Large-scale inkjet printing and digital screen printing start a tug of war

Some screen printers have accepted the attitude of large-format printing, and believe that large-format printing technology provides them with an effective supplementary process that can help them expand the market and increase profitability. A few years ago, the traditional screen printing technology was well-deserved protagonist in the large-format advertising market. After the emergence of digital inkjet technology, market conditions have changed. Some screen printers gradually faded out of this market when they felt the threat of digital printing technology. Perhaps, just like art, screen printing proudly considers itself an ancient, traditional method of commercial processing. But digital inkjet is completely different. The technology and economical solutions it offers are posing real challenges to screen printers. These challenges include:

Small and medium batch jobs · complex jobs (some complex formats are not suitable for screen printing) · proofing · demanding schedules and on-demand printing needs · plane applications completed in a very short time (curtains, outer coverings of buildings) An analysis report on the number of prints shows that the optimal volume for screen printing is more than 400 copies. The report also pointed out that more demand in the market is less than 200 copies. And there are some requirements for the following: short version, on demand, more complex layout, etc. This is precisely the advantage of large-format inkjet technology.

Screen printers enter this emerging market area by adding functionality, including small and medium-sized adhesive printing, POP, rigid material printing and specialty printing. For them, this is not only profitable, but also transforms the traditional screen printing operation into a "one-stop shop", which can provide more services to customers and then attract new customers.

Large format digital inkjet printing can be fully integrated into the existing business model, the profit is obvious.

Printing jobs can be started directly from digital files (standard format files). There is no longer preparation cost before printing or time-consuming screen printing. A job takes only a few minutes from execution to completion. Jobs are processed in a queue. When the current job is being printed, a new job is scheduled. If the inkjet printer used has a drying device, then the previous job was drying, while the other was already printing.

Based on a comprehensive consideration of the preparation time (and cost) before printing and the length of running time, the screen printer analyzes its business, and then determines whether it is more economical to use digital printing or traditional screen printing. We call the yield of two processes that can be arbitrarily arranged as the "critical yield". Normally, this yield is 400 copies. Of course, this is just to ensure the best profit, and does not take into account the nature of the job and the progress of the printing time.

"Short version" means as few as one in digital printing. This means that digital inkjet is not only economical for special forms of images, even for retail and various language versions. At the same time, complete prepress software makes roll-to-roll large-format printing easy. Of course, these features and advantages of digital inkjet cannot really threaten the survival of screen printing. In addition to transferring short, complex, or low-profit (or even unprofitable) jobs to digital printing, silk-screen printing is still free to soar in long, spot, or three-dimensional jobs that they are good at. There is even a combination of digital printing and screen printing.

Large-format digital inkjet printing can also achieve the efficiency of space and manpower. It is easy to manage without waste. It can be accurately printed according to the demand, and the color accuracy can also be guaranteed through the ICC profile. Large-format inkjet printers can also provide fast, high-quality and accurate proofs on the final substrate for screen printing.

In addition to providing one-stop convenient services to users, large-format inkjet printing can also provide some profitable value-added services. Fast market response time has become very important in today's society, digital printing can provide some related additional services.

After the many advantages of digital printing, the versatility of screen printing is still its biggest advantage. It can print on various printing materials, such as screen printing on various plastics, textiles, metals, glass, ceramics and other materials for commerce, advertising, installation, art, construction, publishing, printing and dyeing Screen printing for industry, electronics and other industries. In short, any shaped object can be screen printed regardless of shape, size, thickness, softness, rigidity, curved surface or flat surface. This will contribute to its development. So it is still too early to say who will win the last battle in the market.