Techkon USA Receives 2025 FTA Technical Innovation Award for Its Inline Scanning Technology

Techkon USA celebrates its win at the 2025 FTA FORUM INFOFLEX. | Credit: FTA

TECHKON USA has received the prestigious FTA Technical Innovation Award 2025 for its inline color measurement system SpectroVision. The Techkon SpectroVision is an inline mounted spectrophotometer capable of measurements at full production speeds and includes three devices in one: a full 31-point spectrophotometer capable of taking 3000 spectral color measurements per second, a web viewer/inspection camera, and a bar code grader, at a fraction of the cost of competing systems. This marks the second Innovation award received by Techkon USA in a row.

The award was presented on Sunday, May 4, during the Awards Banquet ceremony at FORUM & INFOFLEX 2025, FTA’s annual four-day technical conference and exhibition.

George Adam, President at Techkon USA, received the award on behalf of the entire Techkon team:

We are honored to receive the FTA Technical Innovation Award again this year, our second award in a row. All of us here at Techkon USA are working hard every day to make color management for flexographic printers, and their customers - the brands -, as easy and painless as possible. The SpectroVision inline system, with the invention of our award-winning SmartInk technology, is the culmination of many years of work, and is a breakthrough towards nearly fully automated color control for flexographic printers, both during make ready and throughout production.

What is the technical achievement?
The company states:

After years of engineering and refining, Techkon’s SpectroVision is the technological breakthrough capable of automating color measurements on flexographic and web presses at an affordable cost.

Technical capabilities

• Spectral color measurements fast enough for full speed production runs
• Precise color measurements of the full color bar, including tints and solids, every few impressions, and can measure across the entire web width, including in-image locations
• Providing nearly Closed Loop experience with SmartInk ink toning technology
• Predictive alerts when color begins to drift during the run
• Seamless data collection, sharing, reporting & analytics in the Cloud for every run and every impression in 2 seconds

The SpectroVision combines the capabilities of three critical devices in one (at 1/3 of the cost):

• Web inspection / web viewer
• ISO/ANSI style bar code grader (built into the web viewer)
• High-speed Inline spectrophotometer that captures ISO 13655 compliant (M0, M1, and M2 measurement conditions), full 31-point spectral data at sampling speeds of 3,000 measurements per second; when paired with its smart color bar detection algorithms, the SpectroVision is capable of scanning an entire colorbar (up to 100 color patches in length) in a single printed impression and at any press speed.

What benefits does the SpectroVision Inline Color Measurement system provide?

• Never before has an automated inline color quality system been available in the marketplace with such a rich feature set, low price point and easy ROI from shortened make-readies, reduced waste, and elimination of job remakes due to color bar problems that were discovered after the roll came off the press.
• SpectroVision is easy to use. Press operators do not require a high degree of knowledge regarding spectrophotometers, computers, or even color matching.
• SpectroVision automates the color measurement process and eliminates all of the press starts and stops associated with offline color measurements, significantly reducing wasted ink and substrate, and allowing more jobs to be run on press throughout the day
• SpectroVision eliminates the guesswork and provides press operators with clear and actionable feedback regarding color and press adjustments to achieve the required color specifications for the job.
• Automation ensures that color measurements occur regularly throughout the entire press run and eliminates the measurement burden for the operator
• SpectroVision has the ability to provide many more color measurements during the press run which allows for tighter color tolerance to be achieved
• The integrated award-winning AI-driven SmartInk technology provides precise ink recipe adjustments if an ink is off-shade

Customer testimonial

Kent Gundlach, President of Victor Envelope Company:

It’s simple to make a lot of bad envelopes. A lot can go wrong in trying to maintain good color throughout the run. When you run multiple shifts, you want to make sure that the color is being maintained from morning to night, back to that next day. The Techkon SpectroVision gives us the opportunity to measure and also record information on color throughout the day to maintain good color.

Source: Techkon USA

The preceding press release was provided by a company unaffiliated with Packaging Impressions. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Packaging Impressions.