The aim is to enhance the reliability, safety and predictability of the associated consumables.
The two companies have signed a letter of intent to draft, define and introduce universally applicable public standards in the form of certification and accreditation for UV and hybrid inks, at the Fogra User Forum in Munich this month.
They will also introduce universally applicable public standards in the form of certification for press-compliant printing aids and consumables and provide applicable public proofing forms and norms for UV and hybrid inks.
Jürgen Veil, KBA’s sheetfed marketing manager, and Jens Arne Knöbl, head of product management applications at Heidelberg, have been working together on this initiative for the past eighteen months.
With print finishing becoming ever more sophisticated and the choice of consumables ever more bewildering, KBA and Heidelberg believe they have a joint responsibility to their UV and hybrid customers to introduce greater transparency.
This includes standards of approval and the certification of suitable consumables to safeguard process reliability and safety. Veil and Knöbl are appealing to consumables manufacturers to join the initiative and register with Fogra, the impartial body that will conduct the tests on behalf of KBA and Heidelberg.
The joint status evaluation with Fogra will include an ink series that complies with norms ISO 2846-1 and ISO 12647-2, fount solutions with non-critical properties within dampening tolerances, the development of suitable test forms, UV-resistant, process-compatible blankets and UV-resistant, process-compatible roller materials.
