Schattdecor upgrades with innovative inspection and web monitoring systems from BST

Published: January 26, 2023

Schattdecor, a family-owned international manufacturer of surface decors, has responded to the increased quality demands of global markets by upgrading its printing machines with latest-generation BST inspection and web monitoring systems.

A pilot system tailored to the conditions of gravure printing proved so successful that the company decided to acquire 12 iPQ-Check inspection systems and 12 iPQ-View web monitoring systems from BST. Eight of each of these systems have been integrated at locations in Germany.

Schattdecor, based in the town of Thansau in Bavaria, is a leader in the global market for decor printing, and its modern surface decors have become quite popular. These surfaces, which are produced with gravure-rotary and digital printing techniques, are used on furniture and for laminate floors. Increasingly, they are also playing an important role in travel trailer interiors and in public spaces.

Schattdecor has been working successfully with BST for many years. In response to increased demands in gravure printing, the company began looking for a solution that can be used to show decors at full width and with a particularly high accuracy on screen.

Anomalies in the decor are automatically reported by the BST system iPQ-Check and displayed at high resolution by iPQ-View. iPQ-Check and iPQ-View are the base modules of the versatile iPQ-Center. Various additional features are available as options, such as extra cameras and displays, or special illumination modes.

Both iPQ-Check and iPQ-View are integrated into a unified and intuitive multi-touchscreen in the iPQ-Center, which offers prominent and easy-to-read notifications of any faults that occur. Every defect is documented with the first and last defect image, as well as the image of the worst defect. This allows fast and informed decisions to prevent waste.

Before the new systems were put into service at Schattdecor, they had to be adapted to the conditions in gravure printing. The new iPQ-Check inspection system had never been used in decor printing before. As part of the test phase, the system was adjusted so that it can now detect defects even in wood decors with branch structures and shifting grain patterns.

Schattdecor has been using systems from BST/Eltromat for more than 20 years. These include web monitoring systems of various generations as well as register control systems. The 100 percent inspection system iPQ-Check now forms a valuable addition to that equipment.