The CTP technology, which has been born for more than ten years, is no longer a mysterious new technology. Now, no one has questioned the practicality of CTP technology anymore, but the application of CTP technology in China's printing industry always seems to be stumbling, and progress is not smooth. Regarding the reasons for this, there have been many discussions in recent years. The views are also benevolence and wisdom, but the development in 2007 shows that 2008 is likely to be a turning point in the application of CTP technology in China's printing industry.
Here, we may wish to analyze from the following aspects.
The production capacity of 100 million square meters allows the plate material supply to be completely localized
In the discussions in previous years, the plate material has always been regarded as a bottleneck restricting the application of CTP technology in China's printing industry. If this is indeed the case, then this bottleneck has been completely broken in 2007.
From the perspective of domestic CTP plate production capacity, in 2007, China's plate manufacturing industry had three important investment projects. The three projects are the Suzhou Plate Material Factory of Fuji Film Co., Ltd., the Xiamen Plate Material Factory of Eastman Kodak Company, and the CTP printing plate production base of the second film factory (hereinafter referred to as second glue) of Lucky Group. Among them, the projects of Fuji Suzhou Plate Factory and Kodak Xiamen Plate Factory have been put into production in April and November 2007, respectively, and the construction of the CTP printing plate production base of Erjiao has started construction in August 2007 and has now entered the civil construction. The final stage of the project.
The impact of these three investment projects on the application of CTP technology in China is undoubtedly huge. The production capacity of Fuji Suzhou Plate Factory is not less than 18 million square meters per year, and the production capacity of Kodak Xiamen Plate Factory is 25 million square meters per year. The CTP plate production base of the second glue is expected to be put into trial production before the end of 2008. Its design and production capacity is 16 million square meters per year. These three major CTP plate production bases can provide an annual digital plate production capacity exceeding 60 million square meters!
It should be noted that this is just the new capacity of CTP plates in China. In addition to the three major investment projects in 2007, it has now become an existing CTP of Fuji Starlight Sanhe Production Base, Erjiao, Agfa Wuxi Plate Factory, Sichuan Xintu (Juguang), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fuji. The total production capacity of plate materials is also more than 50 million square meters per year.
At the commencement ceremony of the Kodak Xiamen Printing Plant in November 2007, Kodak CEO Fang Xi stated that Kodak had decided to build a second CTP plate production line in the Xiamen Printing Plant. Although Fuji and Kodak both said that the plate production plant built in China is aimed at customers not only Chinese users, but since the plant is built in China, the main direction of sales must also be the Chinese market.
Comprehensive consideration, the current domestic CTP plate production capacity of these major plate material suppliers has exceeded 100 million square meters. In 2008, CTP plate materials can be completely localized from the supply.
If we change the angle, we can also look at the changes in 2007 from the number of suppliers. Before 2007, the international mainstream CTP plate material suppliers, after years of integration, gradually concentrated to a few large companies, including Kodak, Fujifilm and Agfa. These three companies have also become major CTP plate material suppliers in the Chinese market. In addition, some relatively small companies such as Presstek can also provide CTP plates, but the products of such companies have not been able to open in the Chinese market.
In China, there were only three domestic companies that could produce CTP plates before 2007, namely Erjiao, Fuji Star and Sichuan Xintu (Juguang). But in 2007, this situation changed. At the PRINT CHINA 2007 exhibition held in Dongguan, Guangdong in April 2007, Wenzhou Kangda, Longma Aluminum and a Zhejiang company (due to the rush of not remembering the name of this company at that time) also announced the launch of their own CTP plates. In addition, Guangxi Yulin Jinlong, Shanghai Jielong, Tianjin Zhaowei and other companies have also taken action in the research and development of CTP plate materials. In some private conversations, there are also some domestic printing plate material CEOs who have expressed or are investing in the development of CTP plates. The increase in the number of domestic CTP plate material suppliers has also paved the way for the localization of plate material supply.
45 ～ 50 yuan / sqm, a price worth looking forward to
The sharp increase in production volume and the increase in the number of suppliers not only solved the problem of the supply of plate materials, but also surely brought down the price of plate materials.
Unlike the one-time investment of CTP equipment, the plate material is a consumable. As long as the printing production does not stop, the printing company must use the plate constantly. If the price of the plate material is too high, it will inevitably lead to an increase in the company's operating costs and a decline in profit margins. When CTP technology just entered the Chinese market, the price of more than 100 yuan per square meter of plate material seriously restricted the application of CTP technology. Some early printing companies that introduced CTP equipment were not in good condition, largely because they could not afford it. Even those wealthy newspaper printing companies, after introducing CTP equipment, are generally used as supplements or for emergency purposes. Few companies can use CTP as the main plate-making method.
In fact, the high price of CTP plates in the past also has its inevitability. First of all, the development of plate materials requires a lot of investment. In order to recover the initial investment in the shortest possible time, these companies need to keep the plate prices at a high level, thereby ensuring a higher profit margin. In addition, in the past, the main suppliers of CTP plate materials were foreign companies. Since plate materials need to be imported, import tariffs are unavoidable. Objectively, this has also further increased the price of plate materials. In addition, since the manufacturing technology of CTP plate monopolizes a few companies, from the perspective of maximizing profits, before there are too strong competitors in the Chinese market, the companies are expected to give up high profits by giving up. Obviously it is also unrealistic.
However, with the introduction of CTP plates in China, the second glue and Xintu (Juguang), the original plate supply pattern has been broken, and the original price ice has quickly melted. Although some major international suppliers of CTP plate materials are taboo about price cuts, the price reduction of CTP plate materials is indeed amazing. It is understood that in the current Chinese market, the actual sales price of thermal plates is 60-70 yuan per square meter, and the price of purple laser plates is slightly higher. This is quite different from the original price of more than one hundred yuan. With the commissioning of the Fujifilm and Kodak Chinese version factories, with the stability of the quality of the second glue and Xintu (Juguang) products and the continuous increase in production, as more and more Chinese plate material manufacturers began to develop and produce CTP For plate materials, there is reason to believe that in 2008, the price of CTP plate materials in the Chinese market will be further reduced. To make a bold prediction here, by the end of 2008, the price of domestic thermal CTP plates will reach a level that can be generally recognized and accepted by a printing company, namely 45 to 50 yuan / square meter!
Commercial printing enterprises become the main body of plate material consumption
After the changes in 2007, the supply and price of domestic CTP plates no longer became an obstacle to CTP application. In terms of printing companies, some companies that applied CTP technology earlier have accumulated enough experience after several years of exploration, and they have also strengthened their confidence in using CTP technology.
According to the statistics of "Printing Manager", as of the end of 2006, the cumulative installed capacity of domestic CTP equipment was 726. According to other media reports, in 2007, the cumulative installed capacity of domestic CTP equipment has exceeded 1,000. Among those enterprises that have installed CTP equipment, there are many people who use it well. And the structure of users is undergoing a fundamental transformation.
As mentioned earlier, before everyone talked about CTP applications, the first thing that comes to mind is the newspaper printing industry. Indeed, newspaper printing plants with strong financial support from newspapers have played a pioneering role in the application of domestic CTP technology. However, from the perspective of development in the past two years, commercial printing companies, especially some commercial printing companies that pursue printing quality, have become the protagonists of CTP applications. According to a friend who is engaged in the sale of CTP plates and other printing equipment, a well-known Beijing-based company engaged in high-end art printing has not purchased the lamps of the platemaking machine from him for more than a year, The amount of CTP plates used by enterprises is increasing continuously. It is also understood that printing enterprises such as Beijing Hualian, which use CTP plate-making business, have also accounted for more than 70% of the total plate-making.
In China's entire printing industry, commercial printing accounts for the largest proportion. Commercial printing enterprises will be the main body of CTP plate material consumption in the future, and their recognition and application of CTP technology will also become the dominant force in the development of CTP technology. With many commercial printing companies successfully applying CTP technology as an example, more and more companies will follow suit in the future to promote the rapid popularization of CTP technology.
Technology development presents a diversified trend
When it comes to CTP technology, everyone first thinks of thermal and photosensitive. These two technologies were born for a long time, and the technological development is also mature, and they occupy a stable share in the market. In 2007, several major investment projects in domestic CTP plate materials also aimed at these two technologies. But from a personal point of view, the author is more optimistic about the CTP direct plate-making technology of traditional plates.
The development of CTP technology is closely related to the development of laser generators. When the energy provided by the laser generator does not meet the requirements of plate-making, people have developed plate materials of silver salt system and photopolymerization system in order to realize fast and direct plate-making. However, while these systems provide high sensitivity, they also pose problems of instability and oversensitivity. In contrast, the "215" sensitizer system, which has been widely used in the traditional printing and platemaking field, can provide a moderate speed of light and have relatively stable chemical and photochemical properties. Therefore, if you use traditional plate materials to achieve direct plate-making, it will definitely be a boon for printing companies. After all, traditional plate materials are cheaper and easier to obtain.
In the process of researching the direct platemaking of traditional plate materials, people also thought of many methods, such as the inkjet CTP developed with the help of inkjet technology, the CTcP technology developed by basysPrint using "DMD", and the CteP technology developed by Esko. Wait. The common feature of these technologies is to bypass the direct imaging method of laser, but to achieve the direct imaging on traditional plates by means of "curve to save the country", so many people don't think this is the real sense CTP technology.
In the past two years, with the development of laser technology, the power of laser generators available on the market has become larger and larger, and the wavelength has become shorter and shorter. For example, the currently available 205-nanometer violet laser diode has reached a maximum power of 200mW, and laser generators with shorter wavelengths have also appeared. Using the 60mW 205-nanometer violet laser diode, the Xpose! Direct plate-making system developed by the Swiss Lausanne company has achieved direct imaging using traditional plate materials. On this basis, it is definitely not a very difficult thing to further improve the speed and quality of plate making.
At present, at the PRINT CHINA 2007 exhibition in Dongguan, Guangdong, April 2007, Yanjingxing Company, which represented Lausanne Xpose! Direct plate-making machine, once demonstrated to the industry the use of high-sensitivity traditional plate materials with two glues and torch light. Plate making; In June 2007, at the PRINT EXPO 2007 exhibition held in Beijing, Longma Aluminum also teamed up with Lausanne to launch a CTdP direct plate making system with traditional plates as the core.
In previous interviews, the author also specifically asked some internationally renowned CTP plate material suppliers for their views on the traditional plate-making technology. However, these companies are all shy about this technology and are unwilling to talk about it. It should be understandable that they have such exclusion, because the huge research and development costs invested in thermal and photosensitive, must be recovered. Direct plate-making of traditional plates is very popular, which is obviously a situation that these companies do not want to see.
In the past, domestic technology development mainly followed the footsteps of leading international companies. However, in the research and development of CTP plate-making technology, the author urged domestic companies to look farther, and the pace of technological research and development is ahead of others. The advantages of sensitivity and light sensitivity must be followed by heat sensitivity and light sensitivity. Mr. Wang Xiaojun, chairman of Longma Aluminum, once mentioned to the author, "The current thermal and light sensitivity cannot be done. Others have been engaged for more than ten years and hundreds of patents. This not only shows that their research has been very deep, but also Heavy technical barriers have been set up for latecomers, and they will step on the mine if they are not careful. Now that China is paying more and more attention to the protection of intellectual property rights, it is better to take advantage of the technical barriers of traditional plate-making to form a plate. Strive for a breakthrough in this regard. "The development of traditional plate-making technology directly should become the main direction of development of domestic CTP technology. Domestic plate-making enterprises even need to take the initiative to support domestic CTP equipment through the formation of strategic alliances. Manufacturing companies develop CTP equipment that can use traditional plates. China is now a major supplier of traditional plate materials. Making breakthroughs in the traditional plate-making technology is in line with the common interests of domestic plate manufacturers and also helps China to play a greater role in the international printing field.
Considering all the factors above, it is reasonable to believe that in 2008, the application of CTP technology in China is expected to experience explosive growth. This moment is worth looking forward to.
Key words to describe our clipping machines: high-capacity automatic clipper,semi-automatic clipper,single table clipper,automatic double clipper,connected to the filler, for closing sausages in natural or artificial casing with two aluminum clips.
We provide our customers whole clipping machine series, including the automatic double clipping machine, semi-automatic single clipping machine and table manual clippers. Our clipping machines can work well with Great wall shape clips (similar with polyclips R clip series), U shape clips, and aluminum wire directly. Thanks to our professional technical team, our automatic double clippers are featured with neat structure, fast speed, low noisy, easy cleaning and simple maintenance.
Sausage Packaging Machine,Manual Sausage Clipper,Clipping System Solutions,Semi-Automatic Clipper,Single Table Clipper,Automatic Double Clipper
Helper Machinery Group Co., Ltd. , https://www.ihelpergroup.com