Consumables
100% quality control and higher efficiency in the production process of painted and printed metal packaging
Wednesday 18. March 2020 - Metal packaging places particularly high demands on inspection. Only with the most modern inspection solutions for metal printing from experienced partners can production output be increased. ISRA VISION, the worlds leading supplier of surface inspection systems, is now decisively expanding the functionalities for its two proven inspection solutions CoatSTAR for the 100% inspection of coated sheets before printing and DecoSTAR for the 100% print inspection of metal decorations. The new functions ensure even greater production efficiency.
The special manufacturing processes for metal packaging lead to complex challenges in production: In addition to time-consuming machine setup, these include several production runs per decorated sheet as well as short order cycles and delivery times. The starting materials are demanding and cost-intensive. The highest quality demands are placed on the metal decorations.
With ISRA VISION’s automatic print inspection systems, all quality requirements can be met and users achieve their goals. They benefit from 100% inspected print products and the highest process efficiency.
Additional optimization of paint inspection
CoatSTAR is used for the inspection of painted metal sheets and guarantees a faster process thanks to 100% error-free material usage from preparation to the final result. The well-proven system has now been extended by two new valuable functions.
Thanks to “Flipped Sheet Detection”, the inspection system detects whether a metal sheet has been inadvertently rotated during the process and thus has the unpainted side facing upwards. This would lead to faulty production in the finishing process. With the new function, the inspection system detects this error at an early stage. Incorrect further processing can thus be ruled out. Resources are conserved.
“Advanced Sheet Movement Compensation” is a new algorithm that is able to exclude pseudo defects that were previously displayed during inspection. These are caused by the movement of the metal sheets: Due to the speed of production on the conveyor belts, the sheets sometimes bend slightly. These bends can lead to error messages. However, since these are production-related movements, it would be an advantage if they could be ignored. The new algorithm reliably detects these pseudo errors, which can now be ignored. Production efficiency is thus significantly increased.
Further increasing production efficiency in metal printing
The DecoSTAR inline inspection system ensures perfect print quality for metal sheets and minimizes print waste. This system has also been equipped with two new functions: “Auto Detect Color Bars” enables the automatic detection of color measuring fields. This feature automatically places measuring points and ensures reliable color monitoring from the first sheet in the production run. This special feature can also be used during the make-ready process if desired. Color monitoring during the makeready process reduces offline measuring processes and thus significantly reduces makeready time. In addition, greater color fidelity is achieved over the entire run.
The new “PDF Comparison” function enables the print image to be compared with a reference PDF document. The challenge behind this lies in very similar motifs, for example the same images or logos with different serial numbers or the same motifs with different service contact data due to regionalized information. Up to now, printing very similar motifs could lead to faulty production because the printing plates were not exchanged accordingly. With the “PDF-Comparison” this process can be controlled in a targeted manner. The waste in the production of metal surfaces is again noticeably minimized.
Conclusion
The new functions for the inspection solutions CoatSTAR and DecoSTAR significantly increase the efficiency in the production process of coated and printed metal packaging. This ensures that the systems pay for themselves even faster. Users strengthen the market position of their company and secure a decisive competitive edge. In addition, resources are conserved, thus making an important contribution to the sustainability of production.