As technology improves, manufacturers are managing the color process through digital sampling.
Designers often are caught between market demands for products with more dynamic and individualized colors and a production budget that will not allow for unlimited prototyping. Once a color target has been identified, the frustration does not end. Component manufacturers spend valuable time looking for physical samples, trying to describe how close the colorant supplier has come to matching the design color. Colorant suppliers bear the cost of making proofs and express-shipping them to the component manufacturer. OEMs have to wait extended days or weeks during this "trial-and-error" process, often rejecting the first shipment as off-color.