First, the supply and plate making of flexible plates
At present, there are many domestic suppliers of plate materials, including those from the United States, Germany, Japan, and domestic manufacturers, such as the Shanghai Institute of Printing Technology. However, the current domestic flexo version can only be used for relatively low-grade printing, and it can not meet most of the requirements for wide-width and narrow-width flexo printing. In the high-end market, the plate material basically relies on imports. Therefore, although flexographic printing in China is developing every year, and the amount of plate material used is also growing at a rate of 30% per year, the price of high-grade plates, which mainly depend on imports, remains high. Some people say that it is DuPont's monopoly of the plate material market that restricts the development of the industry. We listened to everyone's voice on this issue.
Secretary-General Lin said: I personally believe that the high price of the plate is an important factor hindering the development of domestic flexographic printing. According to preliminary calculations, a piece of A4 format is nearly 70 yuan, while the PS version is only 20 yuan. The price difference is too large, and everyone is psychologically unacceptable.
Dai said that DuPont's photosensitive resin flexo is of good quality and many customers like it. This is understandable, and DuPont is proud. However, DuPont has absolutely no so-called "monopoly" market. At present, DuPont Celli’s share in the Chinese market is only about 60%. If you specifically refer to narrow flexo printing, market share will be even smaller. At present, China is a market economy. The market price is not something that suppliers can influence. More often than not, customers are influencing prices. If compared with 6 years ago, the price of finished printing plates has actually dropped by about 60%.
Mr. Huang Weining mentioned that many printing manufacturers are still in their infancy, so they are concerned about the printing plate prices. Moreover, because the plate has not yet been domesticated, it mainly relies on imports, which is bound to cause high costs. However, when the volume of business reaches a certain level, the cost of the printing plate will only occupy a very small part of the production cost.
In addition, some people say that the plate-making fee is too high to restrict the development of flexo printing. In this regard, we solicited Mr. Huang's views. He answered with a very positive No! He said that the price does not indicate any problem, the key lies in quantity. If you have a 200,000 printed order, use a good edition and you can print 200,000 copies. If a cheaper printing plate has only 50000 proofs, it will require 4 sets of plates to complete the work, and it will also increase the cost of the upper and lower plates. In short, it will ultimately not be cheap.
Second, ink
Now there are many domestic manufacturers of flexo printing inks, which can produce relatively high-grade inks to meet the needs of the high-end market. There are also relatively low-grade inks to meet the needs of the low-end market. Therefore, the flexo printing inks basically meet the requirements of the domestic market. demand.
But from now on, the quality of commodity packaging will play a significant role in the promotion of merchandise sales, and some manufacturers are not very aware of this. Therefore, it will unreasonably reduce the cost of package printing, and the cost paid to the printing factory will become less and less. This led to the printing industry to survive, had to make an idea on the selection of consumables, the use of relatively low prices of middle and low-end products, and this will ultimately affect the quality of packaging products. Ink is the place where the majority of printing companies can do things. Because the price difference between different inks is also quite different, some printers are eager to cope with low prices, and regardless of the actual needs of products, it is difficult to guarantee high-quality packaging prints, and inevitably they will inevitably lose customers.
Many people think that the quality of printing depends on equipment and operators. However, many quality problems are not caused by equipment and operators, but due to improper selection of raw materials, resulting in a decrease in product quality. We have reason to believe that with the increasing awareness of packaging, customers will place higher demands on the consumables used in packaging and printing products, so that the printing quality will be greatly improved.
Third, the anilox roller
As we all know, the anilox roller is the heart of a flexo press.