Merck announced the commissioning of its first fully automated unit for the digital colour measurement of its pigment products.
Merck commissioned its first fully automated unit for the digital colour measurement of its pigment products. The unit was commissioned in Gernsheim, Germany, the company’s largest pigments production site, where about 560 people work.
“We have invested tremendously in recent years to expand our pigment production capacities,” said Jeff White, Head of the Surface Solutions business unit within the Electronics business sector of Merck. “In September 2021, a second production line for effect pigments based on silicon dioxide was launched in Gernsheim – an investment of nearly € 28 million. We are now increasingly investing in automating and digitalizing our production processes. The investment of nearly € 10 million in a unit for the automated and digital colour measurement is only one example of how we are further advancing the digitalization of our production processes within Surface Solutions.”
With this investment, Merck aims at improving the colour reliability of its pigment products. To date, quality control of colour pigments has mainly been manual and was highly dependent on the perception of the human eye. With the new, fully automated process, Merck will measure the colour values digitally and thus generate extremely reliable colour measurement values that can be validated by customers. This will also improve reproducibility of the pigments and, consequently, consistently high product quality worldwide.
Following Gernsheim, colour measurement units are to be introduced in the coming months at additional Merck pigment production sites in Onahama (Japan) and Savannah, Georgia (USA). This falls within the company’s goal of advancing the quality of products and processes through automation and digitalization.