Change from Offset to Digital Printing

In the past three months, as a guest of the International Printing Association, I have travelled from the United States and Canada to England, Australia and New Zealand. In every country, people's views on the development prospects of digital printing are almost the same. Less than 5% of the union members are actively projecting into this change, and the other 20% of the members are investigating the study, but there is no big move, and the remaining 75% of the members are at a loss.

In the face of this situation, I think: Insiders must have a sense of urgency and act quickly!

The latest research on the world printing industry shows that about 90% of the printing business still uses traditional printing, and 10% or less of the printing business is done by digital printing. By 2010, the share of digital printing in the printing business will change significantly. But for the printing manufacturers, there is still time to outline the future work plan.

In the world, the desktop publishing revolution has been completed, Apple's system has been very popular, but the development of the PC system will make 70% of the printers have to make some adjustments. Prepress processing has become the standard everywhere, color printing is increasing, and the total printing business volume is declining, so competition has become more intense, but practice has proved that printers capable of printing high quality, low-cost images still have strong Competitiveness.

How do printers face digital printing?

Printers should act quickly and focus on new actions to increase productivity, sales volume and market share, and seek to produce more print products with less labor. Increase the average sales for each marketer and establish a long-lasting workflow to assess every step of printing in a printing plant. Faced with the situation where printing customers are always exerting great pressure to obtain the lowest printing quotation, increasing productivity and adopting more effective workflows are fundamental for future gains.

Second, create a future team

Tracing the changes in traditional prepress, printing and postpress technology is relatively simple. It is almost impossible to trace the progress of digital printing technology, because digital printing technology is changing almost every day, and most of the technologies are quite complicated. In response to this problem, how should the printing industry respond to the arrival of the digital era? The only solution is to build a future team. The team should be composed of your current employees as much as possible. These employees should be interested in multimedia, various printing methods, and digital technologies. Of course, for small printers with a sense of interest, they can also become part of the team.

Players should be responsible for learning and updating their knowledge, and for each specific digital technology can provide reasonable suggestions for the printing manufacturer. At the same time, printers should develop certain costs to train their team members, such as ordering related magazines and training journals; participating in related demonstrations and exhibitions; purchasing research reports; visiting printers using the same technology; visiting inventors of such technologies, etc. Wait. This out-of-range plan and budget is necessary because most of the inventors of these technologies will not come to the printer. They expect the printers to participate in something like "Seybold", "On-Demand" or other non-traditional Printing exhibitions, and this series of exhibitions is increasing. The same growing trend is every kind of digital technology that people are concerned about. The following techniques are of concern to players:

PC and apple

Digital photography

digital library

Web development

Similar information group

Internet and intranet consulting

International Internet Construction

Intranet construction

Transform static images and text into visual images, sounds and animations

Electronic display

Information reorganization and repositioning

Digital Printing Machine

Digital copier

Digital offset printing

Personalized digital printing machine

Distributed printing

Integrated business data network and high speed delivery

Remote proofing

Soft proofing

Digital proofing

Digital consulting

Digital training, etc.

The above technologies are constantly developing. Therefore, the team members should come together every month, every two months, and every quarter to discuss important new technology points, and propose technically perfect timetables, fees, and benefits. The challenge is to meet with the inventor of the technology that may be adopted. It is this dedicated team that allows printers to decide whether to adopt new technologies. It is also this team that rejects technologies that are either impractical or too risky.

By establishing a future team, it not only ensures that the printer has a more complete analysis of the introduction and promotion of a new digital technology, but also reduces the work pressure among the employees of the company and reduces the risks caused by wrong decisions. It also provides an opportunity to strengthen employee participation in company affairs.

Third, act quickly

It may take up to one year to create a future team and analyze its initial plan. Therefore, the printer should act quickly. For those printers who do not set up a team, they will find that it is more difficult to make reasonable choices between the constant competition of traditional and digital technologies, and how to judge the useful information for printers. Setting up a future team now will mean that you will still have a place in the printing market in the next decade.