By using tools like spectrophotometers, masterbatchers can accurately measure a color sample in the lab and then replicate it using formulation software. This helps maintain consistent color quality across batches and production facilities while effectively meeting customer requirements.
Precision like this is crucial for quality control, fewer errors and waste, and production efficiency. Digital tools help monitor and adjust formulations in real time, ensuring products can consistently meet desired specifications and enhance responsiveness to market demands.
Masterbatchers and compounders face several challenges when managing the color of their products. Three primary concerns are color matching, consistency between production runs, and cost and efficiency of production.
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Achieving a client-specified color can be challenging for masterbatchers, especially when translating a digital inspiration or natural materials into plastic. Factors like the base resin’s natural color, pigment types, and interactions among additives complicate precise color matching even further.
Maintaining consistent color in each masterbatch is crucial for continuous production. Variations in raw material properties, processing temperatures, and equipment conditions can cause color inconsistencies between batches, which are expensive and labor-intensive to correct.
Managing costs while maintaining high-quality color standards is challenging. Expensive pigments and the need for repeated trials to achieve the correct shade can increase costs. Additionally, time spent on testing and adjusting formulations can affect production efficiency and throughput.
Digital color management tools for masterbatchers, like spectrophotometers and formulation software, can help make matching, formulating, reformulating and controlling the quality of colors much easier. The combination of these tools enables consistent results and maximizes operational efficiency.
Spectrophotometers are instruments that quantitatively measure how a material absorbs or reflects different wavelengths of light. They help us objectively measure the color of an object and accurately communicate its properties.
Datacolor spectrophotometers come in two main varieties: benchtops for high-accuracy color measurements while in a lab environment and portables for on-the-go color measurements, perhaps on the production line to perform quality control checks.
These devices ensure that the surface temperature of your sample is within a specified range. In addition, our spectrophotometers account for reflectance and transmittance of samples so you can be certain that gloss levels and opacity are within acceptable values.
Formulation software, like our Colibri platform, helps masterbatchers maintain consistency between batches, pivot when a customer has specific requirements, or a supply chain disruption or government regulation forces you to reformulate.
Colibri’s ColorMatch module can calculate thousands of potential recipes based on on-hand ingredients that meet the needs of your specifications and store that data for future formulations.
Tools like spectrophotometers and Colibri software help masterbatchers reduce costs by improving efficiency and accuracy while keeping costs down. A streamlined color management program limits the amount of waste caused by off-color products and, through custom integrations with ERPs and PLMs, optimizes ingredient usage based on specified criteria such as cost, specific additives, and more.
Fewer mistakes mean your customer receives their order faster and lets them know they can rely on you to deliver the materials they need with the quality and accuracy their business requires.
Datacolor Service is one of the key differentiators setting us far above the competition. Our team of color experts is available in your local language to solve your unique color challenges, no matter where you are in the world.
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