The benefit of Accurate Anilox Volume Measurement How to ... · The printed results correlated with the anilox engraving and AniCAM Anilox QC data. The difference in density on all

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

March 2017 Heinz Röttig Bus Dev D/A/CH

AniCAM & SurfaceCAM – More than 850 worldwide installed systems of Troikas affordable and easy-to-use 3D Scanning Mikro-scopes and applications for Quality Control and management of aniloxrolls, gravure cylinders, embossing rolls and flexo plates help to optimise setup procedures and to reduce waste and production cost.

How to minimise press setup time and waste?

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

Troika won two awards in 2016 for technical innovation:

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

Outline• Who is Troika Systems Limited ?

• Why would printers need to manage their roll/cylinder inventory?

• Commercial justification for Anilox measurement and management

• How to achieve an easy and effective Quality Control

• 3 studies with interesting and astonishing results

• How does Troika achieve accurate dimensional and volumetric readings

• Not just rolls and cylinders

• Conclusion

Troika is a privately owned UK company and started 21 years ago in 1996. It is focused on developments for the print industry including dry film image setters (1998) with Ricoh mostly for the corrugated markets and in register duplex proofing systems (2004) on wide format HP and Epson printers

All employees can draw upon many years of experience in the prepress and print business and oftenvisited production areas producing avoidable cost:

• Excess waste - having a financial and ecological impact; • Extended press setups - due to poor Quality Control and the lack of suitable

measurement tools in specific areas.These resulted in lower production efficiencies; and consequently reduced profits, affecting job opportunities and job security.

So 10 years ago this led us to identify the ‘black art’ of Anilox Volumetric Measurement as an area

that could benefit from improving through accurate measurement, and which would enhance press

set up, reduce waste, improve productivity and profitability as identified above.

Who isTroika Systems Limited ?

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

Why would Printers want or need to manage their Anilox Inventory ?

Due to different measuring methods and reference roll calibrations used by the aniloxmanufacturers, a printer often can not just rely on the readings supplied with a shipped roll.

Also historically inexact methods of measurement could result in receiving aniloxs of varying volume, forcing the printer to make adjustments on press to achieve the desired colour densities. There hasalso been no reliable method for the printers to check the wear of their rolls, if their cleaning processesare efficient, or when a roll is out of tolerance.

The costs of poor press set up are obvious: if the production could be enhanced by just 1 hour per press per day (it’s usually much more) that would give typically annual saving of :

Label printer:Charge out of €300 / hour would benefit from approximately €90,000 / year / press.

Wide web printer:Charge out of €500 / hour would benefit from approximately €150,000 / year / press.

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

Why would Printers want or need to manage their Anilox Inventory ?

A „small“ real life example:

Label printer with 3 presses: Their focus was on press set up time reduction and increasing productivity.

Once the press was run they would stop the press and check the ink densities and had to make adjustments several times.

Hourly charge out rate was €200 per hour.

With Anilox management implemented the need to make adjustments (i.e. stopping the presses) was significantly reduced – resulting in cost saving of 23 hours per month at €200 per hour.

Saving €55,200.00 per year per press, gaining 276 hours production time per year per press

With several thousand presses at sites globally the financial and ecological benefits to the industry are enormous.

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

Why would Printers want or need to manage their Anilox Inventory ?

What if the printer knew all parameters of each roll in his inventory before mounting them on press? He could actually pre-select a perfectly matched set of rolls - regarding volume, variance (volumevariation along the roll) , screen count and cell shape. This would definitely reduce the press setuptimes and waste, improve quality and subsequently lead to additional press availability and improvedprint quality.

Extract of an individual roll report, showing the first reading at the top (Reference) and thesubsequent readings underneath (Historical) in reverse order

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

The listing of all rolls in the inventory provides a direct comparison of all roll parameters.

Why would Printers want or need to manage their Anilox Inventory ?

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

How to achieve an effective Anilox Quality Control and Management

The printer needs an affordable, portable and easy to use instrument, allowing him to perform reliableand repeatable readings of all required anilox roll parameters (especially volume and volume variance).

Before Troika introduced their AniCAM 3D scanningmicroscope, Anilox QC application and AniloxManagement System AMS, the available solutionswere either too expensive for printers (e.g. interferometers – only affordable by aniloxmanufacturers) or not really reliable (e.g. inkdrawdown or manual/optical systems).

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

How to achieve an effective Anilox Quality Control and Management

After taking a 3D scan of the surface structure using a high end illumination and filteringsystem, the QC application analyses the data and provides the required results:

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

3 studies with interesting and astonishing results

Troika utilised 3 studies to bring more transparency into volume readings and

the confusion regarding the different measuring methods.

The first study shows the influence of volume changes on ink densities.

The second study shows the limitations of ink drawdown measurements.

The third study analyses the individual methods and calibrations used byanilox manufacturers.

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

Products used: A special engraved 4-banded anilox roll (300 lpcm) with an engraved and measured volume difference of 0.1 cm³/m² between the bands and a Troika AniCAM 3D scanning microscope with Anilox QC application.

The printed results correlated with the anilox engraving and AniCAM Anilox QC data.

The difference in density on all colours became discernible to the eye when Band 1 was placed on top of Band 4 –approximately 3deltaE (CIE2000)

Conclusion: A difference of more than 0.4 cm³/m² (0.26 BCM) volume in the process colours will show a visible difference to the eye;

Acceptable tolerances for volumetric measurement of process colours should be better than half of the 0.4 cm³/m² found in this study which defined a measurement specification and engraving tolerances

Study 1: How Anilox volume changes effect (process) density(Test carried out at one of the Paragon Label (now Coveris) sites UK, July 2011)

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

The second study Troika utilised took place in September 2006 by Dr. Paul Royo at Praxair Switzerland. 8 competent andexperienced Ink Draw Down operators measured a 5 banded master roll using their Ink Draw down system.

Conclusion: The study showed that volumetric measurements could (and often were) manipulated and did not represent a true and accurate volumetric statement.

Study 2: Reliability of Ink Drawdown measurement(Study carried out by Dr. Paul Royo at Praxair Switzerland, September 2006)

In principle initially there was no accurate volumetric reference to work from:As commonly known Ink-draw down systems just provided a very rough and operator dependent “idea” about the volume (Ref Clemson University study for FTA 2009):

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

The third study was performed by Troika Systems Ltd and proofed significantvolume reading variances between manufacturers which finally gave rise tothe realisation for an accurate measurement rather than assumed to becorrect measurements based on reference readings on master rolls only.

What is the consequence for the printer? He must be aware that he could get different volumes when ordering

the same rolls from different manufacturers. The manufacturers had to follow their own internal standards for many

years because historically there was no accurate method of volumetric measurement. But this has changed since

there is now a mathematically proven method – implemented in Troikas AniCAM and SurfaceCAM applications.

15 manufacturers in Europe and North America, volunteered to measure a 12 banded roll with their own individual measurement methods.

The differences were astonishing, provingthe need for accurate measurement tomake the desired savings, rather than eachmanu-facturer using their ownmeasurement

Study 3: Differences in volumetric measurements (Ref: Troika Research 2007)

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

Troika’s mathematical Sphere calibration

Having a proven standard of measurementhas allowed the development of on-site annual calibration and certification of theunits to meet printers internal and ISO requirements. The package is namedAniCAM Certification Package (ACP), which consists of a software application, thecalibration plate with a graticule for X- and Y-calibration and embedded spheres forvolume calibration.

The system is checked for correct electronic, mechanical and opticaloperation with pass or fail results. With each of the lenses it is thenchecked and corrected for X:Y:Z and volume accuracy.

Only if all tests and calibrations were successfully completed, theoperator can print out a certificate - proofing that the system providesreliable readings.

How does Troika achieve accurate dimensional and volumetric readings?

The time and cost of defective plates increase waste, reduce productivity andprofitability. Printers often charge trade-houses for lost productivity if the fault is provento be theirs - trade houses need to check and maintain their quality to ensure they meettheir customers needs.

Cost savings made over time through Quality Control on dot shape, relief depths anddot sizes can be significantly high and will result in a fast Return of Investment.

Viewed from the top most dots look fine . . .A three-dimensional view and analysis of the surface and dots is extremely informative and helpful. It exposes problems which could never be identified by a two-dimensional reading!

In contrast to two-dimensional readings an electronic profile cut across dots will showmuch more. Shoulder angles as well as relief and intermediate depths can be measuredexactly.

With this system the smallest highlight dots and even the depth and dimensions of top surface screenings can be measured. Linear measurements and angle readings can beconducted by click-and-drag cursor movements directly in the graphical display.

Even undercut offsets can be measured on direct laser engraved elastomersleeves/plates

Not just rolls & cylinders . . .

3D Flexo Plate QC

Automatic 2D dot recognitionEspecially with digital dots or varying dot shapes and sizes it is essential to auto-detectand analyse the dot areas

Not just rolls & cylinders . . .

3D Flexo Plate QC

Automatic 3D dot recognition + compression simulationHaving a 3D model of a plate surface allows to calculate dot percentages at certainvertical offsets

Not just rolls & cylinders . . .

3D Flexo Plate QC

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

Conclusion:

• To achieve the desired economic, ecological and production requirements initially perceived, and now constantly desired by Printers has been an amazing, frustrating, exciting and very fulfilling 12 year journey.

• Accuracy, Consistency and Repeatability have all been achieved and are well within the requirements desired by the industry.

• Standardisation of volumetric measurement, to a proven model, has certainly been a desired requirement of many discerning printers and print groups.

• With the AniCAM and its QC applications for anilox rolls, gravure cylinders and flexoplates the industry now has an easy to use practical device which any Printer can use; with a high degree of inter-operability, and with the ability to be calibrated and self certified in the field to meet ISO requirements

• There is no doubt it will contribute to the ongoing development in Anilox Engraving, Security printing, Electronic printing and others into the future.

Highlights at the ICE

Advanced Inspection Microscope (AIM)The Advanced Inspection Microscope (AIM) is a trulyinnovative development which has been designed to beoperated remotely via Wi-Fi on PCs or Tablets for all operations.

AIM has been designed initially for print packaging needsand its architecture allows to migrate easily to work in otherenvironments such as engineering, nuclear, medical, education and pharmaceutical.

Established family of 3D MicroscopesTroika shows new features of the known AniCAM andSurfaceCAM systems with their QC applications formeasuring anilox rolls, gravure cylinders and flexoplates/sleeves.

Also shown are new features of the Plate-2-Print HD system for measuring film masks, plates and printedcopy.

The benefit ofAccurate Anilox Volume Measurement

You are welcome to visit us in

Hall A6, stand 186

March 2017 Heinz Röttig www.troika-systems.com

Thank you for listening!

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