Paper Cutters Honing a Competitive Edge

Among those offering a more reserved assessment of CIP4's potential is Jeff Marr, vice president of sales at Colter & Peterson.

"CIP4 is nice in theory, but we are not seeing it put into practice," he says. "The standard still needs to be finalized."

While it may be practical for manufacturers who provide prepress, press and postpress solutions to implement the technology, "if you break that loop, it doesn't work," Marr says. He adds that Colter & Petersen has the pieces in place to implement the workflow on the company's cutters, but it is still waiting for development of the standard and customer demand to reach the point where its implementation is warranted.