Development opportunities and transformation and u

Development opportunities and transformation and upgrading of the flexible packaging gravure printing industry

release date: Source: editor of the packaging and printing branch of the printing industry association: China Packaging browsing times: 220 copyright and disclaimer

core tip: in recent years, the competitive pressure of the flexible packaging gravure printing industry has been increasing, and the living space of the flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises has been constantly squeezed due to the influence of the upstream industry (raw and auxiliary materials) and downstream enterprises (customers). Labor costs continue to rise, employees flow frequently, and homogeneous competition is intensifying. The greater test is that the flexible packaging gravure printing industry must face more and more regulatory constraints related to environmental protection, safety, health and so on

[China Packaging News] in recent years, the competitive pressure of the flexible packaging gravure printing industry has been increasing, and the living space of the flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises has been constantly squeezed by the influence of the upstream industry (raw and auxiliary materials) and downstream enterprises (customers). Labor costs continue to rise, employees flow frequently, and homogeneous competition is intensifying. The greater test is that the flexible packaging gravure printing industry must face more and more regulatory constraints related to environmental protection, safety, health and so on. In 2013 and the first half of 2014, although the operating revenue of leading enterprises and some backbone enterprises in the industry increased, their profits barely increased or even showed negative growth. While many small and medium-sized enterprises' operating income and profit indicators have both declined, and even the load rate of newly replaced equipment is at a seriously low level

in this harsh situation, more and more flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises have begun to realize that enterprises must really pay attention to understand the real demand of commodities for flexible packaging, must adjust the packaging structure, and must carry out transformation and upgrading in order to have room for improvement. In the context of green environmental protection, the transformation of flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises from traditional processors to overall solution providers is a historical opportunity for the flexible packaging gravure printing industry

difficulties and development opportunities faced by the flexible packaging gravure printing industry

1 Low carbon, environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction

the packaging and printing industry is one of the key industries in China's air pollution prevention and control, with a total annual VOC emission of about 6million tons. The emission of organic waste gas from the flexible packaging gravure printing industry not only led to the waste of renewable resources in Europe, South America and Southeast Asia, but also aggravated environmental pollution. In the past year, in response to the serious haze phenomenon, relevant national and local departments have successively promulgated a number of policies and measures related to environmental protection

at the same time, some international terminal enterprises have also formulated sustainable packaging strategies, and there are more and more requirements for packaging material suppliers in terms of low carbon. Carbon footprint has become the hottest topic today. Some international customers may require flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises to provide data such as carbon dioxide emissions of packaging products. At the same time, the international carbon footprint, carbon labeling and other systems have also formed a huge pressure on the development of domestic flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises

therefore, low carbon, environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction are not the trend and prospect, but the reality that flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises must face

2. With the continuous progress of social material civilization and spiritual civilization, human beings pay more attention to food safety, gradually increase the safety control of food packaging, increasingly strict requirements on the hygiene and functional safety of packaging materials, and gradually expand the scope of protective functions of packaging materials. For example, many customers require packaging material suppliers to provide certificates of biological safety and chemical stability of packaging materials issued by authoritative departments. At present, with the rapid improvement of people's requirements for the safety and health of flexible packaging, packaging materials and processes that advocate green packaging and call for environmental protection and safety have become a strong demand of the whole society

3. Cost pressure

the main raw and auxiliary materials of flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises plastic resin, plastic film, ink, adhesive, solvent, etc. are all petroleum products, and the prices are rising and have been running at a high level

in recent years, the wage level of flexible packaging gravure printing industry has increased significantly, and the rapid rise in labor costs will further compress the living space of small flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises. The post-80s and post-90s have become an important force in the flexible packaging gravure industry. The flexible packaging gravure industry has a relatively poor working environment, relatively low income, high requirements for operators, and relatively weak attraction for some young people, which directly leads to the loss of industry backbone and disorderly flow of personnel, and brings difficulties to the human resource management of enterprises

4. The concentration of terminal enterprises is getting higher and stronger

international multinational companies entering the Chinese market have occupied a large market share with strong capital strength and advanced marketing means. These multinational companies also tend to choose their partners in the international market in the choice of flexible packaging suppliers, which brings opportunities to domestic and foreign flexible packaging gravure enterprises

with the increasing concentration of the end market industry, the mergers and alliances of enterprises in the food, daily chemical, agricultural materials and other industries in the domestic market are gradually creating a number of large-scale packaging enterprises

in the era of low profit, due to the fierce competition in food, medicine, daily chemical and other industries, in order to reduce costs and enhance product competitiveness, these terminal enterprises require their suppliers (including flexible packaging gravure enterprises) to continuously reduce product prices through bidding and other forms every year, especially some large-scale joint ventures and foreign-funded enterprises with good brands, to assess their suppliers every year, On this basis, it is proposed that the price should be reduced to a certain extent, so FRP also needs time. If flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises cannot meet their requirements, they are likely to face the risk of losing customers

5. Industry competition is intensifying

in China's flexible packaging gravure printing market, small and medium-sized enterprises account for the vast majority. Due to the low or similar technology of products, the competition is very fierce, and many business owners tend to focus on reducing costs, ignoring technological innovation and product health requirements

all these emerging external factors will increase the cost burden of flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises and minimize their profits (unless they master unique processing technology). If flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises want to obtain opportunities for survival and development, they must take the road of technological innovation. The profits from the opportunity market are far greater than those from the competitive market

the adjustment and upgrading of the flexible packaging gravure printing industry and technological progress

the new technology, new process, new equipment and new materials of the flexible packaging gravure printing industry will develop rapidly in the direction of green environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction, loss reduction, quality and efficiency improvement. In this context, a series of new technologies, such as benzene free technology, loss control, efficient drying device, solvent recovery, have been applied to the flexible packaging gravure printing industry

1. Transformation and upgrading of gravure printing and other equipment

the largest material loss in the gravure production process is the waste generated by startup commissioning and inaccurate overprinting. If the fine adjustment operation is closely linked with the process steps, a stable and predictable waste value can be obtained. Domestic gravure equipment manufacturing enterprises adopt the latest technologies such as rapid pre registration and high-precision tension control, which makes the cutting loss, equipment restart loss (already registered), order replacement loss, restart of previously stored orders loss, speed reduction loss, etc. reach a very low level, and even better than the international advanced level in some aspects

under the pressure of small profits of flexible packaging products, domestic flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises have paid more and more attention to the material consumption index in the processing process of printing or composite equipment (including normal roll changing) when selecting equipment, in order to reduce the product cost to the greatest extent. Therefore, material loss data has become an important consideration index for flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises to choose equipment

nowadays, the operation assistance time of advanced gravure printing machines is greatly shortened. The integrated car for loading and inking realizes the integrated operation of loading, transporting and inking, and can clean the plate roller and ink tank offline; Through the rapid inking system, the solvent is directly fed into the ink tray from the solvent room, and the feeding amount is directly controlled by the ink viscosity controller; The sleeve pressing roller technology does not need to replace the tooling, which reduces the labor intensity and greatly shortens the replacement time; The technology of rapid replacement of scraper realizes the rapid replacement of scraper; The laser alignment system and the safety chuck quick clamping system realize fast winding up and down; Fault display and alarm help maintenance personnel quickly diagnose and repair; Historical fault alarm indication can reduce the time for maintenance personnel to troubleshoot

therefore, the normal operation of the hydraulic system of the universal material testing machine will not be affected. In the gravure printing production process, the energy consumed by the drying oven accounts for a large proportion. The application of heat pump technology, waste heat recovery system and layered drying oven effectively reduces the consumption of heat energy. The full-automatic monitoring drying system based on LEL can not only save energy and reduce emissions, but also prevent the risk of explosion and combustion in the drying system, and greatly reduce the cost of tail gas treatment

2. Waste gas emission control

there are three main ways to control the VOC emission of gravure printing, namely, source control, process management and end treatment

source control is to reduce the use of organic solvents from the beginning of the printing process, so as to achieve the goal of VOC emission reduction. The main measure is to promote raw and auxiliary materials such as environmental friendly inks and cleaning agents with low or no VOC, such as water-based inks and single solvent inks

process management is to achieve VOC emission reduction by improving drying efficiency and production site management during printing processing. The main measures are to carry out technological innovation on the printing machine, reduce the air volume and increase the concentration of VOC emitted by production, and increase the utilization of heat energy, such as adding LEL devices for equipment, reducing solvent volatilization at the workshop site, capping ink tanks, promoting cleaner production, and carrying out green printing certification

at present, there are two main directions for end treatment, namely recycling and combustion treatment. The recovered volatile organic compounds can be directly or simply purified and then returned to the process for reuse, so as to reduce the consumption of raw materials, or used in the production process with low quality requirements for organic solvents or centralized separation and purification. At present, some large-scale flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises have begun to recycle the exhaust gas (solvent), whether it is adsorption recovery method or regenerative catalytic combustion method. It is believed that flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises can obtain certain economic and social benefits

3. Benzene free gravure printing ink and the application of integrated printing ink

with the concept of environmental protection and sustainable development becoming increasingly popular, the relevant national environmental protection policies have changed from the stage of having laws to enforce the law, and the terminal enterprises have higher and higher requirements for environmental protection. Therefore, the benzene free process of flexible packaging gravure printing industry is bound to accelerate

a major technological progress from benzene containing ink to benzene free ink and flexible packaging gravure printing industry, and also another innovation of environmental protection technology in the ink industry. Backbone enterprises in the industry and some small and medium-sized enterprises have begun to fully use benzene free ink. However, for small enterprises, benzene (toluene, xylene) containing inks are still the main ones, which urgently needs to be standardized

at present, integrated ink has been widely used in some large flexible packaging gravure printing enterprises, and it will become an important development direction of gravure printing ink

prospect of gravure printing on flexible packaging

1 The concentration of flexible packaging gravure printing industry has increased rapidly