Applications

Many of the worlds leading colour instrument manufacturers regularly use and recommend CERAM Colour Standards.

Our Colour Standards can be used in almost any imaginable application where light and colour are important. From the depths of space to your kitchen table, from a grain of barley to the side of a building, they provide a stable reference in the unstable world of colour. In printing and packaging they are often used to help maintain and control the grey scale.

Traditional areas where you can expect to see Colour Standards in use are those involved in textiles, dyes, paints, plastics, ceramics and cosmetics. Innovation has lead to Colour standards now being used in recycling projects and environmental testing. As consumers become increasingly discerning, colour control has become an important part of product development and production control across many industries.

Case Studies - Applications of Colour Standards in Industry

Colour control is used in applications throughout a vast range of industries.

Dental Materials
Colour Standards were used in the development of an accurate colour control system for assessing the colour of dental resins during the manufacture of teeth and fillings.

Road Safety
Colour limits are imposed on the suppliers of the thermoplastic coatings used in the manufacture of road marking paint. Our customer used colour standards to ensure that the white and yellow paint produced was within these colour limits.

Ceramics
A series of standard colours was needed for the producers of various items of ware in bathrooms, to coordinate the glazes and acrylics used. Many manufacturers worked together to develop a range of popular colours which helped to reduce unnecessary competition and duplication of similar colours between manufacturers.

Textiles
Colour is a vital component of textile manufacture, where fashions lead to changes in colour from season to season. Efficient quality control is achieved using instrumentation which is monitored using Colour Standards. Specific standards have been developed for the wool production industry, where it is important to determine the cleanliness of raw wool, as this helps to determine its value.

Food
Colour is a regarded as a primary process monitoring control tool in this sector as food quality is often based on colour. Several case studies can be used to illustrate where colour standards have been used, from the measurement of shades of biscuits and bread where the final baked colour has to appeal to the consumer, to the roasting of cereal for brewing, where the colour and flavour of the final stout is crucial. Regular instrument checks are performed using colour standards in the manufacture of tomato paste. The tomato index is also used to measure the colour quality of tomato paste in the manufacture of tomato ketchup, soup and puree, where the aesthetic appearance of the product has to be precise to appeal to the consumer.

Standards for Currency
Most people do not realise that the colour of their money is controlled within tight tolerances, to avoid confusion between the various denominations of notes. As you can imagine any errors in colour could result in massive financial penalties.
A special use for the CERAM Colour Standards has been their use in the measurement of colour during the printing of Euros.
The specification for the colours used in printing this currency was standardised throughout Europe, so that wherever it was produced the colours would be visually consistent.
To help in this requirement CERAM Colour Laboratory produced a special set of standards from their range of colours, which were shaped and sized to fit a particular part of the instrumentation.
The project was successfully completed and the standards introduced in to the production line.

Pharmaceutical
Customers from the pharmaceutical sector use colour instrumental control to monitor the colour change of powders in storage and for diagnostic determination.
For example, where the test strips used in urinalysis need to be measured for colour change CERAM has provided ceramic calibration strips for the instruments used.

Accurate measurement is vital for consistency of product, to improve efficiency and to reduce production costs - CERAM Colour Standards provide a reliable and stable reference.