Sanjay Parajape
Director- Sales & Support ISC Datacolor India
Market expecting effective and consistent solutions in colour communications
Datacolor is a global leader in colour management solutions, providing software, instruments and services to assure accurate colour of materials, products and images. Sanjay Parajape, sales & support ISC at Datacolor India, converses about the next generation colour management solutions for better quality and consistency.
How is the textiles and apparel industry faring when it comes to colour accuracy and management?
There are two segments in the Indian market. In the economical segment, the accuracy of colour is not very critical. In the premium segment of the market, colour accuracy and exact matching are expected to match international standards.
What kind of automation in colour management solutions can be expected in the years to come?
The major requirement of the market is accurate colour prediction and colour communication. The market is expecting effective and consistent solutions in the colour communications area.
Who are your major clients in India?
Our major clients are export houses, corporate mills and all range of process houses. Our clients are spread all over India.
What kind of quality control and monitoring do Datacolor solutions offer?
Datacolor's Tools, Sort and Monitor programmes are used extensively in the global textiles supply chain for quality control and production monitoring. Tools is a comprehensive colour quality control solution for generating colour differences, pass/fail results, and various colour properties such as whiteness, colour inconstancy, and grey scale ratings. Users not only evaluate numerical data, but can analyse samples graphically and display accurate colour on textured substrates to make on-screen colour decisions. Sort is a clustering/tapering solution that enables manufacturers and cut-and-sew companies to group and order production lots to ensure minimal variance, when lots are sewn together or when garments such as suitseparates must be a perfect match to each other. Monitor is a production colour quality control application used in continuous processes to ensure that colour is consistent from side-to-side and from end-to-end in every roll of fabric. Datacolor's quality control programmes enable global digital colour communication and the ability to confidently make pass/fail decisions at the mill, virtually eliminating the need to ship physical samples. Initial colour development timelines can be significantly reduced by sharing digital colour data, and retail/apparel companies can move into production with confidence knowing that every production lot can be tested for acceptability.
How accurate are the digital imaging samples compared to the actual products?
The accuracy of images displayed on a computer monitor is impacted by the monitor and its colour output. Because the gamut of all monitors is limited, i.e. not all colours that we can see can actually be displayed on a monitor; there are some colours that cannot be displayed precisely, such as fluorescent colours and very bright shades. In the quality control world however, even out-of-gamut colours can be evaluated against colour standards because the relative colour difference on the screen matches the relative colour difference of the physical samples.
What are the latest technologies and innovations that Datacolor plans to introduce or launch?
As you know, looking at the digital colour approval process between the supply chain, Datacolor's Properitor QTX file format is being used by industry currently worldwide successfully. Currently, the new matching engine which has already been introduced in our Datacolor Match Textile Formulation software takes care of more accurate matching with production feedback inputs. We will soon come out with new solutions to the colour evaluation problems with more practical ways that the industry can adopt.
How did you fare in the last two fiscals, and what are your expectations for the next two.
The last two years we successfully managed to keep the business growth by a 2-digit percentage on year over year, and we are expecting the same for the coming years.
What budget do you allocate towards R&D annually?
We at Datacolor understand the importance of continuous product development. Research and development is always a priority for us, and we allocate substantial funds for this every year.
What are your near-future investment plans?
Datacolor is known as a 'solution provider with technology', and yes, investments are always there.
Published on: 22/12/2016
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
