Past and future of packaging gravure printing machinery market

The packaging sector has continued to maintain a strong growth momentum over the past year. Gravure printing is still a very important printing method, especially for long-run printing. Here we come to review and look forward to the 2010 package gravure printing market.

Sustained growth in 2010 Despite the fact that annual statistics have not yet come out, it is certain that the packaging gravure printing market has maintained strong growth during the first three quarters of 2010. The growth rate in the first half of the year even reached 12 to 14%. But this is partly due to the extremely depressed market conditions in 2009. In the second half of 2010, the growth rate of the package gravure printing market slowed down, but it has basically returned to the level before the economic recession. With the continuous economic growth, the packaging gravure printing market will usher in a new development opportunity.

New Trends in Packaging Gravure In recent years, the development trend of the packaging gravure printing market has not changed in fact. The summary is mainly reflected in the number of prints, the cost, and the production cycle. In addition, the frequent change of printing patterns and the emergence of the smallest stock unit also exerted great pressure on the gravure supply chain. Gravure printing can improve the printing quality through technical means, but shorten the working time and perform short-run printing on this technical process. It is indeed a huge challenge. To become a successful gravure printing plant in the packaging field, these problems must be solved first.

The advantages of gravure printing In addition to the well-known high saturation, other advantages of gravure printing technology include variable ink film thickness and a relatively simple and stable production process. The variable ink film thickness allows the gravure printer to print very small ink droplets and high-density color patches, which is not an easy task for flexo and lithography printers. No matter whether it is a flexo press or a lithographic press, some compromises need to be made to meet the above requirements. Gravure presses do not have to do this. It has such ability itself. In addition, gravure printing can also use more special pigments, the coarse particles of these pigments make it difficult to use on flexographic or lithographic printing presses. Compared with the other two printing methods, the gravure printing process is more stable. Once the printing machine operates normally, it can basically guarantee the consistency of the printing quality.

Intaglio gravure printing in other fields has already had a certain status in the packaging market, but it has not made much progress in other areas. In order to achieve a breakthrough in this area, the price of the cylinders and the time of change of the gravure printing machine must be reduced. Many printing companies in North America have now solved the production cycle of gravure printing. However, the price of cylinders has always been a bottleneck. If this problem is not resolved in a single day, it will be difficult for gravure to open up new markets.