Sean Milmo, European Editor11.13.20
Color management is providing big opportunities in Europe for ink businesses to diversify their portfolios, particularly in services.
A lot of these openings are coming from gaps left in the coverage of digitalized color management by the automation specialists who have developed the hardware and above all software for consistent, high quality and defect-free printed colors.
This consistency is the main requirement of brand owners and other major print buyers in packaging – the main color management sector. With consumer products that are marketed across the world and whose packaging is often printed on a range of substrates by different converters in different locations, color consistency is essential. Variations will be quickly seen by consumers as a sign of a lapse in quality or even counterfeiting.
Press equipment manufacturers have formed partnerships with leading providers of color management hardware and software. German-based CGS Publishing Technologies International, a major player in the global color management market, has partnerships with Canon, Epson, HP, Konica Minolta and Xerox.
Some big ink producers have similar alliances. With the help of Pantone, the specialist in digitalization of color specifications, Sun Chemical has created 30 color libraries covering most of the common print processes. Sun Chemical has also collaborated with CGS on a project to provide an advanced metal deco digital proofing solution for two-piece beverage cans.
Much of the expertise of the front runners in the automation of color management come from engineering, electronics, IT and computer science backgrounds. Ink producers have the advantage of also knowing the most about the chemistry of ink, which gives them openings in certain areas of a fast-growing market. This is the case in locations and sectors where there is not only a scarcity of color expertise but even more of color specialists who are also chemists.
The Ink Industry and Color Management
Ink producers are quite anxious to broaden the scope of color management beyond the quality of the colors to their chemistry and impact on health and safety and the environment.
Some ink businesses are placing color management within their assessment services for overall quality, safety and eco-friendliness. With food packaging, for example, customized services like color matching are not separated from safety and regulatory issues.
“For us, customization goes beyond classical color matching,” said Matthieu Carni, director business unit inkjet at Siegwerk. “It also involves optimization of adhesion, mechanical and chemical resistance properties as well as an assessment of migration risks.”
Ink manufacturers are in a strong position to deal with a rising concern among brand owners and consumer product companies about the need to keep up with the latest trends in sustainability standards and regulations.
Sun Chemical recently created a corporate sustainability committee in response to worries among brand owners in the packaging sector about environmental and related matters.
“[We want to ensure that] we have a structured process in place that puts our sustainability efforts at the forefront of all our business processes,” said Myron Petruch, Sun Chemical’s president and CEO.
A major issue looming on the horizon is the EU’s program for the introduction of circular economy standards and regulations. These require products and their materials, including components like packaging and other inks, to be reused, remanufactured or to be subject to some other form of recycling with complete disposal being only a last resort.
Outside the printing inks sector in Europe, much of the focus of color management is raising the efficiency of the printing of the colors with the emphasis being on cutting costs and making better use of resources. Integration of the color printing processes combined with more effective collection and analysis of data from systems like in-line monitoring is considered to be the main means of increasing productivity.
What is required is not just the integration of the equipment and software but also of the companies and businesses which provide them.
Danaher Corp., whose subsidiaries are active in the color management market in Europe, has been integrating some of its operations in the region. It has brought together the workflow systems of Esko Artwork in pre-press and Advanced Vision Technology (AVT) in processing with X-Rite’s ColorCert Suite for collection and analysis of color data.
Baldwin Vision Systems (BVS) is another US-based player in Europe’s color management sector, and has strengthened its position in the region after taking over QuadTech, a color measurement software specialist. hubergroup, for example, has been running a color management plan derived from QuadTech.
A key objective behind integration is ensuring connectivity between the different components in the collection, storage and analysis from pre-press to the final stages of the printing process, particularly in ensuring robust internet connections in cloud systems.
In fact, a typical print job is never fully completed. The data from it is used to compile reports for customers to give statistical proof of color printing performance. Also, the stored data can be used to provide parameters for the printing of other products.
The print data can help establish color management platforms for specifications for numerous short runs in areas like packaging.
The preparation area is where the color management services of ink producers tend to be the most needed. They can provide formulations for color inks not just for specific print jobs, but for printers building up inventories of colors which they know will be safe from the human health and environmental perspective and be compliant with regulatory and voluntary standards.
Ink producers’ competitiveness in color management is probably at its strongest in providing customization services, especially in dealing with colors that do not fit into the standardized lists of automation specialists like Pantone, an X-Rite brand. Brand owners and other print buyers are increasingly not only needing but wanting customization.
Some international ink businesses run networks of color centers with laboratories and other facilities for working out formulations for customers.
Flint Group has a Global Color Center (GCC) at Lodz, Poland, which provides color matching formulations for customers worldwide. This can be done through national central units like the packaging inks manufacturing site currently being constructed in Kaluga, near Moscow, to serve the whole Russian market.
The company runs through the GCC its Vivo Color Solutions, which it claims is superior to automated systems like Pantone in the ease of its color matching process even with difficult colors and the provision of samples for customer approvals.
Sun Chemical runs a network of regional color centers from which a large proportion of its 300 trained support color specialists operate.
The company’s SunColorBox toolkit for brand’s color management has more than 200 global customers. These are estimated by Sun Chemical to have obtained up to 40% savings from “Right First Time,” up to 70% reductions in ink returns usage and up to 40% cuts in substrate wastage.
The toolkit includes software platforms for color management, validating and quality control, a cloud-based structure for communicating PantoneLIVE standards and a service to help printers and converters achieve ISO 12647, the process colors standard of the International Organization for Standardization.
Through their own consulting services, ink makers in Europe are assessing and even auditing standards of staff and equipment of printers. They are validating, for example, whether the equipment is reliable enough for extended gamut printing (EGP).
There are already signs of increasing demand for these services because of anxieties among brand owners about their products and packaging being suitable for the circular economy, which members of the European Union and other European countries aim to establish during the current decade.
This means that, for example, packaging inks and their chemicals will have to be sufficiently compliant with health, safety and environmental regulations, like the EU’s REACH legislation on chemicals, to be able to go through possibly several stages of reuse and remanufacturing or even energy recycling.
Some brand owners are already stating that they will have the materials and chemicals in their products ready to go through the circular economy loop by the mid-2020s.
Siegwerk is aiming to be a specialist in circular economy packaging solutions with inks taking on a role in the design of products.
“To realize a circular economy, we need to fundamentally rethink packaging based on Design for Less (with less plastic) and Design for Recycling solutions,” said Alina Marm, Siegwerk’s head of Circular Economy Hub.
The company has set up a Brand Owner Collaboration (BOC) department to explore innovation opportunities with brand owners and their packaging converters. Siegwerk sees cradle-to-cradle (C2C) principles as being an area of innovation for brand owners because of their ability to demonstrate the safety of chemicals in inks, especially colors and other components in packaging.
By taking color management to new levels by giving it a role in sustainability and C2C initiatives, ink producers are able to differentiate themselves from other players in the sector. Furthermore, they are giving themselves prominence beyond the graphics industry.
“We see ourselves not just as a technology leader who is dealing with its competitors in the world of printing inks,” Bernd Groh, global product and portfolio manager at hubergroup, which is also active in C2C projects, told a C2C meeting in Berlin earlier this year.
“But [we also see ourselves] as an influencer who has its followers in all areas of society and not just in the printing industry,” he added.
European Editor Sean Milmo is an Essex, UK-based writer specializing in coverage of the chemical industry.
A lot of these openings are coming from gaps left in the coverage of digitalized color management by the automation specialists who have developed the hardware and above all software for consistent, high quality and defect-free printed colors.
This consistency is the main requirement of brand owners and other major print buyers in packaging – the main color management sector. With consumer products that are marketed across the world and whose packaging is often printed on a range of substrates by different converters in different locations, color consistency is essential. Variations will be quickly seen by consumers as a sign of a lapse in quality or even counterfeiting.
Press equipment manufacturers have formed partnerships with leading providers of color management hardware and software. German-based CGS Publishing Technologies International, a major player in the global color management market, has partnerships with Canon, Epson, HP, Konica Minolta and Xerox.
Some big ink producers have similar alliances. With the help of Pantone, the specialist in digitalization of color specifications, Sun Chemical has created 30 color libraries covering most of the common print processes. Sun Chemical has also collaborated with CGS on a project to provide an advanced metal deco digital proofing solution for two-piece beverage cans.
Much of the expertise of the front runners in the automation of color management come from engineering, electronics, IT and computer science backgrounds. Ink producers have the advantage of also knowing the most about the chemistry of ink, which gives them openings in certain areas of a fast-growing market. This is the case in locations and sectors where there is not only a scarcity of color expertise but even more of color specialists who are also chemists.
The Ink Industry and Color Management
Ink producers are quite anxious to broaden the scope of color management beyond the quality of the colors to their chemistry and impact on health and safety and the environment.
Some ink businesses are placing color management within their assessment services for overall quality, safety and eco-friendliness. With food packaging, for example, customized services like color matching are not separated from safety and regulatory issues.
“For us, customization goes beyond classical color matching,” said Matthieu Carni, director business unit inkjet at Siegwerk. “It also involves optimization of adhesion, mechanical and chemical resistance properties as well as an assessment of migration risks.”
Ink manufacturers are in a strong position to deal with a rising concern among brand owners and consumer product companies about the need to keep up with the latest trends in sustainability standards and regulations.
Sun Chemical recently created a corporate sustainability committee in response to worries among brand owners in the packaging sector about environmental and related matters.
“[We want to ensure that] we have a structured process in place that puts our sustainability efforts at the forefront of all our business processes,” said Myron Petruch, Sun Chemical’s president and CEO.
A major issue looming on the horizon is the EU’s program for the introduction of circular economy standards and regulations. These require products and their materials, including components like packaging and other inks, to be reused, remanufactured or to be subject to some other form of recycling with complete disposal being only a last resort.
Outside the printing inks sector in Europe, much of the focus of color management is raising the efficiency of the printing of the colors with the emphasis being on cutting costs and making better use of resources. Integration of the color printing processes combined with more effective collection and analysis of data from systems like in-line monitoring is considered to be the main means of increasing productivity.
What is required is not just the integration of the equipment and software but also of the companies and businesses which provide them.
Danaher Corp., whose subsidiaries are active in the color management market in Europe, has been integrating some of its operations in the region. It has brought together the workflow systems of Esko Artwork in pre-press and Advanced Vision Technology (AVT) in processing with X-Rite’s ColorCert Suite for collection and analysis of color data.
Baldwin Vision Systems (BVS) is another US-based player in Europe’s color management sector, and has strengthened its position in the region after taking over QuadTech, a color measurement software specialist. hubergroup, for example, has been running a color management plan derived from QuadTech.
A key objective behind integration is ensuring connectivity between the different components in the collection, storage and analysis from pre-press to the final stages of the printing process, particularly in ensuring robust internet connections in cloud systems.
In fact, a typical print job is never fully completed. The data from it is used to compile reports for customers to give statistical proof of color printing performance. Also, the stored data can be used to provide parameters for the printing of other products.
The print data can help establish color management platforms for specifications for numerous short runs in areas like packaging.
The preparation area is where the color management services of ink producers tend to be the most needed. They can provide formulations for color inks not just for specific print jobs, but for printers building up inventories of colors which they know will be safe from the human health and environmental perspective and be compliant with regulatory and voluntary standards.
Ink producers’ competitiveness in color management is probably at its strongest in providing customization services, especially in dealing with colors that do not fit into the standardized lists of automation specialists like Pantone, an X-Rite brand. Brand owners and other print buyers are increasingly not only needing but wanting customization.
Some international ink businesses run networks of color centers with laboratories and other facilities for working out formulations for customers.
Flint Group has a Global Color Center (GCC) at Lodz, Poland, which provides color matching formulations for customers worldwide. This can be done through national central units like the packaging inks manufacturing site currently being constructed in Kaluga, near Moscow, to serve the whole Russian market.
The company runs through the GCC its Vivo Color Solutions, which it claims is superior to automated systems like Pantone in the ease of its color matching process even with difficult colors and the provision of samples for customer approvals.
Sun Chemical runs a network of regional color centers from which a large proportion of its 300 trained support color specialists operate.
The company’s SunColorBox toolkit for brand’s color management has more than 200 global customers. These are estimated by Sun Chemical to have obtained up to 40% savings from “Right First Time,” up to 70% reductions in ink returns usage and up to 40% cuts in substrate wastage.
The toolkit includes software platforms for color management, validating and quality control, a cloud-based structure for communicating PantoneLIVE standards and a service to help printers and converters achieve ISO 12647, the process colors standard of the International Organization for Standardization.
Through their own consulting services, ink makers in Europe are assessing and even auditing standards of staff and equipment of printers. They are validating, for example, whether the equipment is reliable enough for extended gamut printing (EGP).
There are already signs of increasing demand for these services because of anxieties among brand owners about their products and packaging being suitable for the circular economy, which members of the European Union and other European countries aim to establish during the current decade.
This means that, for example, packaging inks and their chemicals will have to be sufficiently compliant with health, safety and environmental regulations, like the EU’s REACH legislation on chemicals, to be able to go through possibly several stages of reuse and remanufacturing or even energy recycling.
Some brand owners are already stating that they will have the materials and chemicals in their products ready to go through the circular economy loop by the mid-2020s.
Siegwerk is aiming to be a specialist in circular economy packaging solutions with inks taking on a role in the design of products.
“To realize a circular economy, we need to fundamentally rethink packaging based on Design for Less (with less plastic) and Design for Recycling solutions,” said Alina Marm, Siegwerk’s head of Circular Economy Hub.
The company has set up a Brand Owner Collaboration (BOC) department to explore innovation opportunities with brand owners and their packaging converters. Siegwerk sees cradle-to-cradle (C2C) principles as being an area of innovation for brand owners because of their ability to demonstrate the safety of chemicals in inks, especially colors and other components in packaging.
By taking color management to new levels by giving it a role in sustainability and C2C initiatives, ink producers are able to differentiate themselves from other players in the sector. Furthermore, they are giving themselves prominence beyond the graphics industry.
“We see ourselves not just as a technology leader who is dealing with its competitors in the world of printing inks,” Bernd Groh, global product and portfolio manager at hubergroup, which is also active in C2C projects, told a C2C meeting in Berlin earlier this year.
“But [we also see ourselves] as an influencer who has its followers in all areas of society and not just in the printing industry,” he added.
European Editor Sean Milmo is an Essex, UK-based writer specializing in coverage of the chemical industry.