AFX XT Platform, DataScan y

ColorCheck III – Introduction to

managers

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Introduction
Presentation key points

• AFX XT
• Defect detection
• Interactions between inspection system and machine
• Statistics (MDC)
• Process control
• Maintenance
• Tailor made features
• CalCheck
• DataScan + MDC
• ColorCheck III + ColorCheckView

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Defect detection
References

• Before any quality control can be carried out, the user has to define a
reference
• The reference is a set of sheets the system acquires in order to “know”
what needs to be printed
• The reference should be representative of all the acceptable variations
• Since it is impossible to integrate all the acceptable variations in a single
process, sheets can be added to the reference at any point in time
• The process of building the base reference is the “Learning”
• The process of adding sheets to the reference is the “Expansion”

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Defect detection
Learning

• Prior to the learning, the printer must make sure the machine is printing
good quality :
• Good register
• Good inking
• No print breaks
• No wiping shadows or streaks…
• Once the printing is good the
inspection system operator can
launch the learning

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Defect detection
Reference intensity

• After learning and expansion a tool allows the user to check the reference and
make sure it contains no error

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Defect detection
Reference intensity analysis

Reference Dark Light

intensity reference reference

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Defect detection
Expansion / Selective Expansion

• During the course of production, the print aspect may vary within an
acceptable range for the quality department but enough for the
inspection system to see that as an error
• Often, a slight increase of tolerance is not enough to solve the issue
• In this case, sheets showing the acceptable deviation have to be added
to the reference for the system to accept them as good
• The process of adding sheets to the reference is called Expansion
• The expansion can be either global (complete sheets are added) or
Selective (only selected portions of the sheets are added)

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Defect detection
Expansion / Selective Expansion

Expansion Selective Expansion

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Defect detection
Inspection channels

• The system has 6 different image analysis algorithms

• Each algorithm specialises in a particular type of defect
• For a defect to be detected it needs to have a minimum size and contrast
• The resolution of the images is approximately 0.2mm
• Any smaller defect will be challenging to detect
• Specific tolerances can be applied to specific portions of the print :
• High tolerances to let go of deviations from previous print phases for
example
• Low tolerances to increase defect detection capacity for security feature
areas for example
• Up to 15 different tolerance sets can be defined per station

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Defect detection
Algorithms

Light defects Dark defects

Warning : the deviation is still acceptable

Surface : large surface / low contrast  wiping

Peak : small surface / high contrast  offset spots

Streak : vertical intaglio wiping lines

Red/Green – Blue/Yellow : colour deviations 

ink contaminations or light wiping shadow

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Defect detection
Communication with the printer

• Once a defect is detected, its location is shown with a colour code on the
wall screen
• The colour indicates which channel detected the error hence the type of
error :

Channel
that
detected
the error

Image Defect
representation
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Defect detection
Communication with the printer

• A traffic light is also implemented so that the status of the inspection result can be
checked from afar :

• blue :
• Fixed : the system is inspecting and the machine
is sorting
• Blinking : the system is inspecting but the machine
is not sorting
• White : the system is learning / expanding
• Red : bad sheet detected
• Yellow : warning sheet detected
• Green : good sheet detected

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Interactions between inspection and machine
Sheets sorting

• The machine can be set to separate the bad sheets to the waste / test
pile or to put them all together on the same production pile
• It is also possible to define a minimum number of bad notes within a
sheet for the sheet to be separated :
With this setting, a sheet that has up to 10 bad notes is still sent to
the production pile
A sheet that has at least 11 bad notes is diverted to the waste or
test pile

• In any case :
• The defects are shown to the printer with the colour code
• The statistics are updated according to the inspection result
• The traffic light displays the appropriate colour

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Interactions between inspection and machine
Feeder stop

• In case of consecutive errors the inspection system can stop automatically the
feeder

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Statistics
Machine Data Center

• An integrated module saves

the production statistics in a
user friendly interface
• Extensive quality indicators
are provided
• Statistics per station and
tolerance group or Paretos,
for example, are provided
• The history of tolerance
changes is logged
• Production history is stored
for 3 months
• Reports can be generated
per load or per user defined
period of time (day, week,
shift…)

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Process control
User management

• The system manages 5 user levels with cumulative access rights :

• The privileges are cumulative : a specific user has all

the accesses of a “lower” user and some more
• All the main functions (tolerance settings, learning,
change job…) can be restricted to a minimum user
level. For example : only supervisors and higher can
change tolerances
• It is possible to create custom users and assign them a
specific level. For example Peter is a Supervisor and
Anthony a Quality Manager :
• A password can be set
individually for each profile

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Maintenance
Trouble shooting tools

• Log files are constantly generated during system operation

• No image is saved, only production data (texts and numbers)
• An intuitive tool is implemented to retrieve the logs :

• Define start date and time

• Define end date and time
• Press OK
• Save the logs files to an
external media when the
system is done collecting
the files

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Tailor made features

• On request and upon agreement, tailor made features can be developed

• Examples of customer specific features :

• Measurement of windowed thread size
• Fluorescent fibres density measurement
• Inspection of paper margins

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CalCheck
Check illumination stability in time – align systems to each other

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DataScan
Numbering quality control

• DataScan is an inspection system to monitor the numbering phase

• The main inspection features are :
• Optical Character Recognition :
• Make sur the proper number is printed
• Make sure both numbers match
• The number is complete (no missing or extra character)
• Quality control :
• Register
• Inking
• Alignment
• Print break detection…

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DataScan
Optical Character Recognition

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DataScan
Error examples

Filled digit Under inking Wheel alignment Register

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DataScan
Interactions with machine

• DataScan can stop the feeder in case of :

• Character mismatch : the wrong number is
applied
• Consecutive errors (amount of consecutive
sheets with errors)
• Too many errors on the same sheet
• Consecutive errors on the unit wheel (if a
number 8 has one of the circles filled the error
will appear only every 10th sheet)
• Consecutive errors on the modulus wheel

• These criteria can be set and enabled / disabled

individually

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DataScan
Statistics

• A statistics module based on Machine Data Center interface keeps track of the
production quality
• An intuitive module records which
numbers were detected as
defective
• The type of defect is also
recorded for future analysis
• Register measurement results are
also included in the report

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ColorCheck III
functions

• ColorCheck III is an offline statistical process control tool

• main functions :
• Measure densities in the colour bars
• Suggest ink key settings if needed
• Visual inspection of IR and Fluorescent properties
• Statistical module to keep track of production history
• Optional functions :
• Plate to plate register measurement (reliability within 20um)
• L*a*b measurement and deviation to standard calculation (deltaE)

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ColorCheck III
Density monitoring

• The user defines the desired density for

each key of each fountain (by measuring
a reference sheet for example)

• The system compares the printed sheet

with the reference and suggests ink key
adjustments if needed

• The adjustments are either sent at once

to the ColorTronic or done manually

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ColorCheck
ColorCheckView : density statistics

• A statistics module compiles all the density measurements in one place

• This allows anyone to check the density history along time

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ColorCheck III
Images

• ColorCheck III comes with a high resolution 1200 dpi camera and 3 different
illuminations to see images under white light, IR light and UV light (365nm)

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 ColorCheck III
register measurements

As an option, ColorCheck III

can measure plate to plate
registration

The option development is

being finalized and will be
offered soon

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ColorCheck III
L*a*b* measurements

As an option, ColorCheck III

can also measure L*a*b*
values and calculate the
deltaE to a reference

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@koenigandbauer

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