THE BUSINESS OF VISCOSITY BLOG

 

We are pleased that this customer agreed to let us tell their story. For competitive reasons, their name has been withheld to protect their identity.

This case study highlights the importance of color management in today’s printing environment, the primary factors that contribute to inadequate color management, and a standard review process for troubleshooting color related issues.

This case study exhibits the importance of selecting not only the right equipment for the job, but also the right supplier partner. The company we worked with was Anhui Antai New Type Packing Materials Co. Ltd.

A privately held company, Anhui Antai New Type Packing Materials Co., Ltd. was founded in 2002. The company's line of business includes commercial or job printing such as bags, business forms, calendars, cards, and other printed material.

We selected this case study because it demonstrates an attitude that we find the easiest to work with. We like to work with companies that are dissatisfied with the status quo just because it’s their nature.

The company we were fortunate enough to work with is Eucatex SA Industria eComercio, (Eucatex). Eucatex is a Brazil-based company primarily engaged in the manufacture of wooden panels and paints. They produce and sell hardboard, medium density fiberboard, thin high density fiberboard, medium density particleboard, laminate flooring and doors. Eucatex operates four industrial units and over 110,000 acres of forest located in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo.

We are pleased that this customer agreed to let us tell their story. For competitive reasons, their name has been withheld to protect their identity.

A major supplier of packaging for the packaged food industry in Canada, was suffering from excess scrap due to increasing customer demands. They understood that they could not consistently meet those demands using the same tools and processes they had historically employed. As there was no budget for new press equipment, they began looking for simpler solutions to improve their print quality. After reviewing several options, they determined to retrofit their two multi-color presses with Norcross controls. Very quickly, the resulting accuracy in viscosity control enabled them to routinely meet their customers’ specifications.

We are pleased that this customer agreed to let us tell their story. For competitive reasons, their name has been withheld to protect their identity. 

A growing packaging converter in New Jersey needed to improve margins.

After reviewing improvement team data, the company president knew they needed a viscosity system that would be both sensitive to ink changes and rugged enough for day-to-day use. After considering a variety of options, his team determined that their most cost-effective path was to install a Norcross viscosity control system. After installation and training, they experienced:

• Improved color stability
• An 18% reduction in ink consumption
• More time available for press operators to address other issues

What if I told you that there was one tool that would take care of all of your issues with color management? No matter what the customer specifications were or how complex the printing job, issues with color match just went away.

You would probably be very interested in learning more about it and how you could implement it in your printing process. Well I’m going to share that with you right now.

I had a teacher in high school who used to say, “It’s a jungle out there.” He thought we were all too naive and self-absorbed to understand the “real world."

He viewed us as soft and was certain we were all going to get a real eye opener when we had to go out and function in the “real world." We would either laugh, or ignore him, or whatever high school kids did back then.

In my blog How Successful Printers Avoid Common Pitfalls, I covered three common pitfalls that aggravate printers and what successful printers are doing to avoid those pitfalls. Among the best practices we have seen include making the decision to abandon their manual viscosity control practice.

In my blog 5 Things That Really Great Printers Do, I identified one of those things as “Ensuring Consistent Ink Viscosity.” If you’re into manufacturing at all, you understand the importance of variation.

Theoretically, if you could control all of your variables perfectly, you would have no variation and as a result, you would have no defects, rework, returns, etc. Unfortunately, there is variation in everything.

In previous blogs we have identified possible signs you are suffering from a viscosity problem and brief descriptions regarding how effective viscosity control will help. 

In this blog we will get into a little bit of detail regarding how it works and a unique approach to making sure that it works.