Poppins decided it was time to splash color into the office like splash artist Jackson Pollock painted it, replacing the stereotypical black and gray office supplies with lime green pen cups, lake blue staplers and fiery red tape holders.
Breathing new life into the office environment with bright colors, Poppin hopes to encourage employees in the office to "happy work", which is the tagline of Poppin, an electronics retailer based in New York City, which designs and sells products in the United States that are manufactured in CHINA .
To ensure that colors are perfectly coordinated with a variety of materials—plastic, metal, paper, and cloth—Poppin enlisted the assistance of X-Rite, the global leader in color management, and its wholly-owned subsidiary Pantone.
"By using vibrant, eye-catching colors defined by Pantone and measured by X-Rite Technology, we differentiate ourselves from other large competitors," said 9Kings, Poppin's sourcing agent in CHINA. Vice President Roger Cole said. “Because we present stylish colors in the office environment at the right price points, we have built a loyal customer base. Therefore, the importance of color matching to our business cannot be overemphasized.”
With a new approach to office supplies and their accessories, Poppin is naturally one of the first companies to adopt X-Rite's new technology product - RM200QC, which connects stores worldwide with easy, accurate and portable color matching .
When Yan Jun (Tony), the technical manager, travels from Shanghai's Jiuxi Trading (9Kings) company to the manufacturing plants (suppliers) all over CHINA, he must put RM200QC in his pocket to closely check whether the color of the product is consistent with Poppin's New York Headquarters color requirements to match.
The palm-sized RM200QC Imaging SpectroColorimeter simplifies the way to compare the color of production parts in plastic molding, coatings, chemical, textile and other industries with laboratory samples or color standards, and can create inspection reports that can be shared with supply chain partners.
Manager Yan used RM200QC to ensure that the color of the office supplies for sale, such as the lime green scissors and their associated file trays, exactly matched the bright, fresh tone that the customer wanted, and coordinated well with the office.
"One of the important factors for us is to control the color difference between products with matching colors," says Manager Yan. “We use the L*a*b* data generated by the RM200QC to check the degree of color variation and to communicate effectively between the manufacturer and our team at headquarters.”
With the help of its strict quality control system and color inspection instruments, Poppin has been able to tighten the color difference from deltaE2 to deltaE0.8 with RM200QC. Using the quick check function in RM200QC, they can also monitor whether the color change of the same batch of products is in the range of deltaE0.3, while the common color change range in the industry is deltaE2. Manager Yan believes that good color matching will make Poppin's products stand out in the market.
The advanced functions of RM200QC have far exceeded the capabilities of ordinary color difference meters in the market. It identifies color differences between samples and standards, opacity and grayscale ratings, and shows possible changes in color appearance under D65 daylight and household tungsten light sources (A illuminant).
The measurement time of RM200QC is about 2 seconds, and the instrument can display concise pass/fail information or CIEL*A*b* value and deltaE color difference data. Results can also be reported by all common standard color difference formulas and tolerances, such as CIELAB, CMC, CIE94 or CIE2000.
RM200QC memory can create and save 20 standards and up to 350 sample records. Sample records include measurement time, date and measurement values, and are saved as PDF and CSV format files. Connect the instrument through a USB cable, and you can easily output the report and save the information Share with color communication stakeholders in the supply chain. In addition, the RM200QC measurement results also include images, text descriptions or voice information on the surface of the test sample, and the report can be output in multiple languages.
"It's been a great tool in assisting us with global color control," said Manager Yan. “It gives accurate color measurements that both the US and CHINA teams can accept as an unbiased standard, so we can make quick decisions in order to maintain customer satisfaction and confidently introduce more colors into our product line."
