| Effective color analysis demands an
enterprisewide virtual color environment
In manufacturing operations
and across many diverse applications, color serves as a
fundamental quality indicator. Delivering off-color product
can risk future business and drive up labor and raw material
costs significantly. With increasing competition and an
emphasis on bringing products to market in record time,
it's more important than ever to deliver on-spec color faster
and more efficiently.
The latest color-testing technology, particularly when
housed within a virtual color environment, not only manages
color throughout the production cycle but also enhances
efficiency for the entire supply chain. This article covers
technological advances in the most significant areas of
color development--color matching and color quality control--and
describes how the latest color communication systems integrate
these tools into an overall virtual color environment that
benefits the entire supply chain--from mind to market.
Scientifically, color can be described as the quality
of an object with respect to light, but our human response
to color is not so empirical; it's emotional. When skillfully
used, color creates the kind of harmonious balance and appeal
that helps sell everything from personal care products to
automobiles to wallcovering. Precisely because of this blend
of science and emotion, color remains difficult to manage
across a manufacturing supply chain cycle. Much can happen
to affect color from the time a designer selects it until
the product is inspected on the factory floor. Multiple
processes are required for successful color development
throughout its long and complicated cycle.
The color cycle is as complex as it is encompassing. To
a designer, color speaks to aesthetics and identity. To
a manufacturer, color is precise and tangible. Designers
want flexibility and creativity, whereas the production
department needs an exact target and direction to deliver
first-run quality.
The latest advances in color technology use today's best
Web-based solutions to address such diverse approaches to
color and to capture its complexities in ways never before
possible: completely, accurately and electronically.
The new electronic medium that leading color developers
have embraced provides a comprehensive and inclusive framework
that allows everyone throughout the supply chain to benefit
from shortened time to market, cost reduction and an overall
improvement in color quality. How? In short, a Web-based
color communication system delivers correct color approval
throughout a supply chain not by duplicating efforts but
by streamlining and enhancing color processes already in
place. When operating optimally, an electronic color communication
system includes the following processes:
1. An OEM or component manufacturer selects a color standard
and measures it using a spectrophotometer.
2. The color standard then appears as a digital image on
the computer monitor, which has been calibrated for color
accuracy.
3. The standard is sent electronically to the supplier,
where trial color samples are produced and then measured
using a spectrophotometer.
4. The supplier electronically returns its digital sample
of the best possible color match to the manufacturer, where
it's compared to the standard on the calibrated monitor.
If the match isn't accepted, more color matching is requested
of the supplier. Digital samples are sent until the manufacturer
approves the color match.
5. The manufacturer then receives the final lab sample,
usually in less than half the time of a traditional color
matching trial-and-error process.
Perhaps the most powerful and inclusive aspect of the
new electronic environment is the fact that color can be
communicated digitally and assessed visually. Receivers
of a virtual color sample get more than a set of numbers;
they see precisely the color on-screen that corresponds
to the colorimetric data. Similarly, visual tolerances can
be evaluated and set realistically. For example, everyone
can see how far a particular spectrophotometer reading--such
as 1 CMC unit--is from a particular color standard.
As mentioned, the electronic color channel doesn't completely
change the traditional method of color control as much as
it streamlines and enhances it. Toward that end, the new
system uses familiar tools such as color-measuring instruments
and color-management software. However, in keeping with
its goal of color-process enhancement, the most effective
color communication systems take advantage of the latest
innovations among these color-control devices and incorporate
them within the virtual color environment.
Color matching is a prime example. The goal, of course,
is to always be on-target and on-color without requiring
corrections. Yet hours of production time are often spent
bringing batches on-shade without the appropriate tools
to accommodate the real-world variables that make up colorant
conditions. Different gloss levels between batch and standard,
for example, can easily translate into expensive rejections,
particularly with darker colors. And these variables are
compounded by the rising popularity of special-effect pigments
that appeal to discerning, high-end buyers. Mica-based pigments,
which create pearlescent and iridescent finishes, add depth
and richness to a surface's appearance by manipulating the
behavior of light reflected from the surface. Iridescents
actually change hues and shift shades to create their unique
coloration. In other words, the characteristics of these
popular high-end coatings represent the reason it's so difficult
to produce them in a first-run match.
However, the color-matching technology incorporated into
today's color communication systems accommodates even high-end
coatings such as metallics and pearlescents. To be sure
the system you're evaluating delivers these benefits, look
for color-matching software that can:
Significantly reduce color-matching times. Some exhibit
first-shot matching rates of up to 90 percent and lab-trial
reductions of 50 percent.
Reduce raw material costs. Check out specific functionality
rather than general claims. For example, how well does the
software save recycles as formulas and colorants? Is the
process automatic? How can operators characterize recycles--by
a single measurement or a more complicated process?
Provide quick and complete color specification and communication
with customers and suppliers. Examine how the color-matching
software works with other systems such as color quality
control and color-measuring instruments. Is it seamless?
Can you link all key parties effectively in a comprehensive
network of color management?
Minimize waste and downtime. Pay particular attention to
how the software allows operators to bring the most difficult-to-match
colors, such as metallics, on-shade in production. Are "adds"
to batches automatically calculated? What about the corrected
formula for new batches? Make sure operators can perform
invaluable functions such as previewing the effects of "adds"
of any colorant to a batch prior to production.
Increase productivity. No matter how sophisticated, any
color-matching system is limited in effectiveness if it's
hard to learn or cumbersome to use. Look for software that
takes advantage of the best of today's computers and features
built-in user-friendliness. The software should also be
backed by comprehensive training and support.
Integrating an efficient color-measuring instrument into
a system will significantly improve the effectiveness of
the coloring process as well as ensure color consistency
in finished products. Portable spectrophotometers appeared
during the last decade as an answer to the logistical problems
posed by traditional laboratory instruments with efficient
color measurement. Yet, in this area of color control, challenges
have remained.
One continuing challenge in portable color-measuring devices
is a cumbersome user interface. "Traditional"
interfaces often employ switches that must be toggled in
a precise order to customize sample names and screen selections.
Also, although about every portable color-measurement instrument
on the market offers a variety of software tools, many are
never used because it's too difficult to navigate through
the program to access them.
The newest portable spectrophotometers alleviate or eliminate
these challenges by utilizing PDA-driven technology for
easy operation. This unique approach to color measurement
is a prime example of the latest technology now incorporated
into electronic color communication systems. PDA technology
delivers the best of two worlds for superior quality: It
allows leading color developers to integrate customized
software for almost any color management application into
light, easy-to-handle color-measurement instruments. Plus,
it retains all the standard PDA navigation features that
make these hand-held wonders such desirable devices. No
more cumbersome toggle switches or default selections. Using
a stylus, the user simply taps the screen to input custom
sample names or change evaluation screens. This speeds the
color evaluation process while reducing errors in sample
identification and evaluation selection.
Adapting the PDA to a color-management application also
takes advantage of the memory and/or storage capacity available
within that technology. In the past, software solutions
accompanying portable instruments were confined to basic
quality control functions (e.g., simple color difference,
pass/fail and color indices) because of memory limitations.
Data upload and download from a PC has been a mandatory
feature of all hand-held units. However, quality control
and color formulation systems based on PC platforms generate
enormous databases of both samples and formulas. Memory
limitations have prevented the full use of these databases
in hand-held applications. Integrating the PDA into the
new instrument answers that limitation. For example, the
memory capacity of Datacolor's (www.datacolor.com)
PDA-driven device, the Mercury 3000, makes it possible to
accommodate a maximum of 30,000 samples and develop complex
programs that can search, retrieve and manipulate the information
they contain.
The key to providing superior color communication electronically
is the ability to reproduce color precisely. Once the color
standard has been selected, matched and measured, it's reviewed
in a virtual color environment. The efficacy of electronic
color communication rests solely on an ability to reproduce
the color accurately on-screen. That's made possible by
a high degree of monitor calibration and color-control software
specifically designed for this medium.
Monitors in the new virtual supply network are now so
precisely calibrated that a user can be confident of making
the same decisions when viewing electronic images that he
or she would make viewing actual physical samples.
What should you look for when evaluating an electronic
color system? The following are key considerations:
A single monitor must be able to repeat color, day after
day, with the same precision.
Calibration must be device-independent so that accurate
conversion (i.e., from computer-based color data to colorimetric
data, or RGB<-->CIELAB) is permitted using any brand
of monitor. This also enables color transfer between any
two monitors.
System operators must be able to create, edit and visually
compare colors conveniently on-screen.
Once the on-screen color is created, the software should
compute the right colorimetric data automatically. This
represents that color's digital signature.
The system should accept measurements by a spectrophotometer
and instantly transform the data into visual color on-screen
for evaluation or adjustment.
The resulting digital sampling allows users to electronically
create or evaluate color and avoid the time-consuming and
costly traditional method of mailing colored samples back
and forth between sites for approval. Digital sampling technology
breaks new ground across all industries but is particularly
important in manufacturing applications in which accurate
color reproduction is critical to delivering a quality product.
Thanks to this ability to reproduce precise color on a
computer screen, color standards can now be archived digitally,
eliminating problems associated with fading, transfer or
handling. Also, the digital color data are ready for input
to color-matching or quality control software and are automatically
available to the printer or other end-user once the colors
have been approved.
As vice president and business manager of Datacolor
(www.datacolor.com),
Jaime A. Gómez is responsible for establishing
overall business strategy and bringing new color technologies
and services to the company across core markets. Gómez
has a doctorate in polymer science from the University of
Connecticut and an MBA from New York University. He has
more than 10 years of domestic and international experience
in the chemical, high-tech and Internet industries. Letters
to the editor regarding this column can be sent to
letters@qualitydigest.com.
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