Kodak Honored with Two Top Industry Awards for Digital Innovation in Graphic Communications

ROCHESTER, NY—Aug. 13, 2009—Printing Industries of America awarded Kodak two 2009 InterTech Technology Awards, the highest honor for innovation in the graphic communications industry. The awards recognize leading Kodak Digital Technologies that help increase the impact of print and enable print service providers to offer even more value to their clients as marketing service providers. Kodak is the only company to receive two of the coveted awards this year.

Receiving 2009 InterTech Technology Awards are the Kodak Dimensional Printing System, a revolutionary digital print technology that creates raised—or 3D—text and images to differentiate and add value to the creative piece, and Kodak Prinergy Digital Workflow, a software solution for digital presses that enables printers to improve efficiency, decrease production costs and reduce job turnaround times. Kodak holds a total of 24 InterTech Technology Awards for innovative solutions for commercial, data, publishing, and packaging printers.

“Kodak Solutions such as Dimensional Printing and Prinergy Digital Workflow help customers differentiate their businesses in the marketplace, increase production efficiencies, and improve return on marketing investment for their clients,” said Chris Payne, Director and Vice President, Business to Business Marketing, Kodak. “These awards reflect Kodak’s ongoing commitment to deliver innovative solutions that help our customers grow their businesses.”

The Kodak Dimensional Printing System is the only cut sheet inline digital, tactile printing system on the market. Available as part of the Kodak Nexpress Fifth Imaging Unit Solutions, Dimensional Printing gives specified text and images a raised or 3D effect that can help communications stand out in a crowded marketplace. The result is a printed piece with a dimensional feel that mimics the surface of the items in the image. The Kodak Nexpress Intelligent Dimensional Coating Solution and Kodak Nexpress Dimensional Clear Dry Ink combine to create the Dimensional Printing effects. Dimensional Printing is well suited for a variety of markets, including commercial printing and photo products, and can be used for a variety of applications including direct mail, marketing collateral, promotional materials, greeting cards, business cards, invitations, certificates and photo books.

In his nomination letter for Dimensional Printing, Tony Seaman, Director, The University of Mississippi Publishing Center, lauded the impact Dimensional Printing has had on its business. The university hosted the first 2008 Presidential Debate and used Dimensional Printing to create a raised presidential seal and other elements for the invitations, pocket folders, and sponsor programs.

“We’ve seen an overall growth in our digital printing volume, and we believe the Kodak Dimensional Printing System is certainly contributing to this growth,” said Seaman. “It is opening doors and helping grow our volumes by establishing us as an innovative and dependable partner to our clients. It gives us a competitive advantage and helps us deliver much more than a standard digital print job.”

Prinergy Digital Workflow is designed specifically for the needs and requirements of digital printing workflows, such as higher job volumes, variable data printing, and short production runs. It connects to a wide range of digital presses on the market.

Prinergy Digital Workflow’s Rules Based Automation (RBA) feature impressed the judges. The technology eliminates processes, simplifies production, and automates procedures regardless of the level of complexity—all based on establishing predefined “rules” to determine how to handle all facets of print jobs. Using RBA, many errors are eliminated, touch points disappear, and the process is much faster. This is absolutely critical in today’s digital print production process where the jobs have to be processed as efficiently as possible. When integrated with Kodak Unified Workflow Solutions, zero-touch automation is achieved. Furthermore, Prinergy Digital Workflow is tightly integrated with Kodak Web to Print Solutions, enabling print service providers to become marketing service providers by giving their customers easy, flexible ways to order marketing printed materials anytime via the Internet.

Prinergy Digital Workflow is being honored for innovation in the same year that the Kodak Prinergy Workflow System, the industry’s first production workflow, is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

In nominating Prinergy Digital Workflow for the 2009 InterTech Award, Yves Gray, Digital Color Printing, ING Belgium, said, “Prinergy Digital has become a big part of our production environment. It has proven to be very easy to integrate, very easy to use, and very robust. Our operators felt comfortable with the interface right away, and the status reporting and live device feedback are helping us to become much more efficient—saving time and money on each job.”

Kodak Products are backed by Kodak Service and Support. Kodak Service and Support is made up of more than 3,000 professionals reaching more than 120 countries. It is a leading multi-vendor integrated services provider, delivering consulting, installation, maintenance and support services for the commercial printing, graphic communications, document imaging and data storage industries. Kodak Service and Support professionals are uniquely qualified to provide services that control costs, maximize productivity, and minimize business risk.

About Printing Industries of America
Printing Industries of America is the world’s largest graphic arts trade association representing an industry with approximately one million employees. It serves the interests of more than 10,000 member companies. Printing Industries of America, along with its affiliates, delivers products and services that enhance the growth, efficiency, and profitability of its members and the industry through advocacy, education, research, and technical information.

Born out of the consolidation of PIA and GATF, Printing Industries of America has a long and impressive history. We are dedicated to the advancement of the graphic communications industry worldwide. Printing Industries proudly hosts two specialty Centers of Excellence—the Center for Technology & Research (formerly GATF) and the Center for Digital Printing Excellence. Both serve our members and the industry with in-depth, quality research, reports, products, services, and more.

About Kodak
As the world’s foremost imaging innovator, Kodak helps consumers, businesses, and creative professionals unleash the power of pictures and printing to enrich their lives.

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In the graphic communications market, Kodak offers the broadest portfolio of integrated solutions to help customers grow their business. For more information, visit www.graphics.kodak.com. For downloading photos and videos from Kodak’s image library, visit www.kodak.com/go/gcimages.

(Kodak, Prinergy and NexPress are trademarks of Eastman Kodak Company.)