Multi-composite process application of cigarette pack printing (on)

Because of the characteristics of the product: large output, spot color, and large background color, printing equipment uses gravure printing machines. The rotogravure printing machine has the characteristics of high efficiency and thick ink, and it has significant advantages in printing up to 10 million pieces of cigarettes. Therefore, early cigarette pack printing was mainly printed with a gravure printer.

Most of the gravure printers are imported, and the brands are also a few: BOBST, KOMORI CHAMBON, CERUTTl, COMPRINT, ATN France, FUJI Japan, POLYTECH Italy ROTOMEC has installed approximately 240 color groups in Komori's Shangbang, and BOBST, Cerruti, and Gold India have nearly 200 color groups installed in their homes. The other brands are about 20-40 color groups.

According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 200 printing companies based on cigarette packets in China, and most printing companies have gravure printing lines. In Yunnan alone, there are more than 50 gravure printing lines with 6 to 8 colors. Due to the relatively large profits from cigarette pack printing in the earlier years, a large number of printing companies were involved in the cigarette pack printing industry, especially in the printing companies in Guangdong and Shenzhen. As a result, cigarette pack printing competition became increasingly fierce. The result also led to cigarette pack design and printing. The process is becoming more and more complex, and the materials used are more and more sophisticated. Gravure, offset, flexo, screen printing, UV printing, UV glazing, holographic hot stamping, laser aluminum foil and other technologies have come into battle. The combination of two or three printing technologies Printed cigarette packs can be seen everywhere, and cigarette packs with a variety of printing technologies are not new. Even the engraving gravure used for printing RMB is used in cigarette pack printing. For a time, exquisite cigarette pack products such as the water of the Yangtze River, after the waves push the waves continue to emerge, its complex process, advanced technology, can be called the world's leading.

In such a situation, the original high-speed rotary gravure printer is no longer adapted to the requirements of a variety of combinations of printed cigarette packs, and its flexibility is greatly limited. At this time, inexpensive domestically produced single-color gravure printers have risen to take advantage of the situation, and in a large variety of combinations of technology to print cigarette packs, they have taken advantage of time and place. Its main manufacturers, Beijing Zhenhengli Printing Machinery Co., Ltd., Shanghai Ziming Machinery Co., Ltd., and Shanghai Hairun Printing Machinery Co., Ltd., have seen booming sales of single-claw machines in the past two years. The powerful cigarette pack printing companies have not hesitated to purchase a combined printing production line, and the Gallus (GALLUS) combined printing production line has appeared in the north and south of China.

The current domestic cigarette pack printing technology features

1. Single Gravure Printing to Offset and Combination Printing Development

Offset printing has always dominated the publishing and commercial printing fields. In particular, high-quality printed catalogs can only be completed with offset printing. This is because the offset press has developed to the present day and the technology is very mature. It has the advantage that other printing methods can't be compared in the reproduction of image details. Compared with gravure printing, offset printing plate has the characteristics of short cycle and low cost. In the current tobacco factory frequent replacement of cigarette package design, continuous introduction of new products, and new product sales are not large, the offset printing machine will show The higher flexibility, which is the main reason for the increasing proportion of offset printing in cigarette pack printing in recent years.

Especially in the field of printing in China, offset printing has become very popular. It has the largest proportion in various printing methods and is the most important printing method in the field of publishing and packaging printing in China. Therefore, in China, the installed capacity of offset printing presses is the largest and has the best Hardware environment and software conditions. Six international suppliers of offset press Heidelberg, Manroland, KBA, Komori, Mitsubishi, and Akiyama, sales in China have been steadily increasing in recent years. Most of the imported sheetfed offset presses are used for packaging and printing. Although many large and medium-sized cigarette pack printing companies have purchased web gravure printers or flexo printers, they have invariably used offset printing as one of their main operations, or for printing small and medium-sized cigarette packs, or Used to print packaging products (such as cigarette cases, cosmetics boxes, kits, etc.) in other industries.

However, in recent years, with the intensified competition in the tobacco industry and the continuous improvement of the cigarette box design, a single offset printing can no longer meet the requirements of exquisite cigarette packs, so the combination of offset printing, gravure printing, screen printing, flexo printing, etc. The technology has risen quietly and it has become popular across the country. The result of the combination printing brought the grade of cigarette packs to an unprecedented level. At the same time, the characteristics of several printing methods have been brought into full play, complementing each other and leading the way. Offset printing images and gradation patterns are printed using offset printing. The advantages of thick gravure ink layer and stable ink are used to print large areas of spot and spot colors, gold and silver, pearlescent colors and various imitation metal etching inks. If you need special finishing effects, you can also screen printing process, such as frosted, ice, crystal, wrinkles and so on. Therefore, the combination of offset printing, gravure printing, and silk screen printing has brought unprecedented strong artistic visual effects to cigarette packs. Together with the post-processing technology: gold sweeping, UV spotting, hot stamping, and embossing, the cigarette packs are icing on the cake, and they are amazing.

(to be continued)