FIRST Methodology Takes a ‘By the Numbers’ Approach

The FIRST methodology can enable users to achieve accurate, consistent, repeatable color from process to process and from job to job.

FIRST proceeds from the assumption that most often, what leads to defects and unanticipated costly rework is a fundamental disconnect between customer expectations (specifications) and the capabilities of a given process. So, the primary function of FIRST is to help companies establish realistic customer specifications by quantifying and documenting the capabilities of the process, and then using the accumulated data in a disciplined way to achieve the specified result.

By the numbers

According to Madigan, the need for FIRST proceeds from the lack of integrated reading and measurement devices (as in offset) that enable operators to push a button and automatically take a reading.

"In flexo, we have to hand-read everything throughout our process in order to control it," says Madigan. "There are some tools that enable you to double-check your work, but they're hand-held by people who actually go in and look at the job. In the plateroom, for example, you have to purposely put a test pattern where you want it to be, take your readings by hand, and document them by hand. It's the same in the graphics area. The software helps, but you actually have to manually highlight your cyan, magenta, yellow, and black and write it down."

Once the company decided to proceed with FIRST, it felt it was critically important for every employee to acknowledge that "color is really what we're selling," and worked to persuade all its employees, whether they worked in customer service, sales, prepress, or production—even shipping—that they had a part to play in establishing and maintaining a color-managed system.

It works

The term "methodology" refers to controlling a given process in a certain way. This certainly goes for the FIRST specification. What FIRST does not explain, according to Madigan, "is how to control the process." Instead, "It's up to you how you want to control it," she explains. "FIRST leaves things open so that the process can easily 'fit' a variety of different types of flexo printing." Accordingly, Madigan explains, the latest edition of the specification, FIRST 4.0, released last year, does not prescribe ink densities, but rather suggests a range of densities based on the combination of plates, press, substrates, inks, etc. particular to the job. "FIRST 4.0 says that when you run a fingerprint, you want to set your yellow somewhere between 0.99 and 1.04, for example, and your black between 1.5 and 1.7," Madigan says. "For cyan and magenta, the specification says the only thing that's important is that the cyan be 0.10 higher than magenta. And they leave it like that—a window to squeeze into, rather than a single number to hit."

At Smyth Companies, Madigan asserts, the process has evolved naturally because people were able to see and experience the results first hand. "Prepress didn't have to remake plates once they could prove they'd given us a good one. Operators didn't have to change aniloxes once we knew they'd hit their numbers," she says. "FIRST is a credible system because it works." pP

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• COLOR/QUALITY CONTROL
• FLEXO PRINTING