B65 – Safety Standards

APTech supports and administers the activities of the B65 Committee. The B65 committee seeks participation from all members of the printing industry in the area of safety of printing equipment and systems. This work is open to anyone with an interest. The committee is especially seeking users of these technologies to participate in this work.

As the printing machinery industry becomes more globally focused, the design of uniform international safety standards is increasingly important. These standards allow manufacturers to design and build equipment to a single set of safety standards, regardless of the country of import/export.

Much of the B65 work has been incorporated into safety standards that are now published documents by ISO TC 130. B65 members continue to provide input into work being done at the ISO level, thereby ensuring the US viewpoints are taken into consideration. For ISO standards related to safety in graphic technology, B65 augments the work of the US TAG to ISO TC 130. In addition, B65 determines how best to adopt the work of ISO TC 130 as national standards, whether it be an identical national adoption or an adoption with modifications.

B65 ACTIVITIES

The B65 Committee develops safety-related American National Standards for:

• printing presses and press systems
• binding and finishing equipment and systems
• bindery cutting machines
• platen presses
• ink making equipment

These standards address:

• design, arrangement, designation, and color scheme of controls and signaling devices
• guarding and interlocking of guards
• mechanical safety devices
• symbology
• safe practices as they apply to printing equipment

Standards are developed within subcommittees (SC), working groups (WG), or task forces (TF). Participation in standards development is open to anyone having an interest. To ensure standards stay current, all standards undergo a periodic review every five years to determine whether to reaffirm, revise or withdraw the standard.

For more information or to participate in B65 contact [email protected]

U.S. Technical Advisory Group (USTAG) amd TC 130

Advisory Group to the International Organization for Standardization's Technical Committee 130, Graphic Technology. The US TAG consists of experts from the industry who provide guidance to ANSI on the development of the U.S. position on international standards relating to the graphic arts.

APTech is accredited by ANSI to administer the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (US TAG) to the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 130 (ISO/TC130).

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 130 (Graphic Technology) develops standards in the field of printing and graphic technologies. ISO/TC 130 standards include but are not limited to those of terminology, evaluation of visual appearance and product quality, data exchange, process control, management, conformity assessment, impacts on the environments as well as requirements on and testing of the related materials, equipment and systems.

The United States is a participating (voting member) of ISO/TC 130. ANSI accredits U.S. Technical Advisory Groups (U.S. TAGs). The primary purpose of these groups is to develop and transmit, via ANSI, U.S. positions on activities and ballots of the ISO Technical Committees.

Working Groups

• WG 1 – Terminology
• WG 2 – Prepress data exchange
• WG 2 TF 2 – PDF/X
• WG 2 TF 3 – VDX
• WG 3 – Process control & related metrology
• WG4 – Media and materials
• WG5 – Safety and Ergonomics
• JWG 7 – Colour Management (with ICC)
• WG 10 – Management of  security printing processes
• WG 11 – Environmental impact of graphics technology
• WG 12 – Postpress
• JWG 14 – Print quality measurement methods
• JWG 15 – Development of environmental standards related to e-media
• WG 25 – Use of XMP for digital photography
• Task Force 3 – Workflow standards roadmap

For more information or to participate in USTAG contact [email protected]

Brand Packaging Council

Offering a platform where members can share their experiences and discuss current topics of interest in brand packaging.

The Brand Packaging Council was established to:

• Provide a forum for a brand owners group to discuss and develop best practices that will align their business partners with a common methodology to deliver consistent design intent on packaging,
• Empower brand owners to contribute to the development of standards that improve communication across their suppliers, and
• Benefit printers and measurement equipment manufacturers by saving them time and resources by providing requirements and evaluation criteria spelled out in a common fashion by their customers.

For more information or to participate in the Brand Packaging Council contact [email protected]

International Color Consortium (ICC)

APTech serves as secretariat to the International Color Consortium (ICC)

The ICC is an organization devoted to the promotion of the use and adoption of open, vendor-neutral, cross-platform color management systems.

The ICC was established in 1993 by eight industry vendors for the purpose of creating, promoting and encouraging the standardization and evolution of an open, vendor-neutral, cross-platform color management system architecture and components. The outcome of this co-operation was the development of the ICC profile specification.

The intent of the ICC profile format is to provide a cross-platform device profile format. Device profiles can be used to translate color data created on one device into another device's native color space. The acceptance of this format by operating system vendors allows end users to transparently move profiles and images with embedded profiles between different operating systems. This permits tremendous flexibility to both users and vendors. For example, it allows users to be sure that their image will retain its color fidelity when moved between systems and applications. Furthermore, it allows a printer manufacturer to create a single profile for multiple operating systems.