Improve the printing quality of corrugated boxes from printing plates
Corrugated boxes are one of the most widely used packaging products. Paper used in corrugated boxes does not require excessive bleaching and is easy to recycle and meet environmental requirements. At the same time, corrugated boxes have a good performance in terms of impact resistance and protection of goods, and are therefore widely favored.
Flexo into corrugated carton main printing form
Corrugated boxes are printed in several different forms, the most common being offset , water-based/flexographic and pre-printed. In addition, with the rapid advancement of digital printing technology , there are now companies that have introduced digital printing equipment specifically for corrugated box printing.
Among these printing methods, offset, pre-print and digital printing are mainly used for printing color boxes. After the offset printing is completed, the printed paper needs to be pasted on the corrugated cardboard by a paper machine; the pre-printing is to print the paper used in the corrugated board production before the upper tile line, so that the produced paperboard is produced. It is with a pattern; digital printing is printed directly on the surface of the corrugated board that has already been made. These methods are more costly to produce and can print more beautiful products, which is why these printing methods are mainly used for color box printing.
Compared to color boxes, more currently used in transport packaging are some relatively simple cardboard boxes, which are mostly printed on corrugated cardboard that has already been made using an aqueous printing press or a flexographic printing press.
It should be noted that the water-based printing press and the flexographic printing machine are not scientific definitions, but rather customary concepts. Because the water-based printing press can use both flexographic printing and flexographic printing, of course, the flexographic printing press is relatively harsh, and only the flexographic plate can be used instead of the rubber plate.
Small changes bring big improvements
Traditional corrugated box water-based printing presses use a rubber plate. The plate making of the rubber plate was originally hand-carved or machine-engraved. At this stage, the plate making quality of the rubber plate is very poor and cannot be modified in the event of an error, so it can only be used for carton printing with a simple pattern and low requirements. Later, some companies engaged in laser processing technology began to apply laser engraving technology in the plate making of rubber plates, and the quality of the plate making of rubber plates has also been greatly improved. However, due to the problem of the rubber plate itself, even the rubber plate produced by laser engraving and plate-making technology cannot achieve the quality level of the flexographic plate.
Unlike the rubber plate, the flexographic plate making process uses a photoengraving process. At the same time, the flexographic plate has a lower hardness than the rubber plate. Therefore, in the printing process, the combination of the plate and the corrugated board is more compact, and the printing quality is also very good. Great improvement.
As mentioned above, although the rubber plate is habitually used when using a water-based printing press, in practice, the printing machine can also use a flexographic plate, and the use of the flexographic plate can bring about an improvement in printing quality. For companies, this helps companies develop sophisticated cartons with higher quality requirements and higher profit margins.
It can be said that only a small change in the plate material can bring about a big increase in the price of the corrugated box.
Flexible version of localization stimulates change
As we all know, the overall profit margin of corrugated box manufacturers is relatively low. In order to ensure the profitability of the company, the manager of the enterprise needs to start cost control from every detail.
At present, the price of the rubber plate on the market is about 1 centimeter/cm 2 , while the price of the flexo plate is 5 cents / cm 2 , which has a large price difference. However, this is the price before the plate is made, which is what the industry calls "life". If you make a plate that can be used for printing, the price of the rubber plate is about 4~5 cents/cm2, and the flexographic version The price is about 12~14 cents/cm2, and the price ratio of the two is no longer surprisingly disparate.
Another point to note is that with the localization of the flexographic version, the situation of monopoly of the flexographic market by foreign companies has been broken, which opens the way for the reduction of the price of the flexo. In fact, since the domestic flexible version of the mass production problem has been resolved, foreign suppliers have begun to cut prices, especially the recent depreciation of the yen, so that the price of some Japanese manufacturers has been the same as the price of domestic suppliers, while the mainland and Taiwan The "Framework Agreement on Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation" benefits the printing industry , and the price of flexible editions from Taiwan is also expected to fall. These factors will in turn stimulate the downward adjustment of the supply prices of domestic suppliers. In the future, the price of the flexo version is expected to be adjusted to a reasonable range, which is undoubtedly good news for packaging printing companies that intend to move from rubber to flex.
For corrugated box manufacturers who want to improve product quality, the rubber plate to the flexo plate is just a small change in the printing plate, but the meaning for the enterprise is far from trivial. If you change it earlier, you may be able to bring different market feedback. Are you thinking about it?
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