X-Rite IntelliTrax

Fast and accurate, this colour scaning system has made life a whole lot easier for New Jack’s chief executive Saubhagyanidhi Seksaria.

09 May 2013 | By PrintWeek India

What does the machine do?
Intellitrax is used for online quality monitoring on the printing machine. It reads the colour strip of any printed sheet in matters of seconds and helps in ink setting and control in terms of solid ink density, dot gains, gray balance and trapping.

Why did you choose this particular machine?
We chose this machine because it offered accurate ink-settings, enabled faster makereadies and quick quality monitoring while in production. 
 
Did you look at any other similar machine?
No. Since X-Rite-Gretag-Macbeth are the industry leaders in quality monitoring equipment, we went with them.
 
Why did you make the purchase?
We always felt we were spending lot of time in reading colour strips with manual densitometer which lead to higher makeready time and needed a machine that made our makereadies faster and accurate. IntelliTrax does just that. It keeps checking production sheets on the run.
 
What features do you particularly like?
I like the touch-screen display and setting possibility in their software, which is very user-friendly
 
Is there anything that you dislike?
To read the colour strip effectively you need to have some white paper all around it. At times you can’t use the equipment effectively due to cut-to-cut job planning.
 
Is there anything that you wish it had that it doesn’t?
Some additional reports would have been welcome.
 
How fast is it?
Very fast. In few seconds you can analyse of the entire sheet.
 
How reliable is it?
It is very reliable.
 
How easy is it to use?
Very easy. You can be trained to use it effectively in a day.
 
How much time or money has it saved?
Ink setting time has reduced at least 20 minutes per make-ready and material wastage has has increased profitability.
 
Has it won you any new work?
Yes, we have won lot of new work due to the linearisation, process calibration work done on pre-press and standardisation of our pressroom chemistry. Intellitrax has played its role effectively in help us monitor two of the printint variables – solid ink density and dot gain.
 
Would you say that it offers value for money?
Yes it has for us, though we wish it could have been a bit cheaper. But for that we have had to walk the path of press profiling to extract maximum benefit from IntelliTrax.
 
Where there any difficulties experienced during the installation or after?
No – it all went very smoothly.
 
What about the pre and after sales service?
Advanced Graphics Systems have provided good service.
 
Who do you thing the machine is right for?
Every quality conscious printer needs to have one, provided the pre-press is inhouse, walks the path of press profiling and is conscious of pressroom chemistry. 
 
Under what circumstances would you buy another?
We have in on our five-colour and four-colour Heidelberg presses. So when we buy our next press, we will surely consider buying an IntelliTrax machine. 

Conclusion
 
User’s verdict
Speed  4/5
Quality 4/5
Reliability  4/5
Value for mone 3/5