Alwan was founded in 1997 in Lyon, France by President Elie Khoury. His choice to dedicate the company to Colour Management and Standardisation lead to the company becoming a leading force in both fields worldwide.

Alwan started its business as an engineering and consultancy firm committed to promoting ISO Standards and ICC-based Color Management for printers and publishers.The company’s engineers developed highly sophisticated tools, providing customers with easy, open, independant and affordable Color Management and Standardisation solutions, whilst keeping the complexity under the hood.

Alwan is based in Lyon, France employing eleven highly skilled persons, all chosen for their educational background and scholarship, successful work experience, creativity and motivation.

Alwan is member of many international scientific organizations (ICC, CIE, ECI etc.) and delivers software to the main players in the Graphic Industry: publishers, printers, OEMs and software developers.
Globalization is proving quite a challenge in the graphic industry and printing consistent colors in such a open production environment is more complex to manage than it has ever been.» says Elie Khoury. « A job can be initiated in one site, proofs approved by a client in a second site, with the printing being done on other sites scattered around the world. No matter how many sites are involved in production or what is being printed, be it ads, packages, stickers, magazines, newspapers etc.-, everyone- customers, printers, buyers, users…-must have accurate and matching colors » says Elie Khoury.

Moreover, with many generations and types of printing technology coexisting, one may have to work on conventional machines such as offset, flexography and gravure simultaneously alongside the more modern ones such as digital and large format presses .
One also has to take into account the wide variety of digital files received by the printers. The operators who create these files don’t always know on which press a job will be produced, nor which standards they have to comply with . Indeed, standards differ from one printing process to another and from one continent to another.

When files, proofs and the final printing processes are made compliant with standards, the results become consistent, predictable with a great improvement in profitability and quality.
« Since 1997, Alwan has committed to helping the Graphic Arts Industry adopt standards, firstly by providing users with services and standardisation tools, and secondly since 2003, by developing production software to enable printers to become ISO compliant »

Five years later, Alwan software is used by over 400 printers worldwide including many very prestigious names. In 2008, Alwan received a PIA/GATF Intertech™ Award for its innovational DynamicDeviceLinks™ technology. Luc Regnault- head of R&D at Alwan- was awarded the Chéreau Lavet Prize for his achievements throughout his engineering career and Elie Khoury presides over the Communication Technologies Commission of the French Standardization Organization AFNOR and represents France in International Standardization organizations. »