Here are the reasons visual color assessment fails in an Organization.
Visual inspection has proven to be an important weapon in the quality assurance arsenal of numerous brands. Generally, the quality control will check for any damage on the manufactured products, missing components and color consistency.
While defects can be sorted easily, pointing out color related issues is harder due to many factors that need to consider prior to the assessment. This is due to visual color assessment is very subjective and heavily relies on the environment lighting, and correct processes put in place to minimize error.
Reason #1
Firstly, the quality inspector needs to be assessed and qualified to perform a proper visual color assessment. He/she, need to be ensured are not color blind and able to differentiate between many shades, chroma and hue. Research has shown that males are more prone to be color blind compared to females. If the company did not qualify the color inspectors, there will be production down issue due to color sooner or later.
Reason #2
Secondly, a correct visual color assessment relies heavily on the light source used in the quality inspection table or room. Most factories will use standard fluorescent or LED lighting tubes in the manufacturing floor. Often, the light source is not standardized across the production floor and importance is given only to the level of brightness. It is known the different light source produces different color perception to the user. It is even more challenging when the production floor mix and match between different light tubes that varies from manufacturer, color temperature and brightness. A simple way to eradicate this problem would be by using a light booth which has standard light source which produces accurate illuminance in a controlled space.
Reason #3
Thirdly, many organizations also fail to consider the human factor when comes to visual color assessment. Eye fatigue is a common problem across many quality control inspectors due to long exposure of bright lights focusing on assessed samples. Often, eyes need to be rested between 45 minutes to 1 hour and recover from the fatigues. However, in actual manufacturing environment, this is hardly practice especially when there is a high volume of products need to be assessed.
Reason #4
Another factor is the different color perception for different people. Due to age, gender, experience, usage of glasses and tinted lenses; everyone perceive color in a different way. Even though it makes us individually unique; in a manufacturing process where uniformity is needed, it would be huge challenge. The color disputes will occur frequently when there are many shades of color and many color change over in a day.
Reason #5
Finally, the major reason why we cannot solely on visual color inspection is due to improper process developed to support the quality assurance inspector. Even though many organizations use visual inspection, they themselves are not well equipped with right knowledge on how to implement a proper visual inspection process. Usually, it will take additional cost to bring in trainers to develop a proper system and many companies will skip this step to save on cost. In short term it may save some money but in long run, it will cost more due to loss and high rejection rate especially if the end customers are very critical on the color of manufactured products.
What are the Suitable Tools to Perform Visual Color Assessment?
A beginner way to conduct a proper visual color assessment is using a standard lighting color viewing systems. The light booth can simulate many types of illuminant and the end user can assess how a color is perceived under different light source and determine if metamerism issue occurs. Besides that, as the light booth is a controlled environment, the ambient light does not affect much of the perceived color of any objects, eliminating interferences.
Another good way to substantiate the visual assessment is by using colorimeter and spectrophotometer. These instruments provide accurate color readings, or pass/fail judgement without being influenced by factors such as fatigue, human factor, or any other variables. These instruments assist the quality assurance inspector to make a proper judgement and reduce the rate of rejection due to misjudgement. Most of these color measurement instruments are easy to use and does not need advanced technical knowledge to operate the instrument.
Whatever methods is used, the organization must realise first the objective of visual color assessment within their organization and implement proper steps and processes which will help their quality inspectors to provide the best judgement and minimize losses due to wrong assessment of color.
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