Prepress specialist Carl Ostermann Erben GmbH (COE) and BST eltromat International introduced a joint system at the 2015 Labelexpo Europe exhibition in which all the necessary data for the spectral inline color measurement is already prepared in the prepress for iPQ-Spectral. The quality assurance system is later automatically set up and managed in the production process based on this data.

Now, this system has been extended by the 100% print inspection with the BST eltromat iPQ-Check. All the job data is captured once in the prepress and is subsequently made available throughout the production process.

If, for example, prepress, print, spectral inline color measurement and 100% print inspection interact seamlessly with each other in packaging and label printing, the data necessary for the iPQ-Spectral and iPQ-Check can be captured in the prepress at the same time and written into either XML or JDF files.

Later in the production process, this data automatically feeds into iPQ-Spectral and iPQ-Check, through which these quality assurance systems are set up without any further user interventions. As the entire relevant job data is only entered once at prepress, and later made available throughout the production process, the setup times are significantly reduced. At the same time, any sources of defects resulting from multiple data capture in the value chain are reduced.

“Networking various systems in the production process into consistent solutions makes life easier for printers in their day-to-day work – and for this reason, it is currently a big issue in virtually all the printing companies that we work with as a prepress specialist and printing plate manufacturer,” explains Michael Halfar, COE business development manager.

By integrating prepress data with iPQ-Spectral for the spectral inline color measurement, COE cannot just provide print data and the printing blocks to its customers’ machine operators, it can also make the data for the quality control of the colors available as XML or JDF files. This also applies for the color reference values and the color measuring sites.

In the course of integrating the prepress data of COE with iPQ-Check, however, the print lengths, web widths, control strips, logos, bar codes or other printed elements are in the prepress. By using this production data, the iPQ-Check “knows” where and what should be inspected. “It is especially interesting for label printers to automatically mask out all areas around the labels for the 100% print inspection – which are later anyhow removed,” says Volker Reinholdt, product manager print inspection at BST eltromat.

Michael Dattner, innovation manager at BST eltromat, welcomes the forward-looking approach of the cooperation between COE and BST eltromat. “Our cooperation in printing packaging and labels combines the know-how of both of our companies for these process steps. BST eltromat has already implemented other customized integration projects in different industries. COE has all relevant data for the printing process, and BST eltromat is the suitable partner to continue the use of this benefit as a part of the related customer requirements. To put it more precisely, we are working on an extremely flexible tool that enables the intelligent preparation of jobs for a wide range of very different requirements and applications.”