COLOUR MEASUREMENT | INSTRUMENTATION
Elix Polymers secures Renault certification
Elix Polymers has received colour laboratory certification from the Renault design department, which allows the company to self-validate colours according to the car maker‘s specifications. Elix says it offers a wide range of pre-coloured ABS and ABS blends for the automotive industry. For interior applications, aesthetics are key to differenti- ate product value and improve quality perception and the colour harmony needed for different parts to match highlights the importance of meeting strict colour tolerances between different materials and batches. Elix claims considerable expertise in developing colours based on OEM
requirements, including colours and gloss targets using different surface textures. The Elix laboratory in Tarragona, Spain is equipped with twin-screw extruders, moulds with automotive OEM textures, colorimeters, light cabins and a Xenotest weathering chamber. �
www.elix-polymers.com
Below: The CoboSense cobot testing system is designed to handle increased workloads with reduced laboratory manpower
laboratory staff, which requires faster and more automated solutions. “To compensate for reduced human resources, cobotic systems that work alongside humans are becoming increasingly important to perform time consuming tasks,” says Dietz. “Another trend is that users want modern systems to cover more tasks with fewer devices and provide increased information about the parts being measured. The industry is working on new solutions for formerly unmeasurable parameters or parts - providing information previously unavailable.“ Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI), for example, combines spectrophotometric information and camera machine vision to cover the visible and invisible IR ranges. “Well-established for geological and airborne applications, HSI is now increasingly finding its way into traditional markets, from recycling to new identification possibilities for any kind of material,“ Dietz says. “Being camera-based, another advantage of these systems is that docu- mentation and communication of part information is much easier than with integrated systems. We are sure to see more developments in this area in the near future.” The latest development in instru- mentation at Konica Minolta is the CM-36dG Spectrophotometer - a benchtop device to combine high accuracy and flexibility for the measurement of colour. It features a built-in ISO compliant gloss sensor to
measure both colour and gloss with high accuracy. 40 COMPOUNDING WORLD | July 2022
The CoboSense cobotic testing system — devel- oped by the Konica Minolta ICW DevOps division with an OEM partner — covers the needs of increased workloads with reduced manpower. It is a collaborative automation platform designed to perform colour quality and appearance analysis in conjunction with surface scratching tests.
Automated labs Konica Minolta says that cobots cover the industry shift from process to task automation, and from production to laboratory. “Automating the whole process might be demanding on resources and not be efficient or well-advised because some tasks still need human interaction,” says Dietz. “In the laboratory, automating just a part of the process under human supervision makes work more accurate, collaborative, reproducible and traceable. Collaborative automation does not replace humans, it assists and frees them for more produc- tive and less repetitive tasks.” Konica Milnolta also supports and distributes the colour management software platform Colibri – de- veloped by Matchmycolor. “Colour data must be available globally, where it can be shared with suppliers and customers,” says Dr Michael Jakobi, Managing Partner at Matchmycolor. “The trend is towards cloud solutions where colour data can be communicated between systems in an automated way to meet Industry 4.0 requirements. Software must be browser-based and allow for central data management. Interfaces must be available or made available to allow communication and networking with other systems. All this requires a modern software platform and scalable database.” The matchmycolor Hub has been designed to
www.compoundingworld.com
IMAGE: KONICA MINOLTA
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