With more than 50 manufacturing plants, more than 3,500 employees and sales offices covering 5 continents, Clariant Masterbatch communicates with and provides services to customers from all walks of life in different language backgrounds. However, for the world's largest supplier of color and additive masterbatches to the plastics industry, color is the language that matters.
"We provide specific overall solutions for the coloring of plastic products used in a variety of industries", said Mr. Patrick Emmel, Head of Color Communication, Clariant Masterbatches business unit, "Most plastic products (including packaging, automobiles, household appliances, Even wire and cable) can be colored at some stage in the production process.” Emmel, a color science professional, manages color communication, color quality control and color matching systems in 56 laboratories around the world.
Develop a stable and reliable process
Customers of Clariant Masterbatches want to produce plastics to specific color requirements at high production rates with minimal scrap and rework, but they do not intend to invest the resources to become color professionals themselves. “Our customers don’t want to bother with the expertise required to find a way to color a plastic part well,” says Mr. Emmel, “for example, adding the exact same color masterbatch to two different brands of injection molding machines producing the same part on the same production floor. pellets and resin, you might end up with two parts of different colors. Our customers want to know why this is happening, but more importantly: they want us to provide a process that works.”
To help customers develop stable and reliable processes, Clariant masterbatches use X-Rite's color measurement solutions. X-Rite Co., Ltd. is the world's largest designer and manufacturer of color Measurement Instruments and software.
Benchtop Spectrophotometer s and Color iMatch software from X-Rite precisely determine the component colors needed to create the most complex colors. The company also offers the NetProfiler software package for remote calibration of instruments, enabling all companies in the supply chain to generate and share reliable data.
understand customer's needs
When Clariant Masterbatch cooperates with customers, the first task is to effectively understand the use of the product, the plastic resin used, additives, equipment, and the color matching accuracy required for products in various regions or markets. Thanks to many years of involvement in the plastics industry, the company's technical factory has accumulated a large variety of production equipment for the manufacture of prototype parts or samples.
Clariant Masterbatch has thousands of customers around the world, develops nearly 80,000 colors every year, from simple black to complex metallic and pearlescent colors, and stores many color formulas in a massive database for future reference .
Help customers increase production speed and flexibility
Clariant masterbatches help companies producing almost any type of plastic product: plastic injection molding, blow molding, plastic sheet extrusion, and even spin dyeing of synthetic fibers used in carpets and fabrics. Industries served by the company include packaging, automotive, appliances, durable goods, construction, wire and cable, electronics and textiles.
The company specializes in developing and selling color formulations, so users can stock large quantities of colorless resins and small quantities of masterbatches. This allows them to produce products in various colors on demand.
"This method allows our customers to produce faster and more flexibly. They don't have to buy and stock a lot of different colored composite resins," says Emmel. Speed and flexibility are especially important for manufacturers of a wide variety of colored plastic products with short lead times.
Define color standards and develop processes
When developing plastic color formulations and processes, Clariant Masterbatches first determines the color standard that the customer wants to achieve, then tests with pigments and resins to replicate that color. The obtained samples were compared with agreed standards using a Spectrophotometer and X-Rite software. After obtaining these precise data, Clariant masterbatches can develop a production process for customers in a very short time, and the products produced by this process can meet or be very close to the specifications required for the final inspection of the finished product, while Usually to achieve this specification often requires a lot of investment to complete.
"Running a real part can be as simple as it can be very complicated," explains Mr. Emmel. "In some cases, customers might spend $25,000 for a trial run, so you can see why we want to Provide a fully mature process and formula before production." In many cases Clariant masterbatches are able to replicate a trial run for the customer. “We can make containers and bottles with blow molding machines, or produce injection molded parts. One of our factories has a model of a ski boot that we prepare for a customer.”
global operations
One of the advantages Clariant Masterbatches has over its competitors is its presence in almost all industrialized countries around the world. This is another reason why companies choose X-Rite when they decide to modernize their color measurement process. "X-Rite is present in many countries and that was the main reason we chose X-Rite. We needed a partner who could support us in all major regions of the world," Emmel said.
As a global player in color measurement, X-Rite has sales and service offices in Europe, America, Asia, Middle East and Africa. Many of the company's software packages are translated into local languages. Mr. Nikles, Sales Director of X-Rite Europe, summed up how X-Rite helps customers with color evaluation: "We provide a complete set of solutions that can handle all aspects of accurate color measurement, including the ability to observe samples in standard lighting environments. Color-matched light boxes, and tests to check for any color vision deficiencies in individual observers".
Protect your brand image
Multinational companies that manufacture and sell products in many countries expect suppliers like Clariant Masterbatches and X-Rite to enable seamless and reliable color data exchange directly between their widely distributed plants and suppliers. “For some of the largest global companies selling food and beverage, personal care and other products, this is very important because color is part of their brand identity system and needs to be consistent,” Mr Emmel said.
“Customers will tell us directly, ‘This is our color and we need this color globally,’” says Mr. Emmel. differences, and even regulations adopted by different countries have an impact on the process.”
Food plastic packaging is a good example. The European Union has a range of regulations on the types of safe compounds that can come into contact with food, while the U.S. has different regulations in this regard.
“Every customer wants to use the same formula and get the same color everywhere in the world,” said Mr. Emmel. The client offers a compromise solution that maintains brand consistency at a very economical price." The best balance between cost and color accuracy is when every party in the supply chain—specifiers, formulators and suppliers—uses the same color standards and measurements.
Ensuring Data Consistency To maintain data consistency, X-Rite has developed a method to remotely calibrate instruments in factories around the world to their factory specifications. X-Rite has integrated NetProfiler technology into the Color i7 instrument, so the Color i7 can read a range of color standards and transmit the data via the Internet for calibration.
In about 15 minutes, the central laboratory processes the data and produces a configuration file that adjusts the instrument to internal specifications, and generates a calibration certificate that complies with the ISO-9000 process. Subsequent measurement readings in X-Rite software are then "signed" with a secure data signature, ensuring robust digital measurement results.
Suppliers may use instruments made by other companies. X-Rite's ability to communicate data with such instruments allows workers in the supply chain to better share data. While X-Rite's color profiling instruments and software are specialized, they are familiar to trained operators: "The nature of the colorist's work has changed," says Mr. Emmel: "They are no longer laboratories. Color professionals who work alone in CHINA just to deliver color formulations. Today, colorists are also part of a team, working closely with clients to solve problems.”
With X-Rite color measurement solutions, Clariant masterbatches transform the role of the colorist, ensuring smooth implementation of new processes while ensuring consistent color can be produced by existing manufacturing techniques.
