Updates - Inspection Systems

2003.12.12 | 12.12.12

	From simple strobes to complex defect detection technology, web inspection is all about keeping customers, reducing costs, and improving quality.

	Inspection Systems

We live in an imperfect world. Defects are always with us. Still, that does not stop the label customer from insisting on perfection. That's the reason inspection equipment is with us, and the reason that it has become a necessity, in all of its complex incarnations, for the printer and converter.

Inspection equipment has been in use for years, relying heavily on the human eye aided by a strobe light or a camera. Optical and digital revolutions and evolutions have given engineers lots of technology to play with, and they have put it to good use in crafting devices that now can look at an entire web moving at full speed and spot a bad dot.

In the narrow web industry, experts say, the need for extreme defect detection is not widespread, at least not today. But the market for the advanced equipment is growing steadily, and suppliers are keeping pace with ideas.

Missing a defect - whether it's a shift in color, a movement in registration, an ink blotch, a bruise on the printing plate that shows up on the label - can have its costs. Most dramatic is rejection by the customer; more usual, and still costly, is waste. Not catching a printing error quickly can result in hundreds of feet of expensive material rendered useless, the cost of which is eaten by the printer.

Off the press

Off-line inspection systems are widespread throughout the industry. "We supply the gamut, from the very basic to the very complex," says Val Rimas, vice president of marketing and sales for Rotoflex, of Mississauga, ON. The company manufactures high speed stand-alone machinery that can undertake basic web viewing inspection or 100 percent, depending on the converter's need.

"There are area scan cameras and line scan cameras - and both have their strengths and weaknesses. Some users say that area scan cameras detect text flaws better than the line scan cameras. We have systems that can match color and inspect for color integrity within specified tolerances. At this point there is not a lot of that in narrow web, unless you are dealing with companies such as Coca-Cola or Procter & Gamble, where color is part of their image." Read the full article…

Excerpts from Inspection Systems, September 2004, Label and Narrow Web
From simple strobes to complex technology, web inspection is all about quality.
by Jack Kenny


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