It may not be the automaker or the paint manufacturer who needs the most color matching, but the mother of the bride checking the wedding table setting, or worse, the bride's mother-in-law.
Tables covered in burgundy tablecloths are arranged in rows in a well-lit setting. Even the groom might notice if the tablecloth isn't a consistent color.
To ensure that this only happens when it is intended, America's second-largest lessor of fine dining and chairs, linens, fine china and wedding and special occasion equipment is using a series of Spectrophotometer s from X-Rite to measure tablecloths s color.
For someone who is color sensitive, it might not be a problem to choose a tablecloth in a nice, consistent color from a small collection of home linens. But if, like PartyRental Ltd., laundering and sorting 2,000 to 5,000 tablecloths of different colors in a day becomes a daunting task. PartyRental Ltd. has more than 12 showrooms and 3 warehouses. The company's business covers New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, etc., and all its laundry fabrics are concentrated in Teterboro, New Jersey. Inside the company's main warehouse with an area of 250,000 square feet.
"Since using this instrument, our solid-color fabric color variation problems have greatly reduced," said Jack Holden, software development manager at PartyRental Ltd. (based in Teterboro, NJ). "It's really important. The vast majority of our customers Both are high end caterers and event planners who plan many grand events such as weddings, holiday celebrations, charity fundraisers, etc. When a customer orders a dozen dark blue tablecloths, they don't want to receive 12 tablecloths in different shades .”
“We do a lot of laundering and ironing of tablecloths, and over time the color of the tablecloths tends to fade,” Holden said. “So we’ve developed a fairly sophisticated system over the last few years to identify solid colored tablecloths that are anomalous in color.”
Each tablecloth has an RFID (radio frequency identification technology) chip, the chip data read for the first time is used to identify a specific tablecloth, and then the color of the tablecloth is measured with a VeriColorSpectro non-contact Spectrophotometer , and then the data is sent to A computer to keep records of tablecloth color measurements and color tolerances.
The VeriColorSpectro non-contact Spectrophotometer is ideal for this task because it measures color at high speed without touching the surface being measured, sending the information in real time to a computer running X-Rite software (very easy to use) to control color quality.
VeriColorSpectro is suitable for operation in harsh industrial environments with vibration, heat and humidity. In addition, it can accurately measure color under conditions of unstable ambient light and depth of field.
X-Rite, the world's largest designer and manufacturer of color measurement and communication systems, offers VeriColorSpectro non-contact Spectrophotometer s for a wide range of industrial environments that require accurate color measurement, such as paint chip production, injection molding, and fabric dyeing processes.
“With our current volume of business, we need to process laundered fabrics at high speed,” Holden said. “Our employees process the tablecloths through the quality control station, which reads the chip and detects the color of the tablecloths. There is no need for employees to use judgment. Because the computer will tell them whether the color of the tablecloth is acceptable."
Holden says it's unusual for a party supply rental company to use sophisticated equipment like the VeriColorSpectro to control the quality of tablecloths, but adds: "We're not a small family business."
PartyRental Ltd. started out as a liquor retail store, renting out tables, chairs and glasses to those hosting house parties, but Michael and Sunny Halperin have grown the company into a full-fledged hirer, today able to serve 5,000 dinners and 10,000 picnics Or a large-scale event such as a 20,000-person cocktail party. PartyRental Ltd., which employs nearly 1,500 people and has a reputation throughout the Northeast, uses trucks painted with big pink hippos to deliver event supplies to customers.
"Our clients are very color sensitive and we can't disappoint them," Holden said. It’s dirty, it’s old or worn in places, the colors don’t match in places. They’re paying us to make sure they don’t have to worry about any of those.”
