X-Rite Testing Applications in the Plastics Industry (Jonesco Case Study)
case study
The color of those large plastics and others like drum carts and truck fenders needs to be accurate, no matter the humbler use. Accurate color is a promise we make to our customers, says Rob Mayor, Quality Manager at Jonesco (Preston) Plastics Ltd in Lancashire, UK.
“It was clear that we needed to invest in the right technology to raise our color quality standards, rather than relying on the old method of squinting to look at color swatches in different lighting and hoping to get great results,” Mayor said. "We now use CIELAB values to demonstrate whether a product is 'more or less red' compared to our standard color samples."
The difference in accuracy comes from Jonesco's recent color measurement quality control process with the RM200QC spectroColorimeter, a handheld, multi-purpose instrument made by X-Rite, the world's leading provider of color control solutions.
“Before the RM200QC, we didn't really have any way in the production process to know if our product was the right color,” Mayor said. This is a very difficult problem for Jonesco - Jonesco is a professional manufacturer of plastic products. Produce plastic products.
The melted plastic coats the inside of the mold and then hardens to form large, yet lightweight plastic pieces that can withstand harsh environmental conditions.
One of Jonesco's main product lines is the manufacture of intermediate bulk containers up to 1000 liters in capacity as well as roller carts, salt and sand boxes for icy roads, fire extinguishers and tool boxes and pallets. Jonesco employs around 130 staff in the UK and its sales area in Lille, France, and is one of the world's leading manufacturers of commercial vehicle fenders.
An obvious problem is that without quality control, the product might not match the color specified by the customer or the standard swatches of more than 40 colors that Jonesco uses to build its brand image.
However, another color-matching problem can arise when a product has two parts, such as an injection-molded box and an injection-molded lid. “We found that we needed to use different equipment at different times to make the case and the case lid, but the two parts needed to match in color,” Mayor said.
"So we're standardizing our production controls," he added. “The RM200QC helps us quickly and accurately verify that the output of the production process is satisfactory. If the recipe is incorrect for a whole host of reasons, we can make changes to the production process earlier rather than after 30 or 40 runs It’s only when the error is discovered. We can test the part and then confirm whether it is within a certain range of color difference, and if there is no problem, then we can continue to produce.”
Although the company has only been using the instrument for a few months, Mayor expects it will help reduce rejects, which in turn reduces wasted time, material and fuel.
Instrumentation also helps bring new products to market. When a customer or Jonesco's designer provides a preform sample for adoption, Quality Control can measure the color and determine how close it is to Jonesco's supplied brand colors and whether its standard formulation needs to be modified.
“In the past, I couldn't quantify in any way whether the color swatches were the same as the standard colors we currently offer,” Mayor said. "But with the RM200QC, I can now quickly tell if a new blend should be used."
Measurements take approximately 2 seconds and the instrument reports results as simple pass/fail messages or as standard color difference formulas and their tolerance values such as delta-E, CIELAB, CMC, CIE 94 and CIE 2000.
The RM200QC can store 20 standards and up to 350 sample measurements with time and date and can save as PDF and CSV files. Files can be easily downloaded via a USB cable to share information with other stakeholders in the supply chain. All measurements can be linked to images, text descriptions or voice information on the surface of the test sample, and reports in multiple languages can be output.
X-Rite uses proprietary camera technology in the RM200QC, which can illuminate the surface under test from three different directions while recording 27 color-accurate images in 1.8 seconds, eliminating patterns and textures. Shadows and their distractions. With 8 visible light sources and 1 UV light source, the RM200QC can more accurately define color positions within the color space than conventional Colorimeters that typically only have three light sources for red, green and blue.
In just a few minutes, quality control or quality assurance personnel can learn how to operate the RM200QC. Operators can choose between 4mm and 8mm apertures, preview a color sample on the instrument's full-color display, and press a button to take a measurement within 2 seconds.
