Standards Working Group Updates
The summer of 2018 has seen a small number of ballots trickling through from the documents that were reviewed and revised during the spring meeting in Berlin. The fall plenary meetings of ISO TC 130 will be held Oct. 14-19 at the Kikai Shinkio Kaikan building in Tokyo, Japan.
The following are the actions that have occurred since the April update, including at the spring meeting, that were not discussed at Forum and are of interest to the FTA community.
ISO/TC 130 Graphic Arts – Standards of Interest to Flexography
- ISO 2836 Graphic technology – Prints and printing inks – Assessment of resistance of prints to various agents. Earlier in the year when this standard was up for re-approval, the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG), including the FTA committee, had voted to have the standard revised because it did not reference ISO 2834-2, the standard for test print preparation of flexographic printing. The ISO working group (WG) responsible has accepted this but will first revise ISO 2834 from three parts back into a single standard that references all forms of test print preparations. This will resolve the objection to not referencing a standard on test print preparation from flexographic inks. The ballot on this proposed revision closed at ISO HQ on Sept. 5, so no results have been reported
- ISO/CD 12547-6 Graphic technology – Process control for the production of halftone color separations, proof and production prints – Part 6: Flexographic printing. The revision of this venerable standard on flexographic process color printing is still out for its second Committee Draft (CD) ballot. It had passed the first CD ballot but as there were a large number of comments, it was felt necessary to send the document out again, after making all of the modifications. The ballot will close at ISO Headquarters on Sept. 20, just before the plenary meeting of ISO TC 130. This will likely be followed by a DIS ballot in the spring of 2019 and a final ballot in the fall of 2019. The edits address many of the complaints and suggestions made by FTA members over the past five years
- ISO/DTS 15311-1.5 Graphic technology – Requirements for printed matter for commercial and industrial production – Part 1: Measurement methods and reporting schema. This fifth draft of this technical specification was approved by the U.S. TAG with some comments. This document was re-balloted and the U.S. voted to approve with only a couple of editorial comments. The document should be published as a Technical Specification (TS) in the fall. As a reminder, TS is not a standard but it has all of the parts of a standard and will likely be made into a standard at some point in the future, as it has been shown to be useful to the user community
- ISO DTR 19303.2 Graphic technology – Guidelines for schema writers – Part 1: Packaging printing color reproduction. This Technical Report (TR) defines criteria for a brand owner or brand owner council to develop its own schema. This standard has best practices for designers, brand owners, premedia and converters. So as a stand-alone, you could follow all the “shoulds” and be one of the top printers in the world. There are annexes in the document for: flexography, offset package printing, gravure and digital. This document points to CGATS technical reports, ASTM procedures and other ISO standards where applicable. This standard could be used as a tool for self-audit, third-party audit or for ISO 9000 or ISO 9001 work instructions or for a FIRST (Flexographic Image Reproduction Specifications & Tolerances) or Brand Owner Certification. This is out for ballot with a closing date of Sept. 19 at ISO HQ
- ISO/FDIS 19593-1, Graphic technology – Use of PDF to associate processing steps and content data – Part 1: Processing steps for packaging and labels. The Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) has been approved by all ISO member countries. It will now be published and made available for purchase from ISO or ANSI web stores. It has contained in it all of the best practices for using a PDF as a container for the parts of a label or package printing job
- ISO/WD 20616-1, Graphic technology – File format for quality control data and metadata – Part 1: Print Requirements eXchange (PRX). The working draft (WD) was revised during the meetings in Indonesia and the document has been submitted for a second WD ballot. The committee met on July 18 to discuss the results of the ballot and the changes that will need to be made to address all of the comments. A future CD ballot is being anticipated. This proposed standard contains requirements for the use of XML to prepare files containing all of the requirements for a print job. The SWG has been following the development of this standard and of Part 2 on the exchange of the quality results of a print job. The CD ballot has not yet been released but when it is, it will be available for review and comment from FTA
If you would like to review and comment on any of the upcoming ballots on these standards, please contact FTA Director of Education Joe Tuccitto.
About the Authors: Jean Engelke is the chair of FTA’s Flexo Quality Consortium and a member of FTA’s Board of Directors and FFTA’s Board of Trustees. She has earned an AAS in graphic and design technology, a B.A. in printing management, an MBA and an M.A. in industrial engineering management. Jean started her career teaching printing and paper science at Western Michigan University. She has held positions in R&D, engineering and global product marketing with Appleton Papers, Alcan Packaging and Kodak. Most recently, she served as the director of business development, packaging for for RR Donnelley. In 2017, she received the FTA President’s Award.
Dr. Danny Rich obtained a master’s degree in physics in 1977 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, VA, and in 1980 completed a Ph.D. at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In 1998, he joined Sun Chemical Corp. to direct the Sun Chemical Color Research Laboratory in the Daniel J. Carlick Technical Center in Carlstadt, NJ. He has been awarded the Nickerson Service award from the Inter-Society Color Council in 1999, the National Printing Ink Manufacturers award for Technical Achievement in 2008, a Thomas Alva Edison award for innovation by the Research Council of New Jersey in 2008, the Robert F. Reed Medal from the Printing Industries of America in 2013 and the Mattiello Memorial Award from the American Coatings Association in 2015.