Group forms to develop PDF standard for engineering work

Several industry organizations and vendors are working on establishing standards and best practices for use of the Adobe PDF (portable document format) format in engineering workflows. The initiative is led by AIIM, the international authority on enterprise content management, and NPES, the Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies. The PDF Engineering (PDF/E) Working Group brings together representatives from Adobe, Agile, Bentley Systems, Hewlett Packard, Océ, Intel, PTC, Layton Graphics, Dell, and UGS PLM Solutions.

"The working group's goal is to achieve consensus on a standard that will improve document collaboration and print accuracy within engineering workflows, both inside companies and with extended enterprises of partners, suppliers, and customers," said Ivan Koon, senior vice president, Intelligent Documents Business Unit, Adobe. "An established standard will enable organizations to streamline engineering workflows that incorporate diverse sets of complex documents, resulting in improved productivity and the ability to more quickly deliver better products to market."

The joint committee formed under AIIM and NPES will identify issues to be addressed as well as proposed solutions, and will develop a draft document for presentation to an international joint working group of the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) for development and approval as an International Standard. The proposed draft document is expected to be submitted to ISO in December 2004 with an anticipated publication date of mid-2006.

You can register to participate on the committee at: http://www.aiim.org/pdf_e

/p>