A huge thank you to all of the presenters at the Flexo Quality Consortium (FQC) Pre-Conference Session at Forum 2017! This year’s session was jam packed with project reports and research presentations that brought in more than 250 attendees.
Forum 2017 Session Summary
The session started with an update from the Standards Working Group (SWG). Project reports included the Flexo Plate and Mounting Tape Optimization Project. The team is collecting and analyzing its press trial data and looking forward to a validation run in the coming weeks ahead.
The High Resolution Printing Project has completed the narrow web portion and reported out significant findings that demonstrate the attributes of high resolution printing in order to establish a minimum baseline to define the term. The team is actively recruiting FTA member companies to support the wide web portion, both in the planning stages and press trials. A short meeting was held immediately after the session to sign up new volunteers. If you were unable to attend Forum, you can go to the FTA website and volunteer through the FQC volunteer link—it’s not too late!
The CxF Optimization team presented its project findings that compared the profile accuracy of a CxF characterization to the Standard IT8.7/4 characterization. The team’s research showed you can create ICC profiles with CxF data.
Two complementary presentations were given on expanded gamut (EG) technology. One of the presentations was the research of the 2016 Rossini Scholarship winner Nina Davis, of Clemson University. The FQC is proud to feature student research work highlighting the talent of our industry’s next generation.
Gary Hilliard Memorial Scholarship
A highlight of this year’s FQC session was the presentation of the very first Gary Hilliard Memorial Scholarship. As many of you know, the FQC and FTA established the Gary Hilliard Memorial Scholarship to recognize Gary’s contributions and support of research and flexo technology. The scholarship is funded by an annual golf outing, individual contributions and FTA support. It is in the amount of $2,500 and is awarded annually. The scholarship seeks to support an undergraduate student’s proposed research project. The project should be of value to the flexographic printing industry, follow scientific methodology and produce objective data to support its results.
It was with great pleasure the FQC Executive Committee awarded the first Gary Hilliard Memorial Scholarship to Chris Teachout of Central Piedmont Community College. For those students who would like to apply for next year’s scholarship, please go to the FTA website to get more details. For those wishing to contribute to the Gary Hilliard Memorial Scholarship, please contact the FTA or any FQC Executive Committee member.
SWG Update
The spring of 2017 has been moderately busy for the SWG. There were a few ballots left from the winter, after the last ISO TC 130 meetings held at Adobe in San Jose, CA last fall. One of the areas that has raised some interest among those who follow the SWG was two new standards being drafted covering file formats for print requirements and print quality. They are termed PRX and PQX, respectively. The FQC/SWG membership has been following these closely, and we have been posting the minutes and presentations from the committee meetings.
The next meeting of the ISO TC 130 Graphic Arts standards committee is set for June 4-11 at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The meetings will be a full seven days—the longest spring meeting in the history of the ISO TC 130 committee.