Its report, Computer Integrated Manufacturing: Hot Stuff? Or Much Ado About Nothing? claimed that 58% of printers felt the concept, which underpins the adoption of JDF, "irrelevant to their businesses or didn't know how it relates to them".

The report also claimed the current low adoption of JDF showed that most printers are miles from CIM.

Martin Bailey, chief executive of CIP4, the body that oversees JDF, commented: "It's a matter of semantics. If you ask if they do CIM, printers will say no; if you ask about automation and integration, they will say yes."

The report found that despite the slow start, the adoption of CIM would happen, and would include changes to employees in favour of digital savvy and IT-literate people.

So far only 2% of people see moving to CIM as a business challenge, although those planning to invest has risen from 2% to 4% in the last six months. Magazine printers were most likely to have embraced CIM, with 23% saying they used it and 20% planning to invest in the next year.

The report mirrors evidence in the UK that in the main it is large web printers adopting the technology today, with some larger sheetfed printers also taking the plunge.