The Present Situation and Development of China's Flexo Printing

As a new technology, flexographic printing has occupied 40% of the European packaging and printing market and 60% of the US market. In the late 1980s, flexographic technology entered China. At present, China has introduced more than 180 large-format wide-width flexo lines and narrow-width flexo lines. However, these devices did not bring much benefit to investors in the country as a whole. One-third of the equipment is idle, another one-third of the equipment is in a half-loaded state, and only a few production lines are full of production tasks. At present, flexo printing only accounts for 3% of the market share in packaging printing in China.

The main reason for the development of flexo printing

1. Technological limitations

Compared with offset printing and gravure printing, the advantages of flexographic printing are: relatively low investment; relatively simple equipment structure; easy operation and high productivity; extensive use of ink, alcohol-soluble inks, and UV inks is conducive to environmental protection.

However, at this stage, flexographic printing has insurmountable disadvantages compared with offset printing and gravure printing: the ink transfer method is limited by the number of anilox roller lines, and the adjustment is complicated and difficult to be compatible, often resulting in the layered portion of the cable and the lines in the field. Partially separated plates increase costs. As the flexographic printing plate has greater flexibility and flexibility, it is easily deformed after being pressed, resulting in poor ability to restore originals. Flexographic fineness is now more mature than 136 lines/inch or 150 lines/inch, while offset and gravure have become very familiar with 175 lines/inch printing. In addition, there are insurmountable defects in flexo printing at some color gradients or screens.

2. Packaging design is not suitable

The differences between Oriental culture and European and American cultures have made their packaging in design styles significantly different. This has also made flexo printing a certain influence in the development of our country in the short term. Europe and the United States emphasize that the use of concise color blocks and lines give people a strong visual impact, and China's packaging industry has long been subject to gravure, offset printing rule and influence, more emphasis on realism, the use of a large number of realistic layers of patterns. To use the flexographic printing to recover the quality of offset and gravure printing, the end user is bound to accept it. Therefore, the degree of flexo printing accepted in our country is lower than that of offset printing and gravure printing.

3. Cost gap

Because gravure and offset printing have gone through more than 20 years of development in China, equipment and materials have been domestically produced, so the cost of equipment investment, as well as the cost of plate making and post-processing, have fallen significantly. The high-quality flexo printing needs to be imported regardless of the printing press or plate material, plate making equipment and materials, so the cost is basically the same as that of Europe and the United States. However, the cost of offset printing and gravure printing in Europe and the United States is higher than that of flexo printing. This is the reason why flexo printing has developed so quickly in Europe and the United States. The cost of domestic gravure printing and offset printing is lower than that of flexo printing, so the competitive price of flexo printing in China's packaging market is weak.

4. Use gap

People's understanding of packaging printing still stays on gravure and offset printing, and the acceptance of flexo printing in the packaging market is not high.

The use of water-soluble ink for flexo printing is conducive to environmental protection, especially in food, beverage and other packaging. But now gravure has also been widely used ink, alcohol-soluble ink, coupled with China's current level of emphasis on environmental protection is relatively low, the market downturn, the final customer requires a drop in the cost, so the selling point of environmental protection is also pale.

Based on the above points, I believe that low-cost, high-quality, high-strength gravure printing will occupy the absolute dominant position of China's packaging and printing market for a long period of time; offset printing is of high quality and low price, but its The production efficiency is low, the color stability is not good enough, and there are some restrictions in the application; flexo printing can currently only play its advantages in the production of large quantities of products.

How to change the current embarrassing situation of flexo printing

First of all, whether it is equipment suppliers, printers, plate makers or end customers, we must have a clear understanding of the flexographic printing market. The propaganda for flexo printing should seek truth from facts, because how to over-promote flexographic printing is advanced, and it is easy to mislead the flexographic printing; flexo printing is more advanced than gravure printing and offset printing, and the printing quality is even higher. This has caused some printers and plate manufacturers to ignore their features when using flexographic printing. However, the end customer regards the quality of offset printing and gravure printing as the standard for measuring flexographic printing or the offset printing and gravure printing as the quality acceptance criteria. Caused many unnecessary losses.

We should follow the characteristics of flexo printing and design and produce packaging products that are truly suitable for flexo printing, starting with the final customer's packaging design and the stability and unity of the packaging product quality. Turning some of the deficiencies of flexographic printing into a flexo-printing feature makes its product packaging anti-counterfeiting due to the use of flexographic printing, because it is also very difficult to use flexographic and gravure printing for flexographic printing.

Second, reduce flexographic printing production costs, so that flexographic printing in the market occupies a price advantage.

The cost of flexo plate making is not advantageous in the market compared with offset printing and gravure printing. The cost of platemaking is several times that of offset printing, which is almost the same as that of gravure printing. The reason for this is that the prepress equipment, plate making equipment, and raw materials needed to produce high-quality flexographic plates all need to be imported. The country has not yet mastered its core technologies. At present, the domestic high-quality plate-making manufacturers mainly include: Dalian Foley Platemaking Co., Ltd., Shanghai Toyo Laser Co., Ltd., and Shanghai Renshi Computer Plate Co., Ltd. In the near future, there can be no room for significant reduction in the cost of plate making.

However, we are still very happy to see that flexo printing has made great progress in our country. Now, printer manufacturers such as Shaanxi Black Bull, Wuxi Baonan, Beiren, Ziguang, Shanxi Taihang, and Shaanxi Yinan have all been able to produce flexo presses, and their manufacturing levels are very close to that of imported flexo presses, and their prices are only imported. One-third to one-half of the equipment. If these manufacturers can use price advantage and further improve the supporting services, technical training and other work, the market share of domestic flexographic printing presses will increase dramatically.

High-quality flexographic printing inks have gradually become localized, but efforts must be made to ensure ink hue stability and printing adaptability, so as to ensure that domestic inks can compete with imported inks in terms of quality and price.

In summary, both equipment suppliers, printing manufacturers, ink manufacturers, plate-making manufacturers, and end-users must work together to expand the "cake" of flexographic printing. It is believed that the flexographic industry in China will be developed in recent years. There will be brilliant development.