The BPIF’s Ukas approved implementation of ISO 12647-2 is now a couple of years old, auditors have been trained, the literature produced. But there has not been a flood of companies waving the flag to prove that they have the certification.
The most recent company to pass the audit process is BCQ, which became the third commercial printer with the certificate. There are a number of packaging printers to have achieved it, among them the Benson Group as it was for its Bardon site.
There are scarcely more printers with Heidelberg’s implementation, which is not as rigorous, but does prove an ability to print to the standard. Many printers will work with systems like Mellow Colour or Bodoni’s PressSign software to manage colour if not with the audits needed to match the ISO standard.
BCQ’s reasoning for first seeking the standard and then undergoing the consultancy, training and auditing by a third party body, is that it is a stamp of approval to show the quality of its work. “We join an exclusive group of printers who can legitimately claim their work is printed to the full standard,” says Allan Bates, premedia manager and colour champion.
“To bolster this and ensure we move this forward we will be looking towards adoption of the certification across other media platforms within the company to further cement our commitment to quality and create increasingly greater distinction between BCQ</a and its competitors.”
There are other commercial printers working towards certification, some helped by KBA’s declaration that it will be helping its customers achieve the standard: Blackmore has stated it intends to seek certification as soon as possible around the installation of its LED-UV Rapida 105.
However, there are far more printers that are hesitant, unwilling to spend the five-figure sum that may be required for the consultancy, training and software to put its house in order when there is no demand from customers and no tangible benefits beyond those delivered from process control outside the standard.
“<a href="ISO 12647-2 does not seem to be getting the traction,” says consultant Chris Passmore. “I had planned to get involved with auditing it, but there is not the demand. The industry’s customers do not have a problem with printers that supply consistent good quality, they have a colour management system in place and from the non conformance lists they show me, they are not getting complaints about poor colour management.”
The process control aspect of the BPIF implementation of colour standard is built around ISO 9001 requiring recording measurements and creating a system that can be traced and repeated. The colour aspect applies to sheetfed printing on coated papers.
This throws up a weakness in that strictly speaking the ISO 12647-2 standard does not apply to digital printing of any technology, nor to printing on uncoated papers. The application of a colour management and measurement system will deliver the predictable and repeatable quality even if it cannot be validated.
And that raises another of the issues that has been thrown up. Strictly speaking colour measurement devices should be sent away to check their calibration at a lab that has the requisite ISO standards itself. This cannot happen because such a system is not in place. Then there is the relatively wide standard applying to sheetfed inks, which seems to go against the tightness of the print standard.
For Passmore this is indicative that the standard as described is not really suitable to the average printer, unlike say a management system like ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 which look for continual improvement rather than absolute conformance.
With some colour management systems there is assessment to the absolute standard, a pass mark and rankings as the output comes closer to perfection. In short it delivers the continual improvement path that printers have become accustomed to.
The concerns about ISO 12647-2 have also been noted at Bodoni Systems whose PressSign software is in place across the world. It has now created the PressSign Offset Standard and has presented Firstan Cartons with the first certificate for a carton printer under this scheme. “The POS certification demonstrates that Firstan has the skills, equipment and knowledge to produce consistent colour quality, from file handling to the final print,” says the software supplier.
Packaging has a particular requirement for colour management, sourcing products and packaging from across the globe. To attain the certification Firstan had to undergo training, demonstrate understanding and then to present sheets that are assessed for compliance to the adherence to ISO 12647-2 on a test job which is used to monitor press stability as well as to print a handful of sheets that meet the standard.
Ian Reid, Bodoni Systems managing director, says: “We have introduced the POS certification firstly in China and now in Europe. It is a practical method to both help the printer and brand owners. Brands can be reassured that their jobs will be handled correctly, while printers can test their quality control procedures against the highest standards.”
If implementation began in the Far East, Reid says the initial impetus came from the UK commercial print sector. “ESP Colour and Geoff Neal Litho approached us about becoming certified,” says Reid. “That came as a request out of the blue.” It certainly understand the demand and with 5,000 packages sold worldwide both for ISO work and Fogra.
“We are not trying to compete with what the BPIF is doing, which is linked to ISO 9001 and is a management system. This is more of a colour management programme, designed to compete more with Fogra. It tells people that their greys are good and what they are doing.”
A colour champion is still required, with the power to reject jobs that fall short of the requirement. It is more than measuring colour in a consistent way, says Reid, And that is by using PressSign, which Reid points out is widespread across the country. “It’s about automation, making it easier to adhere to the specifications. Measuring and then adjusting tonal curves should get a lot closer a lot faster.”
And it should be less cumbersome than the full ISO specification, with a greater take up than the current rate of adoption for ISO 12647-2. The BPIF hopes to address this by marketing the value of the system both to printers and to print specifiers, hoping that this might put pressure on printers. In a newly published leaflet it stresses that its product is the only one that guarantees 100% compliance on all work printed.
It quotes Nigel Lyon, CEO of Pinstripe, the second commercial printer to achieve the standard: “It amazes me that print companies say they print to the highest standards (even some of the best do). So if they do, why not prove it by giving clearly defined measurements with each job?”
However, the ISO standard is for four-colour process printing, not spot colours that brands rely on. They will continue to use PMS references, though there is impetus behind CXF as an source independent digital means of communicating colour.
It was devised by X-Rite as an open standard for communicating colour more than a decade ago and has been supported by a number of software developers. It has now been adopted as an open standard by ISO, which either sets up divergent directions for colour measurement, communication and management, or could be the spur to bring them together.
In the meantime packaging printers will be more focused on meeting the requirements for constancy and compliance set by the British Retail Consortium. Commercial printers will rely on closed loop colour management technology to deliver job to job consistency and process managed systems around that.
The bigger question is whether ISO 12647-2 is a solution to an old world problem rather than one which can deliver consistent colour across the different platforms, litho, toner, inkjet and on the different substrates that printers are using and want to manage in a consistent way. Is the ISO standard still as relevant as it used to be?
Canon’s Calibration Manager tool can solve issues of matching inkjet proofs in remote locations by controlling calibration to meet required standards, says M Partners
The ISO standard is for four-colour process printing, not spot colours that brands rely on.
