Rose City Printing & Packaging Installs Three Custom TECHKON SpectroDrive Systems

TECHKON has announced that Rose City Printing and Packaging, a commercial packaging company with locations in Vancouver, WA and Gresham, OR, has installed three new SpectroDrive automated color measurement scanning systems. Two of the three systems employed custom 60-inch tracks to meet specific production requirements in their advanced printing facility. The SpectroDrive will enable higher productivity, faster makeready and a substantial savings in consumables, while significantly reducing waste – a high priority for this "Lean Manufacturing" site.

The TECHKON SpectroDrive, with its automated color and density measurement capabilities is the perfect solution to substantially increase press productivity by ensuring consistent print-to-print accuracy throughout the press run. The system consists of two components: the motorized measurement system which scans the complete color bar on a printed sheet within seconds; and the TECHKON Expresso software, which simultaneously receives the spectral measurement data wirelessly on a PC where all the relevant information for controlling the printing press is displayed.

Key advantages of the TECHKON SpectroDrive system are:

• Speed – scanning a 40" press sheet in less than 8 seconds
• Dual Functionality – multi-tasking as an automatic scanner or as a hand-held device for "spot check" measurements
• G7 Compliance – with recommended ink key specific adjustments of C,M,Y densities to obtain neutral values according to the G7 specification
• Flexibility – allowing the ink zone control strip to be printed and measured anywhere on the press sheet
• Accuracy – measuring density and color with the InkCheck feature, which suggests ink key specific density changes to obtain highly accurate color

TECHKON's superior design and technology made it the obvious choice for Rose City top management when outfitting their 62,000sf state-of-the-art printing plant in Gresham OR. The speed advantage alone of the SpectroDrive scanning spectrophotometer has improved overall productivity, meeting the high expectations of packaging customers such as, Trader Joes, Krusteaz, Kirkland, Tazo Tea, and Ghirardelli. The measurement of an entire 60" color bar in less than 10 seconds and the swift display of highly accurate spectral color data at their fingertips, allows press operators to react quickly to changing pressroom conditions. Press operators have also found the TECHKON Expresso software very intuitive and easy to navigate, and with the ability to analyze post press data, they can continuously deliver a quality product that exceeds their packaging customers' expectations.

"Rose City Printing and Packaging was able to adopt the SpectroDrive scanning system very rapidly and bring it online in a short period of time thanks to a collaborative installation plan," states Bob Byrnes, Director of Technical Services. "Very often, TECHKON is approached with unique customer requirements in regard to system configuration and implementation, and is able to respond with the right combination of technical resources to execute the plan successfully for our packaging printers."