NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting
Technologies supports and administers the activities of the ANSI-accredited Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards (CGATS). For more
information contact standards@npes.org.

CGATS was formed in 1987 following a year-long assessment of the need for an umbrella standards committee by the Image Technology Standards Board (ITSB) of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and received ANSI accreditation in 1989. The goal of CGATS is to have the entire scope of printing, publishing and converting technologies represented in one national standardization and coordination effort, while respecting the established activities of existing accredited standards committees and industry standards developers.

CGATS writes standards only where the need exists and no other committee is undertaking the writing.

Thus, in addition to developing standards for the industry, CGATS also provides a vehicle for other industry organizations that have specifications to work under the CGATS "umbrella" to move their work into the standards arena, and have the work further developed and approved as an American National Standard. Several such joint efforts have been undertaken, resulting in the development of an ANSI CGATS standard.

The committee works to improve the efficiency of national standards development, facilitates information exchange, coordinates multi-discipline standards activities and provides liaison for international standards development.

CGATS has standards, either approved or in draft, relating to pallet loading of printed materials, metrology, terminology, plates, process control, electronic transmission of publication ads, digital data exchange, color data definition, design workflow for packaging, and ink and color characterization for packaging. The activities involving digital data exchange and color data definition were activities formerly under the IT8 Committee. Beginning in 1994, that work continued under the administrative structure of CGATS.

The CGATS main committee consists of Participating (voting) members and Observing (non-voting) members. An Executive Committee is responsible for planning and coordination of the subcommittees, working groups and task forces. The Executive Committee approves new work items and assigns the work to the appropriate committee for development.

Work on the standards is done within subcommittees (SC), working groups (WG), or task forces (TF). In accordance with ANSI procedures, all standards undergo a periodic review every five years to determine whether to reaffirm, revise or withdraw the standard.

Participation on CGATS committees and at meetings is open to anyone having an interest. Minutes and other committee documents are available online (see links above), or from the NPES Standards Department, standards@npes.org.

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