Traders and Flexo Markets (below)

Trade Operations Flexo Printing Industry, as an ever-evolving process manufacturing industry, has been continuously striving to reduce unnecessary operating costs in order to achieve better benefits and find better cost balance points. Each trader’s investment has to be carefully studied because the production of the printing plate is easy (as has been the case in traders' major commercial jobs), but there are many possibilities from the plate to the press.
Tim Rose, vice president and general manager of Schawk, believes that reducing printing time on printing principles, combining quality control with cost reduction, and manufacturing via a remote platemaking system will be the future direction of packaging printing. He pointed out that the development of digital plate making and electronic prepress technology will further promote the printers' investment in flexographic printing technology.
Dan Heller, president of Mastergraphics, commented on such flexographic printing investors, saying that the constant increase of printers led to a significant increase in the number of presses, while the investment for the increase in plate-making equipment accounted for only a small part of the total investment cost. In other words, the two aspects of labor costs and total investment less than the expected value will continue to encourage business investment. In addition, due to multiple aspects of the printing process, the provision of a device center that can remotely supply printing plates has regional problems for manufacturers in certain regions. In short, according to the IPA report, the installed capacity of remote printing machines will develop, but there will not be such a high growth rate as in previous years.
Data information and electronic processes have become quite popular in the printing industry. They make production cheaper, easier to operate, and more efficient. In contrast to the past, any operation in the production process can be inspected, corrected and improved before being transferred to the plate. Proofing has been integrated in the entire process, but too many proofing will still increase costs.
The normative proofing procedure is for designers and printers to be responsible to each other. The printer must print according to the industry standard and according to the customer's signature. This step will be stricter than before. In this process, value-added operations can be best accomplished only with the assistance of traders. Through a variety of software to complete the quality of monitoring, printing out a variety of proofs for the customer, and the corresponding data parameters are stored and generated files for later easy application to the printing production process, or prepress design. However, this process is extremely complicated and requires professionals to complete it.
Mark Samworth, deputy manager of technical department of Artwork Systems, once was responsible for equipment parameter testing. He believes that buyers and designers of printing equipment can only use the functions of the product if they employ employees who use digital standards. Time and money are used in print production. As a result, productivity will be higher, production quality will be better, and buyers' needs will be maximized.
The future development of traders has begun to change roles and become a prepress service provider. Its goal is to accurately reproduce design images to meet customer needs. The international printer "Printers`internals" magazine has also combined platemaking/prepress services in recent years. The suggestion in this paper is that traders must correctly set profit targets for this year and next year, and realize that the era of lucrative profits has passed, and that “flat is true”.
Many prepress design studios, especially small businesses, have found business opportunities in a variety of new application areas. For medium-sized businesses, the main source of survival is the product investment related to market customers. Both prepress companies can understand the economic internality, but they also rely too much on the profits brought about by the integration of plate making, prepress design, and print production. Larger companies have the strength to invest in a full range of services, so their customers are more extensive and service areas are larger.
For example, large, medium, and small companies need to invest in equipment and employee training, prepress production, plate making, and installing plate sleeves. Mastergraphics purchases the sleeve directly from the manufacturer in the form of an order and installs it into a printing company with a large quantity of printing plates destined for overseas sales. However, the printing product customer is the user and genuine demand source of the printing plate sleeve. Schawk's Rose was responsible for the installation of the plate sleeve. He transferred the image directly to the installed plate. He believes that printers should invest in this technology. He will support customers to use digital prepress operations to achieve digital management of the press.
The active partner John Shreve, president of Midwest Imaging & Roller Services Inc., said in a statement: "The complexity and urgency of printing customer requirements require the printer to produce a certain amount of time within the specified time limit. Products, which need to work closely with traders. Workflow management is closely related to costs, which also requires the support of a strong trader, otherwise the time to live, job quality can not be guaranteed.”
Relieving the printer from the plight of production is a real problem for traders. The demand of printing customers will prompt closer cooperation between traders and printers. The printer must negotiate with the contract to include the trader's services in production requirements.
Summarizing the contact between traders and printing clients and printers, traders need to understand the customer's psychology and understand the printer's technology usage, and maintain close partnerships and technical support with the printers during the production process. This new model requires various inputs, including different types of personnel training and constantly updated business plans. If e-commerce is difficult to accept such a reality, the scale of customers will become smaller and smaller, and the profits of trade will also become lower and lower.
The data surveyed in this paper shows that there are more and more small-scale companies and they are more dynamic. Keeley concluded: "In addition to the rapid development of technology and trade relations, the flexographic printing industry is increasingly dependent on customer needs."