Closed Loop Color control

In October 1990, Graphics Microsystems, Inc (GMI, in Sunnyvale, California) acquired Cosar Corporation. In the next few years, we developed a unique closed loop technology which allowed the AutoSmart® measurement system to provide real-time feedback to a learning system which controlled ink flow in a printing press. This tool allowed the printing press production color appearance to be adjusted to customer’s density targets, so the printing press operators did not have to make manual ink flow adjustments to adjust appearance.  This ‘closed loop’ system automated the printing press color adjustments. It allowed the printing press to continue to operate without stopping to adjust ink flow so that color appearance was maintained from the start to finish of the printing production. 

This tool reduced the number of waste copies during startup of the printing press production cycle. It reduced waste from thousands of copies to a few hundred copies; saving paper, ink, and press time.

The learning system was sold to control several ink control systems worldwide and many types of printing press systems. The AutoSmart software development was ported to Microsoft C language in 1992, with the help of another software developer. At the start of 1994, there were 6 different types of printing industries that AutoSmart controlled print production, this software product required over 400K lines of C language code. It was translated to 12 languages. 

Almost 400 CLC AutoSmart systems were sold in 15 years globally, to High quality commercial printing, carton packaging, newspaper, magazine, labels, and currency/security printing.

This same tool was developed for the high speed, high volume press lines which use the ColorQuick / Clarios color measurement system in 1996. Without this tool, it is easy to generate thousands of waste copies in a few minutes. Over 1000 ColorQuick systems sold to date, many are still being used to control press production globally.

Press crews around the world depend on this tool to help reduce waste during their press production.

Mark improved this tool by spending time at customer sites in 1996 - 2003, improving the measurement accuracy of many press types and created/tested many improvements to find the colorbar on the customer's printed production quickly, over the course of fewer and fewer printed copies.   

CLC option costs $10,000 to $50,000