Alwan Color Expertise’s Luc Regnault awarded the Official French Medal of the Ordre National du Mérite

Lyon, November 13 2009 – Alwan Color Expertise’s research and development director, Luc Regnault, has been awarded the coveted Ordre National du Mérite medal. Regnault landed the prestigious accolade for his achievements as an ‘engineer, inventor and entrepreneur’.

The Ordre National du Mérite medal is the latest official award to acknowledge Regnault’s success. In 2007 he was dubbed ‘the serial developer’ when he scooped the Chéreau Lavet Prize for his outstanding career achievements. Regnault has a personal record of more than 25 patents. He is responsible for developing Alwan technologies, which themselves have received awards from international organizations.

A success built on collaboration and friendship
The success of Alwan Color Expertise is attributable to the long-standing and unshakable friendship between Elie Khoury and Luc Regnault, who are both driven by a shared passion for excellence and innovation.

These entrepreneurs are partners at Alwan Color Expertise, a company that Khoury founded in 1997 and still presides over today. Regnault joined Alwan in 1999 and leads the company’s research and development department. In this role he manages a team of highly qualified engineers, all of whom believe in the company vision and ethos and are committed to meeting the business’ objectives.

Today, Alwan is represented in more than 25 countries by a network of representatives, distributors, resellers and experts that promote Alwan’s color standardization technologies.

Elie Khoury, Alwan’s founder and chair of the international standardization network of experts, KEE Consultants, says of Alwan’s global success: “We provide the graphic industry and our clients with innovative, internationally recognized, award-winning solutions. However, I’ve always believed that it is people, not products, that shape a company. I’m very proud and fortunate to have by my side top-quality, trustworthy people. My friend and partner, Luc Regnault, together with his team of very skilled and motivated researchers and developers, is fundamental to the success of Alwan’s unique standardization tools and solutions.”

Luc Regnault adds: “During my long career as an entrepreneur I have established several different-sized companies. Le Pixel had five people, while Imaje has more than 1,200 employees. Regardless of size, the key to the success of these businesses has been the continuing focus on innovation and developing exemplary products, together with adopting ethical business working practices that respect and reward the company employees as well as its business partners.”

Alwan’s color standardization technologies’ global success and awards
Alwan offers a range of color management and standardization solutions that are embedded with Alwan’s Dynamic DeviceLinks™ technology. This technology won the PIA/GATF InterTech™ Award for innovation excellence in 2008 – the first time the prize was awarded to a French company.

The success of Alwan’s flagship product, CMYK Optimizer, launched in 2004, created a raft of new opportunities for the company. Partnerships with OEMs were signed to develop joint global standardization solutions. This led to Alwan’s automated standardization solutions, which were developed and launched in 2009.

For standardizing PDFs, Alwan and Enfocus developed PDF Standardizer. And for standardizing presses, Alwan developed PRINT Standadizer to support its partner X-Rite’s measuring tools.

Alwan PRINT Standardizer was one of the 60 products chosen from 4,000 at Print 09 that won “Must See ’Ems” or “Worth a look” distinctions. This accolade ensured delegates flocked to the stands where Alwan products were demonstrated. Since then, sales in the USA have soared and the company has forged new commercial partnerships, despite the current economic climate.

National print federations and international certification organizations recognize Alwan’s solutions and KEE Consultants’ expertise, and support the initiatives run by Alwan and KEE Consultants, such as seminars, conferences and PSO training. The success in 2009 of the “Standardize to Survive” seminars, held in Europe and the US, have reinforced Alwan’s position as the market leader in color standardization.


Pictured : Mr. Jean-Claude Millet delivers the “Ordre National du Mérite” medal to Luc Regnault.

About Alwan Color Expertise
Alwan Color Expertise was founded in Lyon, France, in 1997 by the current managing director Elie Khoury and his vision - to demonstrate how important standardizing and controlling color throughout every stage of production is - has resulted in the company becoming a world leader in standardization and color management implementation.

Today, Alwan provides software, consultancy and training to key players throughout the graphic arts industry, from printers to publishers and from software developers to hardware manufacturers. Alwan Color Expertise offers a choice of four full-featured software solutions within the Alwan CMYK Optimizer product family. Each delivers specialized capabilities that enable all partners along the graphic production line to guarantee the color accuracy of their work, while ensuring optimum production further down the line.

Alwan has recently established very strong partnerships with many graphic industry players who are involved in standardization worldwide. They include research organizations, Universities, software publishers and OEMs.

The outcome of these co-operations is the recent release of two new and unique ISO 12647 out-of-the-box standardization solutions:
· PDF Standardizer, developed in partnership with Enfocus, offers a simple and reliable way to create PDFs that comply with ISO 15930-1 (PDF/X1-a), Ghent PDF Workgroup specifications as well as with ISO 12647 color printing standards.
· Print Standardizer, developed in partnership with X-Rite, provides an affordable and easy-to-implement G7 and ISO 12647 standardization in the press room.

Alwan Color Expertise has appointed specialist distributors for each of the targeted market segments. An ever-growing number of leading pre-press manufacturers are either bundling Alwan software with their products or recommending it with their systems, such as Compose System, Dalim, Enfocus, Nazdar, X-Rite and others...

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