and Alwan Color Expertise, has a long history of collaborating with and supporting RIT. Khoury gave a presentation, "ISO Standards and Print Globalization," summarizing his nearly 15 years of experience implementing graphic arts standards. Khoury cited several examples of how embracing these standards led to superior results. At the national level, Khoury discussed how Germany had become the global leader in adopting graphic arts standards (with more than 400 printers being certified as ISO 12647-2 compliant).

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November 2010: Worldwide Success for KEE Consultants' Gap Analysis Audit – 35 Registered Audits in Less Than Two Months

Worldwide Success for KEE Consultants' Gap Analysis Audit – 35 Registered Audits in Less Than Two Months

Lyon, November 30, 2010 – KEE Consultants' Gap Analysis Audit (GAA) has received a very positive reception from the print industry since its launch at Graph Expo Chicago. Just two months on from the event, 35 printers from Europe, North America and Asia have conducted this first-of-its-kind remote audit. The Gap Analysis Audit helps printers to simply and cost-effectively implement and comply with ISO 12647 standards and related accreditations.

KEE Consultants, the international network of standardization experts, launched its latest initiative early October 2010. Its aim is to provide printers with a simple, complete and cost-effective audit that can tell them what they need to do to comply with ISO 12647 and related standards for print production.

Elie Khoury, chair of KEE Consultants, explains the reasons behind the online audit: "Implementing standards in any printing company is a three-step process. The first step is the gap analysis, which identifies areas of non-conformity and highlights to the printer the improvements they need to make to their production workflow. The second step is to implement the gap analysis report and roadmap to ISO conformity. The final step is the certification delivered by an accreditation body. The three steps should be undertaken by three different and independent organizations with no overlapping or possible conflict of interests.

“The aim of KEE Consultants' GAA is to be the first step in any ISO 12647 implementation or certification journey. Unfortunately some vendors today claim to undertake such audits with commercial objectives that have little to do with ISO requirements."

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October 2010: Graph Expo 2010: PrintPlace.com Wins ISO 12647 Gap Analysis Audit from KEE Consultants and Alwan Color Expertise

Graph Expo 2010: PrintPlace.com Wins ISO 12647 Gap Analysis Audit
from KEE Consultants and Alwan Color Expertise

Chicago, October 27, 2010 – Leading web-to-print provider PrintPlace.com won a ISO 12647 Standards Gap Analysis Audit at GraphExpo 2010. The company scooped the prize after entering a draw at the IDEAlliance G7® Summit. The competition was run by KEE Consultants and sponsored by Alwan Color Expertise.

PrintPlace.com has aligned its presswork with ISO 12647-2-based printing specifications since its inception in 2006. While many of PrintPlace.com's customers are unfamiliar with terms such as PSO, G7®, ISO 12647, Gracol® and Fogra, the far-sighted company understands that implementing best practices in print reproduction serve the interests of everyone involved in the print procurement chain.

With more and more printers joining the standards initiative, print buyers are benefitting from the common appearance of pages, regardless of their chosen print providers.

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