Andrew Tribute commented on Advanced Vision Technologies purchase of Graphic Microsystems Inc in today's eXpert Row Commentary and speculates on the future of press quality control tools:

Neither AVT nor GMI have much presence in the sheet fed offset market. In this the standard for color management and control has long been set by Heidelberg with their Prinect Image Control system that brought closed loop color control to the industry. This has been co-developed by themselves and X-Rite. X-Rite also provides some the color management and control technology to Komori. In the sheet fed market to my understanding only Heidelberg and MAN Roland provide an inline printed sheet inspection system. Again there is no one product that does both color control and sheet inspection.

With the aim of all press manufacturers to move to full computer integrated manufacturing approaches with as much automation as possible on the press to both reduce staffing and guarantee output quality, can we expect new forms of total control systems on the press? If we were to get this I would expect that with the new capabilities brought into AVT with the acquisition of GMI that this company will be one of the key players.

I don’t think a combined product is in AVT’s plans. There just isn’t much bang for the buck in such a system, even if they could make one affordable for the labels market. It’s seductive to think a “total image control system” is the ultimate product that everyone will want to buy, but unless such a product removes a body from the press line (care to guess how many operators are on a typical inline labels press?) or saves enough waste to earn its keep, folks aren’t going to buy it.