How Instrumental Analysis Ensures Quality and Value in Colour-Sensitive Products

No one likes the idea of waste piling up in our landfills, but the financial impact of losing valuable materials is often the driving force that fuels the need for instrumental analysis. Colour control plays a vital role in managing material usage and maintaining quality and consistency in a variety of manufactured goods. With appropriate colour measurement instrumentation, the average business can save thousands while delivering the quality and value expected of their products.

Instrumental analysis has infiltrated nearly every consumer driven industry imaginable. From automobile parts and building materials to paints and plastics, spectrophotometers are the leading technology used for colour measurement and quality control. “Any manufacturer of consumer products…should implement stringent quality controls to ensure that the first run matches required colour specifications and that each successive lot is consistent. To do otherwise risks significant scrap and rework, delayed shipments, lot recalls, and loss of profits, if not valuable business relationships and contracts.”1 The benefits of instrumental analysis are undeniable, yet not all spectrophotometers are created equal. Advancements in technology have created a wide range of choices in colour measurement tools, and developing an understanding of these options will help you make the most of your investment.

Colour measurement instrumentation ensures consistency from lot to lot, reducing wasted materials and ensure product quality. Image Source: Flickr user garlandcannon

Increase Speed and Improved Accuracy

Today’s spectrophotometers have taken instrumental analysis to new levels. As portability and durability improve, colour measurement can be obtained in nearly any environment with even better accuracy than ever before. Colour matching technology is dependent on instrumental analysis to meet the growing palette of options in consumable goods. As product demand increases so do production speeds, requiring a more versatile tool to monitor and quantify even the slightest colour changes that may otherwise go undetected by the human eye.2 Even a slight shift in colour can lead to product rejection and waste, therefore increasing the costs of materials and lowering profits.

Ensuring colour consistency throughout production and from batch to batch reduces waste and improve consumer satisfaction. Image Source: Flickr user Locus Research

In-line spectrophotometers use colour process automation technology to provide a solution to fast-paced production lines where colour errors can quickly ruin an entire product line. With continual colour monitoring, even a slight miscalculation can be detected in the early stages of product and corrected rapidly before excess materials are wasted. These modern analytical tools not only offer flexible options in style and size, but new technology eliminates variables such as lighting interference, reflectance, and texture that can often interfere with the accuracy of colour-sensitive products.

Flexible Options at Affordable Prices

As the need for colour-specific products continues to grow, instrumental analysis must also provide the means necessary to keep up with industry demands. Spectrophotometers offer a wide range of capabilities that can be tailor-made to meet the specific needs of individual products. Whether measuring solids or liquids, textured or glossy surfaces, the versatility of quality instrumentation can adapt accordingly.

Whether clear or opaque, liquid or solid, to even molten sample measurements, spectrophotometers offer a highly versatile source of instrumentational analysis. Image Source: Flickr user Nelson Alexandre Rocha

HunterLab is a leading name in colour technology with many options in instrumentation. Our line of spectrophotometers provides to tools needed to meet nearly any colour measurement need with instrumentation that ensure colour consistency from batch to batch and lot to lot. With a variety of options to meet any budget, our spectrophotometers can help you attain a higher level of colour quality, increase product quality, and improve consumer satisfaction. For more information on choosing the right tools to meet your colour measurement need, please contact us today.