The Current situation and Opportunities of the Curved Surface Printing industry

1. Excessive reliance on manual operation makes it extremely difficult to find a good machine operator

Curved surface printing relies on manual operation in multiple links such as chromaticity, pressure adjustment, feeding and sampling. When there is no captain, the printing press is basically in a semi-paralyzed state. In the absence of samples and follow-through, the printing machine operator adjusts the ink volume according to their own preferences and experience. The quality of the printed product is largely determined by the operator's proficiency. Even if some captains have experience, they are restricted by factors such as educational background and vision, resulting in a narrow professional knowledge base and slow technological updates. Professional and highly skilled printing machines are hard to come by at a price of a thousand gold.

2. The combination of ink and consumables is complex, making it difficult to control the printing quality and cost

The concentration, fineness, viscosity, fluidity, saturation, water resistance, acid and alkali resistance and other properties of different inks also vary. The proportion of inks mixed with thinners, the matching degree with material properties, and the proportion of inks mixed with pigments, binders, fillers and additives are all highly variable. The difficulty in grasping this variability leads to serious waste of consumables such as ink and blanket, greatly increasing the printing cost. Currently, the viscosity of most inks on the market is 13TV, while for flexographic printing, a viscosity of 18TV is the most suitable. This kind of ink, which is not specifically designed for flexographic printing, is prone to cause quality problems such as blurred characters and images on the printed matter, inconsistent ink color, and bubbles or indentations in the printed matter stripes.

3. Occupational critical illnesses occur frequently and there is a serious loss of skilled workers

The printing industry is in frequent contact with ink. Various organic solvents and harmful gases such as alcohol compounds, formaldehyde and phenol that volatilize from the ink enter the bodies of workers through their respiratory tracts and skin, causing various respiratory diseases and occupational poisoning. During the startup process, the ultraviolet rays released by the curing system can irritate the eyes. Long-term exposure may cause damage to the eye membrane and vision loss. Therefore, printers generally should not work for more than five years. The high occupational hazards have led printing technicians to choose short-term jobs or simply change careers, causing serious talent loss and recruitment difficulties for enterprises.

4. Low production efficiency and lack of professional customization in equipment structure

Serious waste of consumables, slow manual operation and high rate of defective products lead to low production efficiency. The structure of the curved printing machine is rather crude. There is no creative design of the equipment structure specifically for a certain type of printed matter. During the printing process, the printed matter needs to adapt to the equipment.

5. Due to the constraints of international monopolies, high-quality flexographic printing equipment is expensive to produce

Flexographic printing has reached a mature stage in Europe and America, while flexographic printing in China has only started in recent years. Therefore, the flexographic printing plates and plate-making equipment in our country are largely dependent on imports. The high prices and monopolistic after-sales services to some extent restrict the popularization and promotion of flexographic printing in the Chinese market.

6. With the intensification of supervision, the flexographic printing industry is facing stricter regulations

In 2010, the printing industry was included in the scope of "carrying out the prevention and control of volatile organic compound pollution", and the relevant functional departments implemented stricter standards for the parts of the entire printing production process that did not meet environmental protection requirements. In particular, in accordance with the "Water Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan" and the "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan", the pollution treatment of water and volatile organic compounds has been given priority supervision. The VOCs discharge fee has pushed the governance of the printing environment to a substantive new stage, and the development of curved printing is facing a more strictly regulated situation.

7. High-quality curved surface printing has a huge market worth over 100 million

The traditional curved surface printing has matured, and the emerging green printing flexographic printing is on the rise. China's curved printing industry has already acquired the ability to meet the diversified and all-round demands of the international market. In the next three years, the demand for domestic flexographic printing machines will expand rapidly. Coupled with the demand for ink, auxiliary materials and equipment, the overall market demand for flexographic printing equipment in China will exceed 100 million yuan. China will become a truly important global manufacturing base for flexographic printing machines.