Innovation Management plays a key role at BST eltromat International. What advantages does the company see in the company-wide coordination of its innovative capacity by a central agency? And how do customers benefit from it?

To make it clear from the start: dedicated Innovation Management in the form of a company-wide process results in a very positive external image. And the in-house effects and feedback are likewise highly productive. Our main aim is to optimally gather and analyze ideas from different sides, and to prepare them in such a way that promising projects can be realized within the company. Based on the structure established in our Innovation Management, we generate optimum decision-making bases for the strategic orientation of our product portfolio. This ensures that investments in innovative solutions are made at the right time and pay off in the long term, both for us and for our customers.

Regardless of where the ideas come from – customers, our own experts, or cooperation partners – it is guaranteed that sensible suggestions do not get put off in favor of day-to-day business. Our Innovation Management activities also include close cooperation with scientific institutions and universities, as well as intensive work on committees.

As a result, we are working on innovative solutions to the demands of our core markets and potential new markets in various cooperation projects. We could hardly manage this depth of research and breadth of development on our own. The supporting and channeling function of our Innovation Management is extensively and regularly utilized, both within the company and by scientific institutions and customers. The benefit for our customers is that they are in touch with the latest developments at all times.

One example is the cooperation between BST eltromat and the University of Wuppertal on inline spectral color measurement. Inline spectral color measurement is the key to high color accuracy – particularly in the production of flexible packagings and labels. By continuously generating absolute measurement data, it assists the printer in complying with given color standards.

To this end, we jointly optimized the design of our backing, thus creating the possibility of obtaining particularly reliably measurement series. In addition, we can apply an algorithm to transform the spectral data determined on a white backing to suit backings of any desired color. Even if the print job requires non-standard backings, the result of our cooperation permits precise color measurements and gives print providers and packaging producers a previously unknown degree of flexibility and reliability. This can be the case when dealing with substrates that are transparent or not fully opaque, for example.

The cooperation project with GMG, a leading developer and supplier of high-end color management and proofing solutions, will make it possible to use inline spectral color measurement to create printing press profiles without special proofs. The press profiles are generated dynamically from a few measurements taken during production. In this way, current press profiles are on hand at all times, for the color management workflow and particularly for the proofing process. This greatly improves the convenience and reliability of color control. Even the characteristic curves needed for prepress operations are available in constantly updated form, thanks to the networking of the systems.

In short: By concentrating our innovative capacity, we've built in an acceleration process, so to speak. That allows us to identify new trends faster and get new, innovative solutions to the market quickly.