Inline Versus Offline Inspection

“Inline is on press—that’s for quality control in the printing process. Offline is for security. So after it’s printed, the offline examines every label after it’s printed,” says Kevin Gourlay, sales manager, Rotoflex. “Principally, when you’re running the press, you can’t stop the press. When it [inspection system] triggers, and you see it’s off, you mark it—electronically, automatically, or by hand. So it makes the operator aware that it’s out of register, so he pays attention to it; or something’s not right, so he looks at it. So you hope you reduce the amount of waste by him being more attentive.”