Ben Daniel and Vikram Fotedar discuss Techkon’s latest speciality – colour management instruments and solutions with Albin Baranauskas, Managing Director of TECHKON GmbH
Benjamin Daniel (BD): Will we see Techkon as a long-term entity in the Middle East?
Albin Baranauskas (AB): We are already. We are working with Jay for more than 10 years. We have a very long and good relationship with a lot of installations here in the Middle East. The Spectro Drive instruments for the quality control on the press as well the entry level products are well accepted from the market.
BD: What is your vision for the Middle East & Africa region?
AB: A lot of the brand owners are not yet educated in the way that they speak the same language as the converters. For us it is very important to get the message transferred, as to what are the influences in production, what they can expect from the converters and what are the expectations that can be produced for both sides from the print buyers as well as the converters so that there is a win-win situation because printers always like to do their best to get the best quality.
Vikram Fotedar (VF): What do you think of quality control in the press room? Your position on the inline front? And as a sub-supplier to print quality & inspection solution experts?
AB: We are still independent, though we are looking at what other manufacturers are doing. Our approach is always to make it affordable to our customers to invest into a quality control system. Sytems like BST and AVT are very powerful but they are also very expensive and a mid-size printer or a small-size printer cannot afford to put such a system into its production. So our approach is to supply a tool or solution that is doing around 90% of the task and is good enough to have a first step into inline or quality control inline measurement but it is also something that a packaging printer or converter can afford to invest into.
VF: You specialise in colour management. What about other requirements like inline inspection?
AB: We have added an inline system – a camera, with which we can do web viewing. We can set points inside the image to measure the brand colour. For example, in the packaging, we do bar code analysing and in the future maybe we will do more, because on the demands of our customer, we are growing our products. We would like to have some entry-level products for customers that fulfill most of their requirements and if they need more, then we will be able to develop more features like full inspection.
VF: Is your current inspection supported by an Ariel scan camera?
AB: We have two modules in our system. One is a spectral head, which is a colour measuring instrument and the other one is the camera. For the camera we are using a flash to take pictures and also define where the points are to measure the spectrum. We then use the image for web viewing and also to do the bar code analysing
BD: How do you train and educate your potential and existing clients especially post-installation?
AB: First of all, all of our partners are well educated. So, every person who is selling this product knows how to use it and can transfer the knowledge to the end user. Secondly, we have videos available, videos on Youtube and common channels. Our Netherlands partner provides professional online training.
BD: How would you differentiate Techkon from your competition?
AB: Today, the most important aspect is the ease-of-use of the instrument because if the instrument is not easy to use it will stay on the shelf. For us it is important to develop tools that are easy to use, robust, reliable, accurate and help the user to finish his work and to benefit out of it in terms of time and money.
