Summarize the development policy of China's printing industry in the new period

With the rise of labor costs in domestic printing companies in recent years, the rejuvenation of laborers, and the development of office automation, post-press automation has become the common aspiration of both companies and laborers in the industry. At the same time, the development of the 28-character guideline for the printing industry in the new era in China is: prepress digital networking, printing multi-color high-efficiency, multi-press automation after printing, and high-quality serialization of equipment. Which clearly pointed out that post-press automation is an inevitable trend in the development of the industry. So in recent years, China's post-press equipment automation has changed? How to accelerate the popularization of automation in the future? Recently, a reporter from "China Press and Publication" interviewed many experts in the industry on this topic.

Great Demand, Considering Costs The former executive general manager and senior press expert He Yong of MBO Printing Equipment Systems (Beijing) Co., Ltd. recalled in an interview with a reporter from China Press and Newspaper that 10 years ago, MBO did market research and showed that domestic The overall profitability of the printing industry is very good, it is relatively easy to make money, and the barrier to entry is low, but the scale of enterprises is uneven and the market competition is disorderly. At that time, due to the low labor cost, enterprises did not feel much about the efficiency and automation of the equipment. As long as they can print jobs, it would be best to save costs as much as possible. Ten years later, with rising labor costs, more and more printing companies are beginning to realize the importance of equipment automation. In the entire printing process, after printing, it is the link with the largest number of workers, and it is also a relatively weak link. Therefore, it has become the most urgent part of the automation upgrade process. And some processes can't be solved by manpower alone.

Previous sales of books and postpress equipment, and now mainly sales of packaging and printing equipment, Zhang Xi, a representative of the well-known enterprises in the Mainland and Taiwanese enterprises, introduced the press to the “China Press and Publication” reporter. The book printing business is slow in the world. Slowly shrinking, but the printing price has not risen, but labor costs have risen gradually. This has led corporate managers to pay attention to the postpress industry, especially packaging and postpress equipment, such as laminators and cutting machines.

However, Liu Feng, a senior engineer of Beijing Xinhua Printing Co., Ltd., said in an interview with a reporter from China Press and Newspaper that although automation equipment can solve some problems, it also has its blind spot, and some processes must still be completed manually. For example, he said that in the printing process of some children's periodicals, some small gifts and toys sometimes need to be sandwiched and this time it needs to be completed manually. So even if the automation is semi-automatic within the company, it cannot be fully automated. Of course, there are some companies that introduce machines specifically for the bagging process. Such a small number of enterprises not only depends on the needs of the enterprise, but also the most important thing is to look at the enterprise's endurance. Is it worthwhile to make such a huge investment?

Changing the concept, and braving to accept the eyes of the operating personnel of modern enterprise equipment, whether it is the printing industry or other industries, most of them are mainly young people after “80s” or even “post-90s”. This generation has a stronger desire for personal values. They work hard, but do not rigidly devote all their time to work. The same work, after being completed efficiently, saves more time for enjoying life. This change in universal values ​​is also driving the automation of the printing industry. This is even more necessary for the general two-shift, labor-intensive printing industry.

At the same time, the “80s” and “90s” are yet another generation of contact with electronic products. They will use electronic products, rely more on electronic products, and bring electronic products into the work, driving the work efficiency that they are willing to accept. thing. The automation of the equipment is also easier to impress them. They are happy to accept the automation of the equipment and are willing to accept the changes brought about by the work during the improvement process.

The above is the subjective demand of workers on post-press automation. From an objective point of view, people's problems have become more and more concerns of the current enterprises. On the one hand, the increase in personnel costs, on the other hand, is the lack of senior technicians. Liu Feng believes that due to the lower technical and operational requirements of the post-press link compared to prepress and printing, the rigid requirements for operators are not too high, so recruitment is relatively easy, but post-press is the mobility of all processes. The biggest part is that companies have a lot of headaches for this.

In this regard, He Yong said that on the one hand, enterprises must cultivate high-skilled personnel, and on the other, they must start from their own to reduce the impact of personnel on the company. Both aspects ultimately boil down to upgrading equipment automation. What is more important is that enterprises must change their concepts and actively accept the transformation of such equipment rather than being satisfied with the status quo.

Raising the wages, increasing the R&D to improve the automation level of postpress equipment has become a common consensus in the industry. Objectively speaking, both business managers and corporate workers have high demands on the automation of equipment. With the development of the industry and the deepening of digital reforms, the market's demand is also affecting the changes in the product structure and business structure of the company. This change sometimes also promotes the transformation of enterprises into automatic generations.

However, He Yong said that the cruel reality is that the printing price cannot rise, and if profits cannot be raised, it will pose obstacles to the survival of the enterprise and the automation of the enterprise will not be able to talk about it. The vicious market competition just playing the price war makes enterprises struggling to cope with, there is no enough profit, can not buy good raw materials, can not purchase advanced automation equipment, and the skill level of personnel will not be fundamentally improved. Under this circumstance, it is difficult to advance the pace of industrial automation. In this case, the importance of the post-press equipment is not printed. The first thing that is sacrificed is the post-press.

However, it is gratifying that post-press automation is not limited to large-scale equipment in the post-press field. With the infiltration of various high-tech technologies, this automation has radiated all the details of the post-press process. Zhang Hao said that printing companies must not only take initiative to accept the latest automation technology, at the same time, post-press equipment manufacturing companies also need to actively carry out research and development, the introduction of more, more convenient, closer to the needs of the company's equipment. For example, in the past, in the printing industry, the quality inspection work was usually done manually, and for the post-press part, it was necessary to check the printed sheets, sample, check the folding effect, binding effect, and glue application. A test of the operator's experience, and due to the different people's status will also interfere with the test results. Now that this situation is changing, some Taiwanese-funded enterprises and enterprises with advanced technology in the Mainland have begun to replace manual exemption inspections with testing equipment. For example, she said that some technologies can now complete the installation of some inspection instruments on folding machines and binding machines and play a role in quality control. Businesses are also slowly accepting this transformation.