The influence of the development of printing mater

On the impact of the development of printing materials and packaging on flexible packaging

[China Packaging News] now, packaging users and processing plants around the world are constantly merging and changing at an amazing pace. Take Walmart, the largest food retailer in North America, as an example. Last year, it acquired supermarket giant and Asda, and expanded into the European market at one stroke, which had a huge impact on relevant flexible packaging suppliers. In addition, Huntsman, one of the largest packaging companies in the world (with sales of US $1.5 billion), also announced in May this year that it was acquired by Citigroup investment fund for us $1.1 billion. At the beginning of this year, Alcan merged with alusuisse, which owns Lawson mardon packaging company; Dixie toga/ltap, a flexible packaging supplier with sales of US $250million, also has one-third of the shares owned by bemisc, and the name of the new company is ltap/bemis

from the general trend, large-scale flexible packaging manufacturers with strong strength are becoming exclusive regional suppliers by gradually purchasing medium-sized enterprises. I don't know who will be next

next, let's see how the development trend of environmental protection regulations, materials and packaging continues to affect the flexible packaging industry

1. Waste packaging regulations

in some countries, the adjustment tax or fine imposed on waste packaging is being reduced. Britain, for example, has fallen from 11% to 9%. Food manufacturers have invested most of their investment in packaging production lines to use thinner films to avoid over packaging. From the perspective of environmental protection, the general trend is from rigid packaging to flexible packaging. Compared with flexible packaging manufacturers, the investment of rigid packaging manufacturers tends to decrease

nevertheless, some changes in the concept of market development can be seen occasionally in other aspects. For example, British mcvities biscuits and Jaffa cakes are packaged in a composite can

2. Change trend of materials

materials are tending to use thinner and stronger films. Many small foods use 15 μ m/15 μ m adhesive composite films. The engineering technology of polymers has also been improved, including Metallization Technology. It can be expected that there will be further development in this regard. With the strong growth of investment in aluminum plating plants, the price of standard aluminum plating film will continue to fall. With the development of aluminizing technology, aluminized films with higher barrier properties are widely used, especially in the packaging of small food

low temperature heat sealing (l.t.s.) film can complete heat sealing at 65 ℃. Compared with cold sealing film, l.t.s. film has no restrictions on the service life, and there are no registration or pollution problems in the process of packaging and use. Although the heat sealing film provided by flexible packaging manufacturers has these advantages, manufacturers using assembly line packaging of food still tend to choose the cold sealing film as the first choice. Compared with l.t.s. film, cold sealing film has many advantages in packaging speed, ease of use and no damage to chocolate products; At the same time, flexible packaging manufacturers make the cold sealing film can be perfectly aligned during high-speed packaging, making it a very effective processing technology

when using latex cold sealing paint to package chocolate, the smell often affects the taste of chocolate. The above problems can be fundamentally solved by using synthetic cold sealing glue. Synthetic cold sealing adhesive has become mature, and Mars food company has decided to use synthetic cold sealing adhesive to package food in the future

3. Packaging trend

on the whole, the flexible packaging market has maintained an annual growth momentum of more than 5%. Previously, the growth rate of fresh-keeping product packaging was predicted to be 30%, but in the past two years, the growth rate of some parts of the product has reached 50%. With the continuous improvement of breathable membrane technology, this kind of packaging will become a growing market for packaging processors

the change of demographic data shows that more and more families are dominated by single parents, single or double employees. Therefore, we predict that the polyester film used for microwave food packaging will continue to grow, especially in replacing family meals

4. Unification of packaging specifications

the wish of a manufacturer to adopt globally standardized unified packaging specifications for similar products produced in different countries has not yet been realized. Fritolay is just a unique example of focusing on global standardized packaging

the consensus view on this phenomenon is that there are too many differences in various markets around the world, so it is difficult to determine whether the use of standardized packaging can benefit, or whether the conditions of the local sales market should be put in the first place

in any case, flexible packaging manufacturers must provide the highest product quality and best service at a moderate price. In the fierce competition, only flexible packaging manufacturers with world-class standards can succeed

industry experts also pointed out that

5 Meet the challenge

users' requirements for flexible packaging manufacturers are very clear:

① products should have the highest quality

② supply chain management is a major demand, and relevant management work and costs are likely to be borne by flexible packaging suppliers

③ another trend is entrusted storage. Flexible packaging manufacturers store packaging products according to the requirements put forward by customers in advance, and charge according to the specific quantity until customers decide to use. Although this link, as a part of supply chain management, can not reduce costs, it links the supply chain with flexible packaging manufacturers and meets the market demand for short version products

④ most users also require that the packaging of goods have more colors and lower prices

⑤ due to users' requirements for low price, high quality and urgent delivery time of products, the burden of flexible packaging manufacturers has increased and profits have decreased. The profits of flexible packaging manufacturers are decreasing, and in some cases, the profit margin has been far lower than the reinvestment interest rate

for example, the material cost of a flexible packaging manufacturer with an annual sales volume of $50million is roughly 55% - 60% of the total sales volume. After deducting miscellaneous expenses (including the salary of about employees, the cost of energy, rent and waste products), the profit of the flexible packaging manufacturer is approximately $1.5 million, equivalent to 3% of the sales volume

a major problem faced by flexible packaging manufacturers is waste. Although there are many reasons for the waste of up to 18%-20% (such as scratch, color difference, shrinkage, ink flying, paper breaking, pleating, etc.), the waste products generated in machine adjustment and registration adjustment are the main reasons for the waste. Reducing waste for the packaging industry means not only saving costs, but also reducing non production time

flexible packaging manufacturers should control many major cost points in the actual production process, so as to obtain the most utilized high-performance plastic cop (cycloolefin polymer) which can be used for pharmaceutical products that need to be packaged with particularly complex cost efficiency. How should printing equipment manufacturers develop and innovate to ensure that the flexible packaging industry can meet the challenges of today, tomorrow and the future? Flexible packaging manufacturers should be able to improve internal cost control and adapt to market prices by using the equipment manufacturer's proven leading technology

we meet the future needs of the packaging industry through the following measures:

① minimize the waste of film and ink and effectively increase profits

② reduce the commissioning preparation time to the shortest, so that short version printing and long version printing are no longer a pair of contradictions

③ by reducing time consumption and manual adjustment, the operator can pay more attention to the printing quality

flexible packaging manufacturers hope that the shorter the debugging time of the equipment, the better. With the maturity of the manufacturing technology of electronic axis printing machine, this wish has become a reality. Compared with the traditional gravure press, the electronic shaft system can significantly reduce the commissioning preparation time of new prints. In addition, if the flexible packaging manufacturer has a nine color electronic axis printer, and the average color is seven colors, then the remaining two printing units can be used for preparatory work, including inking and running the doctor blade, which reduces the commissioning preparation time by another 20% on the above basis. Another advantage of the electronic axis printing machine is that it can reduce the time of changing plates to about one minute

assuming that the average annual sales of flexible packaging manufacturers is $50million, the ink cost should be close to $5million. If 20 products are replaced every day, about 2400KG of diluted ink is recycled from the printing machine, 80% of which is recycled and then returned to the printing machine for use. If the diluted ink is calculated at $2.8 per kilogram, the annual cost will reach $336000

saving ink can significantly improve the company's profits. Our solution is to use a new type of shallow ink tank, in which the floating roller is close to the plate cylinder. The shallow ink tank can reduce the total amount of ink required for the production cycle to 7 liters, greatly reducing the amount of ink that needs to be recycled. Taking the above example as an example, the amount of ink recovered decreased from 2400 kg to 840 kg, resulting in a total cost of $118000 for ink treatment. It can be seen from this. The ink purchase cost alone can save 218000 US dollars

we are now designing a new type of machine suitable for short version live printing, and the ink circulation of its ink supply system will be less

6. Waste management

flexible packaging manufacturers continue to look for low-cost production methods. To achieve this goal, strict control of the use of raw materials is the most critical factor

as we mentioned earlier, the biggest material waste in the production process is the waste generated by startup debugging and overprinting. If the fine adjustment operation is closely linked with the process steps, a stable and predictable waste value can be obtained

compared with traditional printing machines, electronic shaft driven gravure printing machines have made great breakthroughs in reducing startup and debugging time and overprint waste. The gravure printing machine with electronic axis has been put into use in some countries. It can accelerate from 30 meters/minute to the set production speed. The acceleration is twice that of the traditional mechanical axis printing machine, and the printing products in the acceleration process are overprint accurate and marketable qualified products

the same is true during deceleration. Due to the optimization of the speed of the motor and the unique software, we can correct the position of the plate cylinder with an adjustment as small as 1 micron, so as to ensure accurate registration

in addition to the reduction of registration waste, due to the cancellation of the compensation roller, the paper length of the web on the printing machine is also shortened by nearly 20% compared with the traditional printing machine. The printing registration of the electronic axis printing machine is realized by electrically driving directly to each plate cylinder to correct the position of the plate cylinder, so the pleating phenomenon caused by the compensation roller of the traditional gravure printing machine will not appear. If reprinted products are printed by electronic shaft gravure press, the length of debugging materials required will be much less than that of traditional gravure press

in a word, after the electronic shaft and shallow ink tank system are used in the gravure press, the paper length, debugging waste, registration waste, ink recovery and debugging time will be greatly reduced. If a business includes 3 reprinted products and 1 new product, it can reduce about 1/3 of waste and shorten the debugging time by 40%

taking the flexible packaging factory with a sales volume of 50million US dollars as an example, the above improvements can be achieved at least by reducing debugging time and registration waste