Technical issues in digital printing

Starting with "digital printing" that spreads across the streets, digital printing has entered our lives a little bit. With the popularity of computer networks, this emerging technology, with its unprecedented advantages in flexibility, quality, and total cost of ownership, has won more and more attention and love from people, but at the same time, it has also caused The traditional printing practitioners soiled the "wolf came" exclaimed. Because of this, when we discuss digital printing, the first thing to make clear is that exactly what is coming is a wolf or a sheep?

This question can be attributed to two major mistakes in understanding and application. First of all, digital printing is not the terminator of traditional printing. Faced with the raging trend of digital printing, many traditional printing companies take it for granted that the emergence of this technology is to “grab the business” and compete with the market. The attitude of rejection and skepticism toward him. In fact, from a technical point of view, digital printing is mainly based on electrostatic imaging technology and direct plate making technology. The common feature is that the time of plate making is short, and short-run business can be printed more economically, and even flexible “one-off printing” can be achieved. This determines its main market and development direction lies in "print on demand" characterized by personalized printing, variable data printing, instant printing and so on. This piece of the market. It is exactly what traditional printing methods cannot satisfy. At the same time, at least in a short period of time, traditional printing still has the powerful advantage that digital printing can't shake in the mass-printing field where it is good at. From this we can see that the role of digital printing is to fill the gap in the market caused by the technical characteristics of traditional printing, and its market positioning and traditional printing are different and complement each other.

In another extreme case, since digital printing is an effective complement to traditional printing, since digital printing is an irresistible trend, some traditional printing companies have adopted digital printing equipment for proofing, and then they Go to the traditional printing equipment to recover the color and printing. As a result of this practice, although the efficiency of proofing has improved, due to the difference in the principles of the two, it is often difficult to recover color on traditional printing presses, and overall results have not improved. The fundamental reason is not that the digital printing equipment is not good, but the improper positioning of the manufacturers. This is also the second big mistake we have to discuss: application misunderstandings. The application of so-called digital devices is by no means a wishful thinking to graft digital devices into traditional printing processes. The nature of digital printing determines that its relationship with traditional printing is not as simple as "1+1=2". What it is facing is a completely different market from traditional printing. To make digital equipment play its biggest role and create the greatest benefits, it must jump out of the traditional printing mode of thinking and take another path. So, digital printing - where can you dare to ask?

Although as a useful supplement to traditional printing, short-run business is a specialty of digital devices, but it does not mean that this is the only advantage of digital printing. To open up a new profitable space that breaks through the limitations of traditional printing technology is the essence of the pursuit of “digital” by many businesses.

The market orientation of digital printing mainly lies in “on-demand, short-run, and personalization”, including custom printing, variable data printing, and internal printing. The market has great potential and unlimited business opportunities. It is also different from traditional digital printing. Profit growth. For example, on-demand printing of short-run books and sample books in the publishing industry; personalized letters from institutions such as insurance, finance, securities, commerce, and public utilities; and personalized notes and anti-counterfeit printing are all very suitable for the application of digital printing equipment. . In addition, there is a greater unknown market waiting for the development of people with lofty ideals. It can be said that the future development of digital printing is quite broad. At present, Fuji Xerox has taken the lead in the industry to promote a variety of personalized printing solutions suitable for China's national conditions, such as PrintShopMail, VIPP, etc., and achieved initial success. This indicates that the personalized printing market is gradually becoming mature and growing.

However, companies need to pay attention to issues such as cost, profitability, customer acceptance, market saturation, etc., and more importantly, they must choose the hardware and software solutions that are most suitable for their own situation. At this time, the technology and service capabilities of the vendors providing digital devices are critical. One of the best illustrations is that Fuji Xerox, which is a leader in the global digital printing industry, is widely used among companies that currently use digital devices and are already profitable. The stronger the professional strength of the manufacturers, the more perfect the after-sales service, it means that the more solid the backing of the company's development of digital printing; for enterprises, in the face of this emerging market, no worries, to let go. In the digital printing market where opportunities and challenges coexist, whoever takes a step ahead of others, whoever will occupy more opportunities in today's information age.

Source: Anhui Packaging