Axalta announced it has sold its 60,000 spectrophotometer, with 10,000 sold in the past 15 months. The rapid increase in recent sales is attributed mainly to a strong global digitization trend. These increasingly popular handheld digital tools are an accurate and fast way of color matching that boosts the efficiency of body shops, according to the company.
“Adopting a digital approach to color matching and retrieval is a global trend that started 25 years ago when Axalta was one of the first coatings companies to offer a digital device and software to refinish customers,” said Martin Wulf, Axalta’s color and technical manager for refinish systems in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “Today, we encourage all of our users to future-proof themselves and optimize their efficiency by moving to digital color measurement.”
Using the latest-generation spectrophotometer and cloud-based color software is easy. Refinishers simply take the color readings from a vehicle’s paintwork using the spectrophotometer, which then wirelessly sends the readings to Axalta’s online global color database. The color matching software searches more than 200,000 constantly-updated formulas and, where necessary, automatically adjusts the closest formula to provide refinishers with the best possible match. This can then be selected on a smartphone or a tablet and sent via WIFI to an IP scale for mixing the color formula. The whole process is more accurate, more efficient and more profitable.
“The future is now,” said Wulf. “The spectrophotometer is clearly a valuable part of modern refinish work. We expect to see continued and significant growth globally as body shops adopt a completely digital way of working. For customers who are looking at going digital, we will support and help them make a seamless transition to a fully digital color management process.”
For more information on Axalta Refinish and Axalta’s digital journey, visit axalta.com/eu/colour-management.
