Bobst achieves first-ever Pantone validation for gravure printing press

Announcing the news, Bobst statement said, “Pantone put the Bobst’s gravure machine platform, the Master RS 6003 – a flexible platform, which can be configured into a multi-functional production line, through a rigorous test with diverse colour types, involving many extremes and non-standard situations.”

Pantone provided a list of over 2,300 Pantone Spot colours to be reproduced in ECG on the Bobst Master RS 6003. After receiving this list, Bobst worked on pre-press preparation and colour separation for every single spot colour. Bobst printed all of them in one step on the Master RS 6003 and then sent the print sample to Pantone in the US for their analysis, measurement and evaluation of the colour match and colour quality.

The verdict? The master RS 6003 passed with flying colours, the statement confirmed.

Besides being a multifunctional production line, the Master RS 6003’s complementary converting operations can easily be added inline with printing to address a very broad spectrum of diverse product requirements and applications.

Every brand owner demands colour consistency on their product packaging, and understandably so. Quoting a study by Kumar S, The Psychology of Colour Influences Consumers’ Buying Behaviour – A Diagnostic Study published in the Ushus - Journal of Business Management, the Bobst statement said, “People make up their minds within seconds of their initial interactions with products. And colour alone influences 85% of shoppers’ purchase decisions.”

Bobst quoted David Stead’s article Is inconsistent brand colour the rean your business can't grow? on LinkedIn. Bobst explained that colour variations suggest a lack of product quality, which can heavily impact brand identity and customer loyalty. “Many brand owners say they frequently encounter colour inconsistency or inaccuracy across different suppliers, and that colour-related challenges and rework have a negative impact on their company.”

With that in mind, extended colour gamut (ECG), has been a major driver of colour consistency in the packaging industry in recent years, while simultaneously boosting production efficiency. ECG is a process to digitise colour matching offline, thus making it stable, easy, repeatable, consistent and independent of human interpretation. ECG refers to a set of inks; four or more, but typically seven, to achieve a colour gamut larger than the traditional CMYK ensuring colour repeatability irrespective of operator’s skill.

OneECG is Bobst’s ECG technology, built on the existing Revo ECG technology, deployed across analogue and digital printing processes in label, flexible packaging, folding carton and corrugated board industries. Bobst stated, “The OneECG has been a great success, enabling colour consistency across multiple machines across all industries.”

PrintWeek readers will recall the profile of UVBiz in which Rohit Badlani, managing director of the company, while finalising the Bobst M6 narrow-web flexo press had Uvbiz zeroed in on the Bobst Revo technology. Badlani started spreading the word among the brand owners around his company. “These retail brands were very keen as fast turnaround and short quantities for packaging was their burning need for their in-house brands,” Badlani had said. “There cannot be an ideal scenario than a customer chasing you for a solution.”

However, in the early days of ECG had not quite been perfected for gravure machines. “Bobst was passionate to address this customer pain point and worked tirelessly to enhance its gravure machines to enable perfect oneECG. In just a few short years, Bobst was confident they had achieved it. OneECG was now the most developed technology for printing with seven standardised colours in gravure,” Bobst stated.

For brand owners and converters, the results bring more than peace of mind. “It completely opens up the possibility of OneECG on gravure and with it, 100% job consistency and repeatability and a dramatic reduction in machine downtime. OneECG also allows multiple jobs to be run, opening up gravure printing and all other technologies for medium and short jobs. The master RS 6003 enables profitable production of smaller and medium-sized orders from about 5,000-sqm Orders can be delivered faster with high profitability, whether they are small, medium or long runs.”

OneECG works with a fixed set of up to seven printing inks, so gravure printers only need to change the printing cylinders for job changes, while the inks remain in the printing machines. This reduces ink waste while also reducing storage space for cylinders, anilox rolls and inks.