Techkon SpectroVision – The 3 in 1 Solution for Flexo Print Quality
Part I: Ever wonder if there is new technology out there that was designed specifically to help you increase your flexo pressroom efficiencies and save you money? If you answered “YES”, then sit right down and let me explain how Techkon SpectroVision may be precisely the solution you have been searching for.
We know that brand customers are moving toward more SKU’s, shorter run lengths, and tighter color tolerances. Together, these factors add up to more make-readies and longer make-readies for packaging printers who are trying to meet these customer demands. Therefore, we have designed our SpectroVision inline color measurement system to address 3 key print quality functions in an effort to shorten make-readies for printers, reduce waste, and ultimately save printers money. This is part 1 of a 3 part blog series where we will start our discovery of just exactly how SpectroVision can increase your pressroom efficiencies and help you stay profitable despite increasing brand customer demands.
Techkon SpectroVision – Measure Color Inline and Save Big!
That’s right….First and foremost, SpectroVision is a true spectrophotometer that mounts directly onto your flexo presses and allows you to measure color bars, color spots, and in-image locations in real time and without stopping the press. Now let’s take a closer look at how this capability saves you money:
Shorter Make-Readies – In a recent survey of packaging printers by Techkon, long make-readies were ranked as their “most significant color challenge” in the pressroom. Just think of the time that could be saved during make-ready if you did NOT have to stop the press, cut the web for a sample, take offline color measurements with a handheld device, splice the web back together, and then restart the press. How many times are your operators repeating this process to get color correct during make-ready and how much press time is this taking away from your overall production capacity?
Now imagine your make-ready using SpectroVision. Start the press and have entire color bars (from one or both sides of the press) measured automatically every 5-10 seconds during the make-ready process. This ensures that your operators always have current color measurement data at their fingertips while they make color adjustments on press. SpectroVision also eliminates the guesswork and provides press operators with clear and actionable feedback regarding color and press adjustments to achieve required color specifications. Without all of the press starts and stops, SpectroVision allows make-ready times to be cut in half which can significantly reduce wasted ink & substrate and gain you back valuable press time so additional jobs can be run on press throughout the day.
Color Consistency – For most of our customers, once make-ready is over and production begins, process control for color means taking measurements only when the roll is done and comes off the press. However, there are 2 problems in this workflow. First, this does absolutely nothing to ensure that the color is consistent and in specification throughout that roll. The danger here is that the end customer may do their own color quality check and discover that the color has drifted out of tolerance somewhere in the press run and now the customer can reject the job and even lose confidence in their print supplier.
The second problem with only checking color at the end of the roll is the expense and waste created if that roll measures out of tolerance. At this point, while the operator may be able to make adjustments and fix those color problems for the next roll, it is far too late for the roll that just came off the press and this is a very expensive mistake that could have been prevented with inline color measurements.
Interested in learning more about how SpectroVision can save you money? Contact us for a custom ROI calculation and let’s get your questions answered. We would love to hear from you and learn about the unique color challenges in your production department. Next week, stay tuned to learn more about how SpectroVision can save you money in the pressroom with real-time bar code grading. Thanks and stay safe!
