Siegwerk, one of the leading global providers of printing inks and coatings for packaging applications and labels, recently entered into a partnership with Idealliance, a transformational industry association providing global standardization, training, and certification programs for the printing and packaging supply chain. Within this collaboration, the two partners will co-host ‘G7 Expert Live Online Training & Certification’ courses enabling Siegwerk to directly train its customers in Idealliance’s universal calibration methodology for achieving visual similarity across all print processes.

“Visual color consistency across all marketing media of a brand – whether online or print – is key for a successful brand recognition,” explains Kiran Deshpande, global senior expert color management at Siegwerk. Thereby, the control of consistent color shades across several media channels confronts print service providers with a variety of challenges based on different printing types, substrates, process issues and corresponding varying ink requirements.

“Here, a uniform color management process based on the G7 methodology offers brand owners a proven concept to ensure an effective quality management even throughout a complex print supply chain,” adds Deshpande. Under the new partnership, Siegwerk’s certified G7 Experts will now help qualify leading providers of print, creative, and prepress services in the G7 methodology by offering G7 Master Qualifications through Idealliance its customers worldwide.

The G7 methodology is Idealliance’s global industry-leading set of specifications for CMYK printing to ensure a common visual appearance in all printed elements across multiple devices and facilities. Thereby, G7 is not a color management system; it rather is a universal calibration methodology that can be used to adjust any press or printing system to a common neutral appearance, regardless of inks, substrate, or printing technology. As calibration methodology for CMYK printing processes, G7 allows implementing ISO printing standards and additional metrics while ensuring color consistency from proof to print for similar appearance of reprints regardless of printing specifications and materials used. It works across multiple presses, plants and locations significantly increasing consistency and efficiency in print quality offering all substantial benefits of a uniform and predictable color management process – lower operational costs throughout the supply chain by reduced ICC profiling and re-profiling demand, reduced make-ready or press set-up times, and subsequently a reduced time-to-market for the variety of printed deliverables within a marketing campaign.

“Brand owners care about print quality more than ever before and are asking print partners to utilize standards to achieve visual brand continuity across entire global packaging supply chains,” said Mike Grady, vice president of global partnerships at Idealliance. “G7 Experts and the team at Siegwerk play a critical role helping print suppliers simplify workflow processes, save time and meet the needs of global print quality programs through G7 Master Qualification.” Going forward, Siegwerk will offer two sets of Idealliance G7 Certification programs targeting individuals and manufacturing plants – both applied to all ink series from Siegwerk’s business units, including flexible packaging, sheetfed and narrow web.

Siegwerk aims to support standards-based color management to enable customers to deliver reliably high-impact printed packaging for optimal cost ratio. Here, the G7 method serves as a foundation for precise color management. “Being able now to offer our customers the Idealliance’s training programs, supported by Siegwerk’s own certified G7 Experts is a key milestone for us to widen further our global color management strategy called COLORWERK,” explains Deshpande. COLORWERK is one of the company’s Process Management and Consulting services with which Siegwerk supports customers in increasing transparency, improving productivity, and realizing cost savings to secure their long-term sustainable company development.