History of Printing Equipment and Equipment Development in China (I)

Digital witness the development of printing equipment industry

I. A brief review of the development of Chinese printing technology

Printing was one of the four great inventions in ancient China. It had made world-recognized major contributions to the invention and development of ancient human printing, but China's modern printing technology lags behind. Since 1950, China's printing and equipment equipment industry has entered a new stage of development. After several five-year plans, it has established a printing and equipment equipment industry system by relying on self-reliance, realized the mechanical printing of lead printing, and gradually promoted offset printing. technology. The National Key Project “748 Project” was established in 1974, which is the research and application of Chinese character information processing technology, including the “Chinese Character Set System”, “Chinese Character Information Retrieval System” and “Chinese Character Communication System”. In 1988, the fourth-generation laser photocopying system was successfully developed. In the Economic Daily, instead of lead, China's printing technology began to bid farewell to “lead and fire” and entered a new era of “light and electricity”. Since the early 1980s, based on the development of printing technology and the needs of the domestic market, we have proposed the “Laser photocopying, electronic color separation, offset printing, and binding linkage” policy of progress in the sixteen-character printing technology, developed a special plan, and started to work in 1983. The transformation of printing technology was specifically included in the national plan. By 2000, it had invested approximately 3 billion yuan, and technological transformation was carried out on more than 200 printing equipment and equipment enterprises. In the more than two decades of reform and opening up, China's printing and equipment and equipment industries have continued to develop at a rapid rate. Major technological advancements have taken place, and revolutionary changes have taken place.

II. Great progress in the printing and equipment industry in China in the last two decades

1. Great progress has been made in technology, leading-edge printing has been eliminated, laser photocopying technology, offset printing and color offset printing technologies have been popularized.

Among the 11,211 printing enterprises in the country in 1980, there were only 56 electronic color separation machines, of which 176 were printed at two levels of fixed-point printing in books and periodicals, there were 123,000 employees, and there were 25 electronic color separation machines. In 1979, the British Mona Company was in Beijing and Shanghai. The laser photocopying system was exhibited. After the exhibition, several units were retained. Offset printing machines accounted for only 29.1% of the total number of offset printing and offset printing machines. The ratio between the book printing and offset printing was 1:0.93, and the lead printing capacity was slightly larger than the offset printing amount.

In 1999, there were a total of 1,185 fixed-point printing companies in the country, employing 309,100 people. There were 319 electronic color separation machines, 1,293 laser photocopying systems, 512 full-page imposition equipment, 618 offset proofing machines, and 1,527 letterpress printing machines. , 6,860 lithographic printing presses, 2145 sets of binding engines. (Figure 1)

2. The production capacity has increased significantly

In 1949, there were fewer than 100 books and periodicals printing factories in the country, and the number of employees was less than 4,000. The output of books and periodicals was less than 500,000. By 1980, there were 11,200 printed books and periodicals printing enterprises in the country, with 815,000 employees, of which 176 were printed at two levels, books and periodicals, 12.3 million employees, 28.84 million copies of books and periodicals, and 1.15 billion yuan in industrial output. In 1999, there were a total of 1,185 fixed-point printed books and periodicals, 309,100 employees, 128.67 billion yuan in industrial output, 18.799 billion words in layout, and 61.472 million in books and periodicals, and a total of 1.418 billion books (including reprints and reprints). The publication cycle was greatly shortened, and the average cycle time was reduced from 300 days to about 100 days. In 1999, 8,187 titles were published, with a total of 2.846 billion copies.

In 1980, there were 38 large-scale printing presses at or above the provincial level, with nearly 10,000 employees, 2.846 billion copies of prints and 10.7 billion pairs. In 1999, a total of 2,038 kinds of newspapers were published across the country, with a total of 31.838 billion copies, a total of 63.668 billion pairs of printed sheets, and 1.464 million tons of paper. In 1985, more than 10 kinds of national color publication newspapers were published. In 1999, there were 500 kinds of Chinese newspapers. Before 1992, Chinese newspapers were a 4 edition each day. By 1999, more than half of daily newspapers had published 4-6 pairs of open magazines, accounting for 16-24 editions. , Sometimes 12 pairs are opened, and 48 pages are counted. Compared with the “8th Five-Year Plan”, the average annual growth of books and periodicals printing was 30.96%, which was much higher than the national economic growth rate.

Compared with 1978 in 1998, in 1998, the printing capacity of the key printing and printing plants was 18.79 billion words, which was 430.7% higher than that in 1978; the printing of books and periodicals was 61.57 million, an increase of 479%, and the multi-color offset printing was 111.43 million, an increase of 1157%, and the binding was 4,618. Wanling increased by 335.6%. The number of books reached 141,831, increased by 846%, the number of journals was 8,187, increased by 780%, textbooks were 20,755, increased by 484%, newspapers were 2,038, increased by 1095%. ( Figure II)

3. The sudden emergence of packaging printing and special printing has become an important pillar of printing and a new growth point.

According to the incomplete statistics of 19 provinces and cities in 1980, there are 139 factories engaged in packaging and printing, more than 6,300 employees, more than 5,000 printing equipments, and more than 400 plate-making equipments. The annual output is nearly 33.5 billion in India. 780 million yuan; With the development of market economy, rapid development of packaging and printing. According to incomplete statistics, as of the end of 1997, there were 6,050 packaging printing enterprises in and around the county, and about 730 thousand employees, achieving an industrial output value of about 30 billion yuan. At present, there are more than 20,000 companies engaged in rapid printing throughout the country, with more than 30,000 small offset presses, and a number of fast printing chain agencies in Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuxi. Some quick printing companies have used computer connections. One machine and other latest technologies and equipment. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 30,000 screen printing companies across the country, of which more than 1,000 have begun to take shape and employ more than 158,000 people. (Figure 3)

4. The variety of printing equipment and equipment has increased, and the technological level and quality have been significantly improved. Breakthroughs have been made in some areas, except for a few high-precision products, which can basically meet the needs of China's printing industry.

In 1997, there were 65 printing machinery enterprises, with a total of 45,775 employees and an industrial output value of 2,707.49 million yuan. They produced a total of 140 web offset presses and 9,591 various sheetfed offset presses. Printing machinery has formed a group of backbone enterprises and enterprise groups with considerable strengths capable of mass production of more advanced offset printing presses, gravure printing presses, flexo printing presses, small offset printing presses and postpress processing equipment. In addition to high-end printing equipment that needs to be imported, mid-range printing equipment is already available in China, and domestic printers have a domestic market share of approximately 60%. In 1996, a total of 1 billion U.S. dollars worth of printing equipment and parts were imported, mainly imported high-grade offset presses and prepress electronic devices.

The Chinese character laser photocopying system made a major breakthrough in the early 1980s. BeiDing Founder's Chinese character laser photocopying technology is not only used in China, overseas Chinese language newspapers are also widely used, and Peking University Founder's Japanese typesetting software and RIP have entered the Japanese market.

In 1980, there were 22 ink factories nationwide with about 7,000 employees, an annual production capacity of 24,000 tons, and an output value of 139.95 million yuan. There are about 400 ink manufacturing companies in China with 25,000 employees. The annual output of ink is 143,000 tons, of which the output of joint ventures accounts for about 70%. Through the introduction of technology and foreign investment, the variety of inks has increased dramatically, and the level and quality of products have been significantly improved, basically meeting the needs of the domestic printing industry. Domestically produced photocurable inks, water-based inks, and metal inks have been successfully developed and put into production.

In 1998, there were no less than 50 companies with an annual PS production capacity of 300,000 square meters. In 1998, the annual production capacity of the equipment was 50.94 million M2. The actual annual production exceeded 30 million square meters. (Not including about 500 PS plate reproduction production. Yield). The annual output value is 1 billion yuan, of which about 50% of the production is produced by 3-4 large enterprises such as the Lokkai Group's second film factory.

5. Great changes have taken place in the structure and ownership structure of printing companies

There are 151,955 companies, of which, there are 82,189 various types of printing enterprises in the country, 69,766 companies with copying, photocopying and printing, accounting for 45.95%, and 8,152 publications printing enterprises (including specializing in publishing, plate making and binding of publications 2,843), accounting for 5.4%; 20,409 packaging and decorating printing companies, accounting for 13.4%; and 53,628 other printed matter printing companies, accounting for 35.3%. Compared with the pre-cleaning and rectification, various types of printing companies reduced by 20,946, copying and shadowing.