TECHKON USA – the innovation leader in densitometers, spectrophotometers and software solutions for the global print and packaging communities, announced today that it will showcase two innovative color quality assurance solutions at drupa 2012: SpectroEdge, an inline spectrophotometer that measures and maintains accurate color “on-the-fly” during a press run; and ChromaQA, its new cloud-based color quality assurance software.

Based on TECHKON’s leading-edge color measurement technology, TECHKON SpectroEdge is an inline spectrophotometer that gives flexographic press operators the ability to measure and maintain accurate color at standard production speeds, instead of only at a roll change or when the job is complete. SpectroEdge reads the color bars on your sheet and instantly interprets the color values sent to your host computer. It mounts directly on the press, capturing real-time spectral data at print production speeds up to 1000ft/minute (300m/minute),  without the need to stop the press, and reports “on-the-fly” color variations as they occur, eliminating costly waste.

Sophisticated, yet easy-to-use, TECHKON ChromaQA is a powerful set of tools designed to provide both direct and remote access to pressroom color data, allowing print quality control managers to monitor color quality in real-time on press, locally or remotely. It empowers digital, flexographic, and packaging press operators to make timely, critical adjustments on press, substantially increasing quality and profitability by catching problems early in the print production process.

TECHKON SpectroEdge and ChromaQA are commercially available, easily implemented and suitable for a wide range of digital and packaging printer environments, no matter if it is a single seat, multi press or multi plant operation. Working either individually or in tandem, their capabilities include:

SpectroEdge

• Drives color measurement at press speeds of 1000 ft/min (300 meters/min)
• Measures 3000 samples per second, reporting 31 spectral bands and providing CIE L*a*b, CIE L*C*h* and status T & E densities
• Utilizes TECHKON patent-pending automatic color bar recognition and alignment features, measuring color bars printed along the paper feed path

ChromaQA

• Color Quality Assurance Cloud Software offers both client server and single seat versions
• Enables print specifiers, quality control managers and press room managers to create and monitor print jobs locally or remotely, managing all required customer information, color values, and target tolerances required to print the job
• Posts job information to the cloud (or company Intranet) so multiple presses and/or plants printing the same job may all access the same target color tolerances and values, and color data from multiple presses
• Manages custom color libraries, analyzes color quality and tracks and reports trending

“Until now, packaging printers were limited to using subjective ‘trial and error’ methods to control color on press that many times fell far short of customer expectations,” states Bob Byrnes, Director of Technical Services. “It was hard enough to control color quality on a single press, much less color quality across multiple presses, and in varied locations. The inability to stop a flexo press to check color quality caused significant amounts of paper and ink to be wasted, and often the final results lacked the color consistency required by brand owners. Flexo printers simply did not have the right tools to overcome these obstacles … until now.”

TECHKON SpectroEdge and ChromaQA provide press operators or quality control personnel a wide range of benefits:

• Efficiency in measuring and monitoring press room results either locally or remotely, and receiving press room data in real-time during press run
• Savings in catching color problems early in the press run and avoiding remakes
• Ease of using an intuitive interface to configure job specifications and color bars
• Versatility in importing colors from multiple industry standard file formats like MIF, CXF, CXF3, TCB, .INK and Excel CSV
• Speed in choosing previously created tolerance settings used in other print jobs
• Convenience of simply creating and saving configured color bars for use in other print jobs, eliminating the need to create a new color bar for every job
• Productivity in exporting detailed Trending and Statistical Reports in PDF or Excel CSV formats for consideration in future press runs

In addition to TECHKON SpectroEdge, ChromaQA software can be fully integrated with TECHKON’s wide array of color measurement devices that includes: TECHKON SpectroDens, TECHKON SpectroDensXL, TECHKON SpectroJet, and TECHKON SpectroDrive, as well as devices from other leading manufacturers.

Visit us at drupa (Hall 09 Stand D62) to see demonstrations of these exciting new products. More information at: www.techkonusa.com/