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Coats knows colour

How to harmonise colour management across your supply chain

  • May 2018

As anyone working in the textile industry knows, colour plays a crucial role in a product’s success. From designer clothing to home furnishings, the latest trends can be defined as much by colour as by brand or product material.

This means that measuring and matching colours accurately is critically important. However, it is also incredibly challenging due to human subjectivity.

While measuring and matching colours accurately is critically important for the textile industry, it is also incredibly challenging:

  • The human eye can distinguish over 10 million different colours, but we lack the vocabulary to describe each of them
  • People can see the same colour differently depending on how many light sensitive cells we have in our eyes and how long we stare at something
  • Different light sources and viewing angles can alter the appearance of colour – what looks like a perfect match in bright sunlight can look very different under artificial light

Colour management considerations

When evaluating colour, there are a number of issues to consider. These include:

  • Matching new colour trends to complementary shades
  • Consistent reproduction
  • Accuracy when using different processes and manufacturing locations
  • Consistency in multiple supplier sources

But above all, the ability to move at speed is key. In order to be globally competitive, companies must shorten lead times, develop effective cost management practices and exceed quality, productivity and sustainability demands. This is especially true when it comes to maintaining colour standards.

Coats knows colour

Coats has been synonymous with ground-breaking colour expertise dating back over 250 years, with key breakthroughs made in the last 40 years. We pioneered the visual assessment of colour, from dye-houses to digital delivery, after developing our unique colour management formula which is now the international standard for the textile industry.

With over 700,000 thread samples delivered worldwide annually, Coats knows colour. Each of our 40+ colour labs across the globe is equipped with modern machinery for dye and chemical preparation, and connects through a sophisticated system that transmits colour data electronically.

We also offer a full suite of colour management solutions that enable customers to shorten lead times, reduce costs, improve quality, increase sales and minimise environmental impacts. Our colour and supply chain experts can advise companies on how to improve colour management performance as well as put processes into place to ensure a perfect colour match every time.
Colour management is an exact science, and getting it right saves both time and money for everyone in the supply chain.

Find out more about our colour expertise