Automatic color control arrives

Sep 1, 2002 12:00 PM, by Katherine O'Brien, Editor | kobrien@primediabusiness.com

What's new? For most of us, this is a casual greeting. At Japs-Olson Co. (St. Louis Park, MN), however, it's more of a mission statement.

The 700-employee, $120 million printer specializes in multicolor commercial and direct-mail work. The company takes a proactive approach to new technology, investing millions annually to give its customers a competitive edge.

“We try to adopt the technology that will take us to the next level,” explains Michael Murphy, president of the 95-year-old printer. “If it helps our customers, we're not afraid to do it.”

The company's 510,000-sq.-ft. operation includes an onsite U.S. Postal Service (USPS) facility that handles between three to four million pieces of mail a day. Japs-Olson's pressroom provides ample evidence of its commitment to offering customers a broad range of state-of-the-art equipment and services. Its capabilities include variable-data digital printing as well as sheetfed, heatset- and nonheatset-web, and flexo presses.

MULTICOLOR PRESSES

In December 1999, the company installed the world's first 12-color Heidelberg (Kennesaw, GA) sheetfed press, with six-over-six perfecting capabilities. The sheetfed department also boasts three eight-color presses and one 10-color press.

Japs-Olson's fleet of nonheatset web presses ranges from five to nine colors. But these days, the spotlight is on the company's heatset web presses — two full-size and six halfsize machines. By the end of this year, all of these presses will be equipped with Graphics Microsystems Inc.'s (GMI) (Sunnyvale, CA) ColorQuick closed-loop color-control system.

Japs-Olson initially put ColorQuick on its two fullsize 38-inch Heidelberg M130s. The first system was installed in July 2000; the second followed in 2001. ColorQuick is currently being installed on the halfsize presses: two M80s (18 inches); three M100s (26½ inches) and an LW1900 (33 inches).

“After we bought the first two systems, it was easy for us to justify the ROI for the six remaining presses,” says Murphy. “We saw such a definitive improvement, not only in the reduction of makeready sheets, but also in timesavings. As we're setting up the press, we're actually running color, too, and that's really a timesaver. All of our heatset presses are equipped with inline register control — this is just a natural extension of that. We wanted to automate as many press functions as we could.”

“It was an easy decision for us,” says Murphy. “We think it's going to pay off by reducing waste and makeready time and providing color consistency. This is a big step for web offset and one of the biggest things that's happened for us.”

Japs-Olson is reportedly the first direct-mail printer to equip its presses with closed-loop color control. According to Murphy, many direct-mail printers have variable-cutoff presses with no room for color bars. Indeed, with 11-, 14-, 17- and 22-inch cutoffs, Japs-Olson's nonheatset presses can't accommodate color bars either.

But heatset is a different story: “Our heatset presses have 23-inch cutoffs,” Murphy explains. “We have room for trim and can sneak a color bar into the bleed.”

HOW IT WORKS

ColorQuick provides real-time measurement and correction of ink density at the beginning of a job, which reduces makeready times since the press is coming into color balance faster.

Here's how a typical setup works: A CIP4-compatible press console receives the file specifications and electronically presets the ink fountain. Next, digital information is sent to a ColorQuick console on the press. On the press itself, a spectrophotometer is mounted alongside a camera installed behind the chill rollers. Traveling horizontally along a rail, it scans color bars to determine any deviations in ink density from a pre-established target density. The spectrophotometer reads, measures and compares actual color output against target densities and automatically adjusts ink densities as necessary.

ColorQuick combines a 2-mm-high color bar with built-in recognition features and a proprietary, high-speed pattern-recognition feature. To ensure reliable color process control, the system verifies that the color patch measured is correct before accepting the information for press control and operator display.

GMI is currently the only vendor offering a spectrophotometer-based system — a key distinction for Japs-Olson when the printer was evaluating its closed-loop options. “We're comfortable with spectrophotometer-based color-control systems because we've been using them on our Heidelberg sheetfed presses since the early 1990s,” explains Murphy. “We understood it and knew it would work with our existing workflow. When a spectrophotometer-based system came out for web presses, our ears perked up because the potential benefits are even greater in terms of reducing waste and makeready times. You can burn through a lot of paper on a web-press makeready!”

For a typical straight-sheeter job, Murphy estimates the company has reduced its makeready from 10,000 sheets to 5,000.

The exec concedes, however, that it's difficult to calculate makeready paper savings on certain jobs. “We run a lot of inline products where getting the color is insignificant,” he explains. “Setting up the plows, cutters and diecutters, and perfing and gluing are the larger makeready issues.”

Murphy says color consistency is one of the closed-loop system's biggest advantages. “It's huge,” he says. “We see it and so do our customers. We'll run multiple forms and crossovers between multiple forms, and the color holds perfectly. Once we get to saleable color and lock it in, it doesn't deviate at all.”

OPERATORS DEPEND ON IT

After some initial hesitation, press operators are now happy to let ColorQuick track ink density. “At first, operators had to take a little leap of faith,” recalls Murphy. “But once we got through the learning curve and the systems tested out, the operators got more comfortable with it.

Now, says Murphy, operators practically depend on the closed-loop system. “That is a good sign. It tells us that ColorQuick is an integrated piece of the press,” says the exec. “Operators can focus on other makeready setups — they're not as concerned with color as they were before.”

Some industry experts call closed-loop color-control systems “cruise control for web presses.” Even with cruise control, however, drivers still have to keep their eyes on the road. The same is true of operators running a press equipped with a closed-loop system — they still have to pay attention to the basics.

“We focus a lot of attention on proper roller settings and minimizing the amount of water we're running on the press,” says Murphy. “If you introduce too much water, densities are going to be jumping all over the place. ColorQuick is wonderful, but it will also point out some operators' shortcomings.”

Murphy says the company's first ColorQuick system required a learning curve, “but every press installation since then has been very easy, because we've already done the work.”

To help the company transition to closed-loop, Japs-Olson designated one of its prepress employees as color-control manager. He serves as a liaison between the prepress and press departments.

“This employee previously did all the fingerprinting and color calibration on the sheetfed side,” relates Murphy. “When we got ColorQuick, we had to do a lot of press-operator training. He also refingerprinted our press groups and then verified and adjusted our standard density sets. Now that everything is set up, our color-control manager ensures that the systems run optimally.”

ColorQuick is just one component of Japs-Olson's color-managed workflow. “We're lucky because we've been doing digital platemaking and using ink presets for many years,” says Murphy. “We have some nice profiles we use for all of our premakeready processes.”

Proofs are calibrated to the presses. “Within each press group, we have standard ink densities that we target,” explains Murphy. “These densities are loaded into ColorQuick and also loaded as part of the preset. Once a customer has signed off on a proof, we get out on the press, load the presets, run the target densities, and we're just about there.”

CUSTOMERS FIRST

The printing industry has changed a great deal since Barney Japs and G.F. Olson founded their company in 1907. But Japs-Olson remains a family-owned business that puts customers first.

“When people ask about our yearly budget, we just laugh,” says Murphy. “If something is going to help our customers, we budget for it.”

While the exec has no predictions about the next emerging technology, he does make a promise: “One thing is for sure: When it gets here, we'll be there, too.”