Screen Printing: Still Entering Digital

(Screen Printing: Still Weathering the Digital Storm) But how long does it take to digitize? Mark Twain told the newspaper's ridiculous so-called death report: "My death rumors have been greatly exaggerated." Similarly, digital printing has also been greatly exaggerated. As early as five or six years ago, many people predicted that screen printing would soon disappear under the impact of digital printing technology. But today, in the new digital millennium, screen printing is still full of vigor and business. Is this just a momentary phenomenon or prophecy's prophecy itself wrong? Let's go and see it together. Digital printing continues to develop, but it is still not as fast as expected. There is no doubt that the growth rate and growth process of digital printing is not what entrepreneurs predicted in the mid-to-late 1990s, but we must also see wide The power of digital printing does increase. It is recalled that in 1998, the headline of India’s “Serigraphy” magazine was: “The end of the year will come and industrial growth will decline in a straight line within five years.” If this is the case, we will be very sympathetic to this situation. However, when we learned that the growth rate was still 28%, we couldn't help but feel that the word "doomsday" was too exaggerated. How many print suppliers using traditional methods will jump to the building because of the growth rate of 28%? Of course not. The problem may be due to not only investing in new equipment and manpower in the past two years, but also increasing the growth rate by 55-70%. After that, the annual growth rate according to the predetermined target should be greater than 50%, but only 28% compared to 28 The growth rate of % is only a bad news. How can it be called "the Doomsday"? For digital equipment suppliers, due to the inconsistency between the expectations of companies and shareholders and investment, and the unsatisfactory expected results, it has led to the merger of sellers. Xerox recently acquired Tektronix; Swiss company Gretag combined with Raster Graphics, Cymbolic Sciences, Sienna, and Anagraph formed Gratag Imaging; Italy's Durst purchased Dice; Israel's NUR recently received Salsa Digital, among others. The reasons for the failure of the prediction five years ago are for reasons, because the real difficulty in predicting the wide-format printing market is that it has not formed a market at all. It is a different image company that uses a hybrid technology to serve customers in all areas. To make predictions, you can't just observe existing digital users. You must also identify and analyze non-users and potential digital printing device users. From this point of view in 1999, the Screen Association conducted a survey of the European wide-format image market, focusing on the digital technology that accompanies traditional printing processes such as screen printing, vinyl label cutting, and photoengraving. This survey was supported by many digital or screen print sellers. More than 1200 useful feedback messages were received from 17,000 survey responses sent to 21 European countries. The answer is in the form of a telephone, but there are also direct visits to the workshop. This article provides a summary of the important information found in the survey. It also analyzes feedback from the United States and Australia. All trends are similar. Obviously, because the European data has no direct relationship with the US market, this shows that the strategic implications and technical predictability of the survey are valid for most developed countries. The growth of wide-format digital printing = Very few printing companies “when your company was established?” From such a simple question we got an ironic important discovery. From the perspective of the speed at which the new printing shop was established, printing shops such as photo labs, label shops, and reproduction shops that print wide-format images reached a peak between 1985 and 1990, and have been declining in recent years. Looking at digital printing, you will find that only digital printing is still growing, but not as fast as the growth of the wide-format digital printer just installed a few years ago. In any case, digital printing is on the rise, not falling, like other pressrooms. With the use of technology, new companies set up to produce wide format images at different speeds. The investment in screen printing and other traditional wide-format image companies peaked in the late 1980s and then declined. However, this trend favors the establishment of a new digital image printing company. Comparing this trend with data obtained from the government, it can be seen that although the European image market continues to grow at a rate of about 15% per year, the overall number of wide-format images and print suppliers and screen printers is slow Decline in speed. To illustrate this point, we only need to look at the situation in the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, 280 screen printing companies closed down in 1999, and only 30 new companies were established. When large companies report appreciable profit growth, small and medium screen printers are indifferent. This trend is extremely detrimental to companies that lack market skills, innovation, digital technology or capital, and their competitive position is constantly declining. In general, it is a combination of all the problems that make it impossible to compete with professional opponents. In the past, printers, image labs, and label companies engaged in simple production could rely on controlling local small markets to get some old customers, but in the digital prepress era, technology determined who was the winner of wide format image printing. You should be a professional image studio, copy house, screen printer, or label maker to win customers. A client who needs a large outdoor poster will go to a screen printer because no other technology can be more competitive than it is. However, if a buyer needs four multi-color panels for exhibitions, the image studio is a natural choice. In fact, label makers, screen printers, image studios, quick printers, and copy houses rarely compete with each other because their respective different technologies correspond to different customer groups. But unlike digital printing, since all of these image market segments use digital prepress, communication, and image technology, they should compete with each other in either traditional or new areas. After the necessary learning phase, these investors can compete for the small market orders that have already been formed. The situation that used to dominate the small market has been gone forever. Our survey covers all aspects and all major European countries. The situation is that competition is increasing while output prices are decreasing. The larger printers are still continuing to impact local and small printing units and will certainly succeed. The same is true of the United States. However, in this relatively competitive environment, the ultimate failure of simple and lacking innovation companies is not surprising. When technology makes the technical level of the printing step itself lower, other steps in the production process such as design, communication, color management, and binding become more and more complicated. Files and copies often appear in various forms, and sometimes the files of one other program cannot be opened at all. Many wide-width devices cannot print register lines and cutting lines, making it difficult to cut and staple. Sometimes new binding steps must overcome the limitations of digital inks, toners, or media. Printing only accounts for 30% of all jobs, while other managements have taken the lead. In terms of image quality, ink-jet or xerographic effects may be poor or good, which cannot be guaranteed, but it is guaranteed that their production process cannot be exactly the same as conventional printing. The performance of any digital printing system does not match the color expression capabilities or performance of screen printing or photography. Therefore, digital printing is not a simple matter. It is not a matter of setting up a new digital printing company that will enable customers to turn to digital printing. Instead, they must have many highly experienced, keen market minds and high-grade technologies with many competitive technologies. Talent. In Europe and the United States, these issues will continue to shape the market for wide-format printing equipment and consumer goods and their structures. Many manufacturers and suppliers once imagined that with the non-technicalization of the printing process, a large number of newly formed companies will produce, and numerous existing printers will adopt wide-format digital printing as their company's course of expansion. It seems to lead to the development of a huge market, which is an image industry related to slow inkjet machines using water-based ink and expensive media. It also seems to have led to the development of all local service markets. But the reality proves a bit different. Wide-format traditional printing companies have found that digital printing of their own seems to be easier than new companies starting from scratch. And when existing users increase and reinvest, there may be different agendas for the types of machines they purchase. A simple rule of success is to obtain the business volume of wide-format digital presses with different capabilities. What this contains is a more productive machine, a machine that can be printed directly on a traditional substrate rather than an expensive special substrate. This trend inevitably led some companies to reduce the expected production of digital substrates to meet actual market demand. The current level has already reached twice the actual demand. Failure to reduce the production volume will result in a large backlog of products. Digital printing has led to the emergence of many new printing companies and image companies, but in general these new companies have difficulty entering important competitive roles. However, there are exceptions. The famous rising stars in Europe include the British Photobition Group and Image Concept in Australia. In short, the digital revolution has indeed had a great impact on traditional wide-format printer suppliers, such as screen printers, image studios, and label printing shops. With the development of time and the maturity of technology, digital printing is an inevitable trend in the future.