Brand owners, print buyers and printers are exchanging more print run information than ever, striving to achieve complete transparency in print quality management. Whether printing to ISO 12647, ISO 15311 or brand specific targets, brand owners expect a new level of conformance and transparency from their printers.
Targets and tolerances are increasingly tightened; to ensure all packaging is consistent, even when manufacture and print production is taking place at different geographical locations. It is the expectation, that finished packaging must all achieve an absolutely consistent colour finish across different products and different materials all produced by the same brand. So how do brand owners achieve this?
They must measure, report, share and analyse the print quality management data.
The remote sharing of print quality management reports offers brand owners a new level of control that clearly shows how reliably a printer is achieving colour accurate print, without the need for physically printed jobs to be visually inspected side by side.
This print quality management data sharing is beneficial for all parties, instilling trust and confidence and eradicating any communication problems, but it is not without it’s own challenges.
The rise of data sharing is a growing challenge as information needs to be exchanged securely, efficiently and ideally in real-time, with accurate and reliable reporting to give brand owners confidence that their print quality management is in safe hands.
These challenges have recently been amplified as the world has been forced into lock down; with new ways of working, print buyers are unable to travel for press-side inspection and approval.
Lockdown has been an opportunity for print buyers to embrace remote working, cutting costs, reducing environmental impact and realising the full potential of a remote approval print quality management system.
What can print buyers and brand owners do to ensure print quality management data is managed in an effective way?
With the right approach print buyers and brand owners can enjoy consistently accurate print production time and time again from multiple printers in different locations around the world.
Print Buyers should look for integrated solutions so they can firstly standardise print, then measure, analyse and report on print runs. Having access to these reports over a period of time can allow print buyers to identify trends in their print, often enabling them to address any issues before they become a problem.
Access to the data should be efficient, secure and reliable. Mellow Colour recently achieved ISO 27001 certification, which demonstrates our commitment to best practice security management. Using the Mellow Colour Tools, print buyers can easily access print quality management reports securely and remotely using ImpressionProof and Mellow Cloud.
Coupled with powerful systems for standardising colour, such as PrintSpec and InkSpec, the suite of Mellow Colour Tools offers a robust solution to print quality management for printers, brand owners and print buyers.
Transparent quality assurance is an essential part of the production workflow.
When a print buyer is delivered high quality print, conforming to all of their predefined standards, this will in turn benefit the printer, who will become known for customer satisfaction, winning them repeat business and customer loyalty.
Printers implementing this kind of quality control will benefit from return on investment quickly, with improvement in both revenue and professional reputation. Reduced make-ready time and reduced waste will quickly turn into profitable results.
Contact Mellow Colour for more information.