CTP helps the sustainable and stable development of the packaging and printing industry

The development of most technological innovations in China has a pattern that lags behind the international situation for three to five years. However, China's printing industry has entered the CTP era. This has become an indisputable fact. CTP technology marks an unstoppable technological change trend. Its introduction has played a significant role in promoting the development of the printing industry, bringing about a great development of the upstream and downstream industries.

Packaging and printing companies are the largest market segments in the printing industry. They have the fastest development speed and occupy an important position in the various sub-markets for printing. However, at present, the CTP application in the packaging market is still in a slumbering stage. How to overcome the CTP application difficulties in the packaging printing market, what kind of CTP solutions can meet the specific needs of packaging and printing companies? This is the topic that we want to discuss with everyone in this article.

First, the development status of the packaging market

In recent years, the packaging market has maintained a sustained and stable growth. Even in 2008 when the financial crisis approached, the packaging market maintained a high growth rate of 10.7%. The growth rate was higher than the average level of the printing industry and it was a market with better economic returns. It fully reflects the high growth and anti-risk capabilities of the packaging market. It can be predicted that the packaging market will continue to maintain rapid and stable growth in the future.

From the perspective of the number of printing companies, packaging and printing companies accounted for 42% of the total number of printing companies, but from the point of view of output value, packaging and printing output accounted for more than 38%, and its average output value is lower than other printing market segments. Compared with developed countries, the total output value of China's packaging and printing industry is still very low. On the whole, the development of packaging and printing companies is unbalanced. Although large-scale packaging companies are more important, there are also a large number of low-value packaging enterprises.

The packaging and printing industry is one of the most growth industries in recent years and continues to grow at a rate of 10% to 12%. However, there are still some problems that need to be solved: If there are many small businesses, many enterprises lack features, the proportion of high-tech use is still very low, and the labor efficiency of the packaging and printing industry is relatively low, and enterprises generally need to further technological innovation and transformation, which also hinders They played a high level of advantages in printing equipment.

Second, the reasons for the low penetration of CTP in the packaging market

According to "CTP in China", as of September 30, 2009, there were 2019 CTP holdings in mainland China, of which 251 were CTPs for packaging and printing, accounting for 12% of the total, which is far inferior to the commercial printing market segment. The number of possessions of 1,241 units is 61%. The penetration rate of CTP in packaging companies reached only 0.5%, far lower than the average penetration rate of CTP for 2% of printing companies. From the point of view of CTP growth in 2005-2009, packaging companies have always maintained a slow increase in the introduction of CTP.

The advantages of CTP are obvious to all. Such as CTP plate making can show more sharp points, produce rich levels, greatly improve the quality of packaging and printing, and use CTP one-time stencil, to avoid the pollution of the film printing process, the layout is more tidy than traditional plate making, reducing production Process and efficiency advantages. However, we still find that the impetus for packaging users to urgently introduce CTP is not strong enough. Most packaging companies are still waiting and waiting.

A few years ago, many packaging and printing companies generally held this concept and believed that the packaging and printing industry had low requirements on quality and the demand for efficiency was not obvious. At the same time, it was erroneously believed that the introduction of CTP has brought limited improvement to packaging and printing companies, and it has been limited to CTP. There are still some obstacles in understanding. However, from the perspective of the law of science and technology development, the tremendous development of the packaging and printing industry has benefited from the development of the social economy. This driving force has caused all industries and industries to make continuous progress, which puts forward new requirements for the packaging and printing industry. Packaging and printing companies must quickly and efficiently adapt to the needs of the development of the Internet era, use advanced equipment, improve product quality, optimize process flow, and implement scientific management will become its inevitable direction of development.

We have seen that among the more than 40,000 packaging companies in the country, the printing of mixed-print publications and other printing types is common. In 2009, there were only 251 CTPs for packaging companies, but there were 248 commercial/packaging applications, which accounted for 12.28% and an increase of 110 units. The annual growth rate was 80%, which attracted people's attention. It can be seen that more and more commercial printing companies have expanded their business lines and intruded into the packaging and printing field. Moreover, the original commercial and packaging mixed printing companies also used CTP technology to arm themselves. Small impact. In recent years, the requirements for the time required for packaging and printing by customers have become shorter and shorter, and there has been a tendency for short-version packaging printing, requiring companies to continuously increase production efficiency. All walks of life in line with international standards, to the international level, packaging companies have a considerable part of the foreign orders, customer quality requirements are also increasing. The introduction of CTP technology can not only greatly improve the quality of printed products from the hardware, further reduce the production process, improve the overall efficiency, save the plate making and paper costs, especially from the process of digital production management, you can change the traditional film printing process Behind the scenes, comprehensively enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises, so that enterprises can develop to a higher, faster and stronger target on a brand new platform.

Third, the printing and packaging business needs of the CTP system

A suitable CTP system needs to proceed from the characteristics of package printing to solve a series of headache problems that plague package printing companies, so as to meet the needs of packaging and printing companies and benefit from CTP technology. CTP technology enters packaging and printing companies and needs to solve the following problems:

Packaging printing focuses on spot color reproduction and color consistency in production.

Compared with color level reproduction and neutral gray control, packaging and printing companies pay more attention to spot color reproduction and color consistency issues. This requires the CTP system to have a color control process control module, not only with hardware equipment, but also to provide color debugging and quality control training services to solve the problem of color consistency in actual production.

Digital proofing and proofing on the machine technology. In mass production, production control standards and specifications need to be established, and a considerable part of the current sampling of packaging plants is proofed on the printing press and signed by the customer. As part of the CTP system, color management needs to establish a series of specifications and standards for production processes to ensure the stability of production and ensure the consistency of digital proofing and printing colors.

The issue of compatibility with the traditional craftsmanship of CTF prints.

Many printing and packaging companies still have a certain percentage of live jobs using CTF to print out the film. It is inevitable that both processes exist at the same time. This requires the CTP system to solve the problem of compatibility between the two processes of CTP and CTF so that CTF printing will not occur. Differences in color, etc., with CTP plate printing.

There are many reprints in the packaging factory, and the emphasis is on the stability of outlets.

This is an obstacle to the CTP on the packaging printing plant. It often leaves the film and uses the film that the customer has signed and approved to print it repeatedly. It is feared that the CTP will be repeatedly published, and there will be differences in each dot recovery. The CTP system must be combined with the equipment's stability, high-precision, and professional color process service to ensure the stability of repeated publishing outlets and the color consistency of multiple reprints.

Inspection of pre-packaged customer documents, as well as layout and trapping issues.

For external client files, due to complicated and diverse production software version and various processing effects, it will bring error opportunities to the prepress output, and the process system needs to have multiple error checking mechanisms, which will make the possibility of errors and bring to the company. Loss is minimized. At the same time, in the traditional production process, the packaging companies manually check the trapping and manual layout, which is time consuming and inefficient. The CTP system must assist prepress personnel in solving the trapping, imposition, ink conversion, and pre-flight problems commonly seen in pre-press packaging.

Security anti-counterfeiting production needs.

For packaging and printing companies such as cigarette packs, wine bags, cosmetics, etc., they may have to mention fake counterfeit products. It is indispensable to use some anti-counterfeit technologies, and at the same time, it can also increase the added value of products to provide more for upstream customers. Multiple value-added services.

Professional, timely, localized service requirements

Since most packaging companies do not have prepress and experience before CTP, after the introduction of CTP technology, suppliers need to have a strong comprehensive service capability, which requires professional, timely, and localized features.