It’s an incredibly proud moment for all of us here at Rheonics to announce that the Rheonics’ products and technology has been selected by the jury as a finalist for the prestigious 2021 Swiss Product Excellence Award in SME category. 

Swiss Product Excellence Awards highlight innovative, technically advanced, and high-quality products that have a high value creation potential and are ready for the market. Swiss Excellence Foundation assists Swiss startups, including most prominent Swiss SMEs. According to the Federal Statistical Office, SMEs represent more than 90% of Swiss companies and contribute significantly to the competitiveness and innovation of Switzerland, which is ranked first in the world. Swiss Excellence Foundation supports SMEs, which develop marketable and innovative technology that can be scaled up globally by partnering with diverse industry experts. The main criteria for the Award are uniqueness, innovation and sustainability, market potential and success in commercial business development.

Zurich, August 20, 2021. The finalists for the Swiss Excellence Product Award 2021 – three in the startups category and three in the SME category – have been chosen. All products in the final impressively demonstrate the innovative strength of Swiss startups and SMEs. The award will be presented on September 16, 2021 in Technopark Winterthur.
A good number of companies applied with their products for this year’s award. In the past few months, the jury has visited the shortlisted candidates. At the last jury meeting in early July, the applications for the Swiss Excellence Product Award 2021 were discussed intensively and three finalists were determined for each category. The innovation content, the added value potential as well as the quality of the business model and the marketing concept were assessed.

The finalists in the SME category are: AOT – laser technology for bone surgery, QUMEA – digital support for patient care and RHEONICS – integrable sensors for the automatic measurement of viscosity and density.

The Swiss Excellence Product Award will be presented on September 16, 2021 in Technopark Winterthur. The winners may apply the “Swiss Excellence Product Award” label to the award winning products and advertise them. The winner of the SME Award will receive a place in the new course for SME specialists and executives “Effective SME Management” of the exclusive training partner Rochester-Bern Executive Program.

– Press Release by Swiss Excellence Foundation | Schanzackerstrasse 20 | 8006 Zurich |

Online Press Release

Product Description: InkSight

One of the most important determinants of high-quality printing is complete control of the ink viscosity. Poorly adjusted ink viscosity causes deterioration in print quality, excessive ink consumption and high rejects. Manually optimizing ink viscosity is time-consuming and often inaccurate, even for experienced press operators. Rheonics InkSight™ is a highly accurate multi-station ink viscosity control system. It consists of three subsystems, a viscosity sensor, a predictive tracking controller, and a powerful, intuitive graphical user interface. It delivers color excellence through tight automatic viscosity control. Rheonics InkSight Predictive Tracking Controller and SRV viscometers enable tight viscosity control throughout the print job, due to the system’s ability to autonomously maintain viscosity within extremely narrow limits. Printers can achieve unmatched color accuracy and quality with the InkSight system and ColorLock™ software –which is designed in collaboration with printers, for printers. Viscosity automation and predictive tracking control with InkSight reduces waste and materials consumption, as it increases efficiency and improves quality.

Innovation

Despite the highly sophisticated quality control and automation systems available on the current generation of printing machines, ink viscosity is still frequently measured with inexact and cumbersome methods, such as efflux cups and falling ball viscometers.
Continuous viscosity control with such methods is extremely inefficient and unproductive since they are not compatible with integrated solution such as the RPS InkSight for complete automation. Many common viscosity measuring devices do not provide fine enough viscosity control and require high maintenance and frequent calibration. Rheonics RPS InkSight Predictive Tracking Controller and SRV viscometers enable tight viscosity control throughout the print job, due to the the system’s ability to autonomously maintain viscosity within extremely narrow limits. Printers can achieve unmatched color accuracy and quality with the RPS InkSight system and ColorLock software – which is designed in collaboration with printers, for printers. Instead of focusing on only coarse viscosity control to pick the ink and deposit on the substrate, our breakthrough has been the fine control that gives a tight control of color throughout the print run. This has never been achieved before with other ink viscosity control systems.
Recently, we won the prestigious FTA Technical Innovation Awards 2021 for the RPS InkSight. Over the last two decades, FTA has recognized and celebrated disruptive, groundbreaking and innovative technologies impacting the package printing and the incredible achievements made by individuals and companies, large and small, which have contributed to the growth of the industry. InkSight and underlying technology is protected by granted and pending patents and trademarks.

• Rheonics SRV viscosity technology makes use of an ultra-stable torsionally balanced mechanical resonator (US patent 9,267,872 and worldwide filings) whose oscillations are damped by the viscosity of the ink.
• Further protected by US patent 10,602,670 and worldwide filings: Temperature compensated density viscosity sensor having a resonant sensing element
• Recently granted US patent 10,871,432 covering tubular sensors for inline measurement of the properties of a fluid
With over 20 patents protecting the sensors and solutions, we are well placed to protect our markets globally.

Uniqueness of the product

The Rheonics SRV inline viscometer protected by multiple Rheonics patents is one of the most commercially successful process viscometers on the market. It is deployed in industrial applications such as food processing, oil and gas, automotive, pharmaceutical, chemical and printing industries in more than 200 customer locations globally. Its unparalleled accuracy, stability and robustness provide process fluid data for optimization of industrial processes, thereby supporting data-driven decision making systems.
The new Rheonics InkSight system builds on our established product line by offering a complete ecosystem to ensure 100% viscosity control and automation within the printing press. The operators just punch a single button on the central console and the printing process runs automatically eliminating the need for operator vigilance and intervention. SRV sensors began to attract the attention of people in the printing industry who saw the potential of the accuracy, reliability and robustness of our sensors, and believed that the industry was ready to take a step in the direction of accurate, and completely automatic viscosity control.
But that step required our transition from a sensor manufacturer to a solution provider. And as we started down that path, press manufacturers and operators shared with us their vision of how tight, reliable viscosity control could unlock the potential of their technically sophisticated high-speed, automated flexographic machines to reach a new level of color reproducibility and beginning-to-end job accuracy. Their vision encouraged us to make a leap of faith to invest time and resource in developing a family of hardware and software solutions that became the InkSight system. Variants of this product family can be deployed in multiple other industries – mixing & grinding, blending, automotive and battery coating – where the process fluid viscosity should be controlled within set limits throughout.
Key competitive advantages of the RPS InkSight system, built around the SRV sensor are: ability to achieve tight color accuracy and control, ease of use and low footprint, temperature compensation algorithms, system responsiveness, control stability, intuitive reporting tools and no need to re-calibrate the sensors. The SRV viscometer– the eyes and ears of the RPS InkSight system – is a technically superior sensor that works with all types of inks. It is at least 10times more accurate than competing systems, has a very compact form factor, is certified intrinsically safe for use in explosive atmospheres, and does not require any cleaning or recalibration.

Industry Impact

Packaging and printing are interlinked in a large and fast-growing market. According to Smithers, the global value of flexographic printing will rise from $167.7 billion in 2020 to $181.1 billion in 2025. Worldwide, packaging and printing is a $350 billion market. In the coming 5-10 years, the majority of growth is expected from the dynamic packaging print sector, where new automation and hybrid press lines are needed to give flexographers more agility and ability to undertake higher value print jobs. The adoption of more sustainable printing solutions, led by water-based ink sets, and LED UV curing is expected.
Rheonics InkSight automatic ink viscosity & color control system delivers on each of these requirements and can revolutionize the flexo printing industry’s future in following ways: high print quality with all ink types, profitable short-run jobs by reducing setup times and wastes, digitalization of press, 40% reduction in VOC (volatile organic compounds) emissions, and improved operator safety.
We expect high adoption of InkSight, and a CAGR of at least 40-50 % based on: multiple key global customers in our pipeline, expansion of our global partner networks for support and sales, increased focus on industry 4.0 in printing and packaging, sensitivity to environmental norms, and significant regulatory pressure to reduce VOCs and HAPs emissions.

All Rheonics products are designed to withstand harshest process environments, high temperature, high level of shock, vibrations, abrasives & chemicals.