BST International GmbH, leading manufacturer of quality assurance systems for the web processing industry and X-Rite, the world leader in color management, measurement and communication technologies are jointly developing a true real-time inline spectral color measurement system. The cooperation of the two global players will yield value creation beyond the current offering: for the first time both inline spectral measurement system and stationary handhelds will deliver comparable results. This will set a new industrial standard for color quality control and workflow simplification, as the system provides an answer to the ever growing need to provide both reliable inline and offline data on specified colors over the entire print production.
The partnership enabled to assemble a world class team of engineers from both companies to solve a tough challenge: to develop a fully automated and real time accurate spectral inline system that can deliver the precision and exact results required in the flexo, gravure and narrow web market.
“Ensuring color control is the decisive key issue for the flexo, gravure and narrow web printing industry community”, says Percy Dengler, BST International’s Managing Director. “We at BST International are thrilled to be working with X-Rite to bring a jointly devised concept to X-Rite’s industry-leading color measurement technology.”
“Combined with our extensive experience in web quality assuring technology this will result in a system creating a new era in press color control in this field.” states Michael Wiebe, BST’s CTO.”
“We are very excited to partner with BST and through the association of our know how, IP and talents, to build a solution that sets new milestones in color driven value creation in flexo and gravure workflows.” comments Dr. Francis Lamy, X-Rite’s CTO. “Through our partnership with BST International, we are expanding and leveraging our reach and leading position in inline color control technology into the flexo, gravure and narrow web printing market.
The increasing demand in the packaging field makes it not only a very attractive large growth segment in the printing business, but it also represents a segment that values greatly accurate color: brand color reliability is an essential element of the customers’ perception that enables brand loyalty.
Through these types of systems, associated to the Pantone standards, and all the tools that XRITE develops around the Pantone standard to increase its relevance and ease of use in specifications and design application, we believe this will facilitate and enable value creation for brand owners and all actors in this ecosystem at large”
BST International GmbH is the leading manufacturer of quality assuring systems for the web processing industry. The company is specialised on web guiding, video web inspection, print management, print defect detection, register control, colour measurement and automation systems. BST’s products set the standard in the most diverse industrial sectors, such as printing, foil, rubber and tire industries. BST’s portfolio ranges from single components and standard applications to print management systems and complex process control systems. More than 170 employees work at the headquarters in Bielefeld, Germany, and the company employs over 350 employees worldwide.
X-Rite is the global leader in color science and technology, which now includes design industry color leader Pantone, Inc., develops, manufactures, markets and supports innovative color solutions through measurement systems, software, color standards and services. X-Rite’s expertise in inspiring, selecting, measuring, formulating, communicating and matching color helps users get color right the first time and every time, which translates to better quality and reduced costs. X-Rite serves a range of industries, including printing, packaging, photography, graphic design, video, automotive, paints, plastics, textiles, dental and medical.
