The best choice for carton printing die-cutting

Flexo printing linkage processing production line has been increasingly used in the folding carton processing, becoming the most rapid development of a printing processing method, which has brought tremendous impetus to the development of the carton processing industry. Even in some regions where the carton processing market has grown the slowest, there have been significant developments.

There are still some processors who do not believe that post-press processing such as die-cutting, waste disposal, and molding processing is a crucial part of flexographic printing production. However, only the carton that has been die-cut, discarded and formed has the actual packaging and transport properties, and it can be regarded as a truly practical package. Incomplete post-printing actually makes perfect printing meaningless.

There are still many factors that limit the processing efficiency of the carton processing plant. For example, whether a paper feed is used for sheet feeding or web feeding, round die cutting or flat die cutting, and on-line die-cutting or off-line die-cutting all have a direct impact on the entire plant's production capacity. Business interests and ability to serve customers.

Comparison of sheetfed and web processing

In the carton processing industry, the processing technology that is currently taking up a large share of the market is still a single-sheet paper, multi-machine offset printing, and flat die-cutting. The process flow is:

Paper Roll - Sheetfed - Pause - Printing - Pause - Flush - Pause - Die-cut - Pause - Waste - Finishing the carton

Assessing capital investment and labor costs, if you also operate a carton processing plant in this mode, you will certainly face tremendous pressure.

Therefore, the existing sheet-fed paper carton processors need to take two approaches if they want to lead the competition: First, in the case of existing equipment, to achieve the highest possible production speed; Second, to achieve high-volume processing Under the low-cost production, such as a variety of different specifications of the carton together for processing.

The high cost of equipment investment, the time-consuming conversion of India and the United States, and the difficulty of managing multiple sets of processing equipment at the same time, especially the difference in speed matching between printing and finishing, are continuously reducing sheetfed offset + flattening die cutting The proportion of carton processing.

A typical flexographic printing process is a process in which the web material directly enters the printing section and the processed finished product is output from the other end. The process flow is:

Paper Roll - Printing + Die Cutting - Finishing the Carton

Obviously, this mode of production has reduced capital investment, die-cutting consumption and labor input, and shortened the delivery time of finished products to customers. This is very different from the multiple processing steps that are repeated in the single-sheet paper carton processing.

After realizing this difference, considering the processing time limit, the following results can be compared: Offset printing requires five sets of printing equipment, while flexographic printing requires only one set of printing equipment; Offset printing requires six processes, The flexographic printing process requires only two processes; the offset process eventually requires 10 to 12 workers, while the flexographic printing process requires only 2 to 3 workers. The pros and cons of craftsmanship are obvious.

Comparison between circular die cutting and flat die cutting

Whether it is a sheet-fed or web printing method, if flat die-cutting is provided, there will be some defects in the subsequent processing. Therefore, the choice of die-cutting process becomes the second most important determinant in carton processing.

Although the price of round die-cutting die is still higher than that of die-cut die-cutting die, the gradual reduction in the price of round die-cut die-cutting die and the gradual improvement in its reliability have led to an expansion of its popularity. So far, more and more carton processors have realized the superiority of circular press die cutting methods, mainly reflected in the higher average processing speed and similar consistency of the processing technology (rotary printing + round pressure Round die cutting), lower investment and recognition of simple and quick preparation.

It is easy to see the cost advantages of round die-cutting. In terms of equipment investment, the price of a flat die-cutting die cutting machine is sufficient to purchase more than one round press die cutting machine. Although the price of circular die cuts is slightly higher, its investment can be postponed. It is only necessary to purchase molds when they actually receive orders for special carton processing. Further, the modern round die-cutting die plate has been made so precise that most of the prepress preparation work is done in the die-processing factory. Die-cut plates are used to make padding, hollowing out, and indentation pads. Preparation work is no longer required in printing companies. Printing companies only need to use a thin double-sided adhesive for sticking, which actually reduces costs.

Of course, the most important of all the factors is still the production efficiency. Compared with the flat-platen die-cutting process, the round-ring die-cutting process has a much higher production efficiency. After successfully adopting new methods such as reducing the cutting blank, the success factor of carton processing production is the number of processing per unit time, ie, how to increase production efficiency. Although the combination of flat die-cutting die cutting and web printing process also has a high processing speed, the high equipment maintenance costs, difficulty in die-cutting and waste-discharging, and difficulty in registration make the actual processing and production capacity inferior. Round pressure die cutting process.

Of course, round die cutting is not a panacea. Large-format printing small carton processing production using flat-press die-cutting process still has advantages, and in some respects even exceeds the processing capacity of the narrow-width turn + round-pressure die-cutting process.

It should be noted that there are numerous types of round press die cutting machines that require considerable knowledge to make successful choices.