The International Card Manufacturers Association (ICMA) has announced the first members to achieve Advanced Card Education (ACE-M) accreditation.

Julie Hermanson, quality manager at Production Services Associates, Matthew O’Connell, engineer at Gemalto, and Mike Sabatini, operations manager at Perfect Plastic Printing, passed the first module, ACE-M, which covers basic card manufacturing. Future planned modules include ACE-A (advanced technologies) and ACE-P (personalisation).

According to the ICMA: “In light of the ever-adapting and advancing nature of technology, the complexity of card manufacturing has increased, as have the standards, production, quality, security and environmental issued involving cards. A need developed for a standardised industry-wide accreditation programme to recognise the knowledge, experience and dedication of leading professionals in the industry. To fulfil this need, the ICMA introduced the ACE programme.”

Testing has so far been conducted at the ICMA Expo in San Diego in October and Cartes in Paris in November. Further testing dates are planned for the ICMA 2008 Expo on 6 April 2008 and Card Tech Secure Tech on 15 May 2008, both being held in Orlando.