How One Company Standardized Plastic Color Matching

How One Company Standardized Plastic Color Matching

Abstract

Color matching is a critical characteristic in the plastics industry. The customer complains when their plastic pieces look to be different colors. However, these mismatched colors are not functional and only cosmetic. The cost for returns is high enough such that this issue must be addressed. There are many factors that can change the color from batch-to-batch and during batch processing. Colorants can change from one batch to another. The amount and type of colorant used also can change the color. Human factors play a significant role. Lighting can change the apparent color of any plastic. This paper will examine the factors and provide solutions that can increase the closest of the match. Factors examined include age, lighting intensity and frequency. An experiment ran found that without the proper lighting age played a significant role in color match errors. The final result required operator certification, artificial daylight fluorescent lighting at 1000 lux. This solution worked at one plastics manufacturing company.

Keywords: Color matching, human factors, plastics, inspection

How One Company Standardized Plastic Color Matching

Surface color measurement and matching are important for a wide array of industrial applications, such as paint, paper, printing, photography, textiles, and plastics. In this paper, the solution to visual function human factors of color matching in the plastics industry shall be explored. Let us consider an example. A manufacturer wants to produce goods with specific color appearance. The manufacturer can design the appearance of the product, and the color can be measured. After the production process the appearance of the product might be changed or it can vary between manufacturing batches because of noise inherent in the process. Now the manufacturer would like to know if the actual color is sufficiently similar to the desired one or whether the color is...