High-tech and traditional printing

The continuous development of high technology such as computer technology, optical fiber communication technology, network technology, digital technology, and microelectronic technology is changing people's lives. The application of these high and new technologies in printing and printing equipment is constantly changing or even fundamentally changing the appearance of printing technology and printing equipment, so that the printing industry is undergoing many and rapid changes. The continuous development of economic globalization and market economy, coupled with the fact that China’s total printing volume, especially the supply of middle and low-end printing capabilities, is exceeding demand, which has led to increasingly fierce competition in the printing market. Under such circumstances, how to correctly understand and handle printing? The relationship between technology and traditional printing technology, how to adjust the direction of development according to the actual situation of their own companies in the dazzlingly large-scale world, step-by-step, timely and timely use of high-tech or advanced and practical technologies suitable for their own companies, The transformation of traditional printing techniques is very important.
1. Development Trends and Changes in Printing and Equipment Despite the wide variety of printing trends, new technologies, and new equipment currently being promoted, the following are the main reasons:
1) Development trends and changes in the printing market. Due to the development of economic globalization, the same products are no longer confined to a certain country or region, but are produced in many countries or regions. This requires that the printing needs of its services are multi-regional and diversified. And international development. If the same product is produced in the United States, its packaging is designed according to the American custom and the text is in English. In China, the packaging may be designed according to China's custom. Even if the packaging design is unchanged, at least the text should be changed from English to Chinese. . If China's products are sold both in China and in the United States, then there are two types of packaging that China needs to print. Due to the development of digital technology and network technology, the demand for this kind of printing market to multiple regions, diversification, and internationalization has become possible. Therefore, products and services are no longer confined to the region, country, but to the world. Therefore, the development trend of the printing market is: gradually break the regional characteristics, and develop towards the internationalization of multiple regions, diversification, and multinationals. Prints from other countries can enter China, and prints from China can, of course, be exported to other countries. We should take positive measures to make export expansion one of our development strategies. According to the statistics of the US Department of Commerce, in the year 2000, the United States exported 23 million U.S. dollars worth of commercial offset prints to China. In the same year, China exported 47 million U.S. dollars worth of ordinary commercial offset prints to the United States. In 2000, China exported books to the United States of US$221 million, a substantial increase from previous years.
2) Development trends and changes in printed matters. Due to the globalization of the economy, the exchange and development of various cultures, and because of the economic development, the improvement of people’s material and cultural needs and the development of multiple levels, diversification, and individualization of demand will inevitably push prints to become diversified and diverse. Personalization and instant development. Therefore, the development trend of printed materials is: multicolor, multi-species, and small-batch. The requirements for printing are: high efficiency, high quality, short cycle, and low cost.
3) Development trends and changes in electronic media and traditional media. The rapid development of digital and network technologies has affected and changed the pattern of printing to some extent. Electronic publishing, represented by multimedia publishing, will expand the new printing field and occupy part of the traditional media market. Electronic media will develop faster than traditional media. According to analysis and prediction by RIT Rochester Institute of Technology in the United States, electronic media will surpass print media by 2010, print will be reduced to 35% in 2020, and electronic media will rise to 65% (see (2003) Annual Report of China Printing Industry). It must be pointed out, however, that electronic media and traditional media are not only competitive in all fields of printing, but also complement each other and promote one another. Each of them is prioritized to develop in their most suitable area. The proportion of traditional printing in the overall printing will gradually decline, but its total printing volume will continue to grow. Especially in China, traditional printing will dominate for a long time. It must also be pointed out that only the combination of electronic media and traditional media can better play its role. Rejis J.Delmontagne, president of the National Association of Printing, Publishing and Paper Processing Technology Providers in the United States, said: “The recent NPES market research shows that new electronic media must be combined with traditional printing in order to provide a wider and more powerful society. The way of communication, otherwise it does not have competitiveness ";" How the printing industry is integrated with the new media, solving customers' problems in a more mature way will be the key to the success of the printing industry."
4) Development trends and changes in printing equipment. It mainly uses high technology to transform, upgrade, and innovate printing equipment; it improves and improves the control and management of stand-alone and system equipment. Specifically speaking:
1 Use high technology to transform and upgrade traditional printing and postpress equipment. Regardless of offset presses, gravure printing machines, flexo printing machines, or other printing equipment and postpress equipment, most of them are based on traditional equipment, applying high technology to improve their automation, intelligence, and digital control, and improve performance and quality. The scope of application is more convenient and gradually "fools".
2 High-tech research and development of new prepress equipment, prepress and printing integrated digital printing equipment.
3 In terms of equipment control, while the stand-alone control is being continuously improved, the entire printing process (including all equipment) is controlled and managed. The international CIP3 organization has developed into a CIP4 organization, which has been continuously developed and improved, and has managed the whole process of prepress, printing, and postpress printing.
2, digital printing and traditional printing: the road to the sky, go one by one?
Due to the development of CTP, the equipment, processes, and management before printing are constantly changed. At the same time, due to the development of CTP, the possibility of combining prepress and printing is provided, and thus, various kinds of digital printers have appeared. How many digital printers are there in the world? Different research institutions give different numbers. According to Pira's report, by the end of 2000, the world had installed around 1330 variable graphic and digital printers and fixed about 300 graphic and digital printers. The manroland research organization believed that the two reached 1,340 at the end of 1999 respectively. And 442 units. Although the data published by different research institutions are different, it can be explained that the growth of variable graphic and digital printers is growing faster than that of fixed graphic and digital printers. Some people expect digital presses to increase at a rate of 14% to 19% annually.
According to statistics, in 1999, digital printing consumed 103,000 tons of printing materials, of which 99,200 tons were paper. Some experts predict that the digital print market capacity in 2005 will be 3 times now. Paper consumption will reach 300,000 tons, accounting for 9% of short-run printing, accounting for 1.05% of the entire printing market. The development of the on-demand printing market continues to grow with the economic development and is a rapidly growing market. How big this market is, it is still difficult to make a precise forecast. Recently, the CAP company that specializes in market surveys in the United States claims that the print market for color and black-and-white printing is roughly distributed in the size of North America: 20.744 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 6.2% of the printing industry; Western Europe: 14.138 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 8.2% of the printing industry; Japan is about 349 million U.S. dollars, accounting for only 0.3% of the printing industry.
Digital printing is suitable for the personalized on-demand printing market, and can also be used for small-volume printing, such as printing of sample books, proofs, a small number of out-of-print books, journals, and newspapers. Digital printing has become one of the important directions for the development of printing. The question now is: Will traditional printing face the challenges of digital printing and network technology and will it be replaced? This is a topic that people talk about more. I think this worry is completely unnecessary. Digital printing and network services will not and cannot replace traditional printing, but merely increase the services of traditional printers and make them more effective in serving customers. For a foreseeable time or for a long time, digital printing is only suitable for small batch printing and on-demand printing. Traditional printing is suitable for printing with a large amount of printing. The scope of application of digital printing and traditional printing is different, and no one can replace who, and only when the two are combined and complement each other, will there be greater development prospects. Below we specifically analyze the similarities and differences between the two.
1) Applicable to printing range. So far, digital printing is only suitable for small-volume and on-demand printing. It is not suitable for large-scale printing, mainly because digital printing presses are not suitable for large-scale printing. At present, although there are various kinds of digital printers, there are two types of variable digital printers: variable (or no-version) digital printers and DI (or printed) digital printers. , suitable for printing the range of 1-500, generally about 10 to 200 or so. DI digital printing presses are suitable for printing in the range of 500-5000 sheets, generally about 500 sheets to 2000 sheets. From the perspective of the number of applications for printing, digital printing is suitable for small batches, on-demand printing, instant printing and partial replenishment.
2) Cost issues. Digital printing uses CTP technology to make plates directly, with high efficiency and low cost. Printing costs are not related to the number of prints (DI printing is related to the number of prints, but the general number is small and can be ignored). With traditional printing, the cost of plate making is high, and the printing cost is inversely proportional to the number of prints. Therefore, the cost of digital printing is low when the amount of printing is small. When printing is large, the cost of traditional printing is low. The printing department of the Fujian Press and Publication Bureau conducted an analysis of the cost of digital printing, printed 400 pages of A5 black and white books, printed on different digital printing presses, and 365-875 copies of the book were used. The printing volume was lower than that, and the digital printing cost was low. Above this number, traditional printing costs are low. The 80-page A4 color photo book is printed on different digital printers. The 188-250 book is the dividing line between the cost of digital printing and traditional printing. It can be seen that digital printing is only cost-effective when the amount of printing is small.
3) Print quality problems. At present, the quality of digital printing can meet the general needs and it cannot meet the requirements of high-quality print. High-quality fine prints also need to be printed using traditional printing methods.
4) Digital presses are less efficient and expensive. The digital printing press is actually an integrated printing machine that combines a prepress CTP system and a printing press. A typical digital printer consists of four CTPs and a printer. Platemaking and printing cannot be performed at the same time. It also determines the high manufacturing cost of digital presses and, of course, the high selling price. Therefore, the use of digital printing machines has large initial investment and high depreciation costs.
5) Print cycle. When the number of prints is small, digital printing has the advantages of high efficiency and short cycle times. When there is a certain amount of printing (large and large amounts), traditional printing has advantages.
From the above analysis, it is not difficult for us to see that digital printing and traditional printing are big roads and go one after another. The emergence of digital printing has opened up a new market for personalized on-demand printing and instant printing. At least so far, there is no, nor is it possible to compete with the traditional printing market. We should also note that the new markets for personalized on-demand printing and instant printing must emerge and develop along with the economic development and the continuous growth of people’s material and cultural needs. In addition, the development of digital printing has a one-time investment. Therefore, the development of digital printing can only be developed in relatively economically developed regions and companies or individuals with strong financial strength.
3. The development of CTP: the most difficult to digitize and standardize The traditional prepress plate making is photo-making. Due to technological progress, most printing companies have adopted DTP systems. After the DTP boom, the hottest topic in the printing industry is CTP technology. . After the development in recent years, CTP technology has gradually matured, and developed countries are becoming popular. Statistics show that the installed capacity of CTP in the world is close to 8,500, of which 30% was installed after 2001. According to the statistics of "Printing Technology" magazine last September, 143 sets of CTP equipment have been introduced in China. Guangdong leads, followed by Shanghai and Beijing. The practice at home and abroad has proved that CTP is the direction of the development of prepress printing in the future.
Despite the higher growth rate of China's CTP, from September 2001 to September 2002, the installed capacity increased from 61 to 143 sets, an increase of 134.4%. However, in analyzing the distribution of CTP, in addition to Guangdong, in other regions, including the eastern region, the development speed of CTP is not as fast as expected. The main reason is that China's CTP implementation conditions and the environment are not perfect. Because using CTP is conditional, not any printing company can use it immediately. Instead of buying a CTP device, there should be a "complete system solution." At least should include "digital ring