Flexographic printing for small-run retail packaging production

Retail Packaging Printing

Instructions Assume task developing retail packaging a product. The product package produced a small town China shipped sold United States. The product small runs package a folding carton a color print.

Since the company is looking at doing small runs at first, flexography method of printing is considered. Flexography uses a flexible relief image which is made on thin and flexible printing plates that are made of rubber. This is what is used to press on larger areas of solid color. Flexography can be used to print on various materials which include cellophane, metallic films, and polythene. Since the company needs to print packaging materials which are expected to be made of cellophane and polythene, flexography is deemed to be the most cost-effective solution for short runs. Lithographic printing is also another option.

Rationale for flexographic printing

Flexographic printing unlike lithographic printing which is an offset process uses flexible plates that are mounted on a cylinder. These are then immersed in ink rollers that apply ink to them. This ensures that the ink is evenly distributed in uniform depth and thickness. The substrate is then passed through a dryer to prevent smudging. This is one of the major advantages of flexographic printing in that it can be used to produce high quality prints. Since the flexo plates that are made for the print can be reused, it helps to reduce the production costs significantly. Another advantage of flexographic printing is that it can also work on a wide range of substrates including media that are not flat. Among other advantages of flexographic are that it allows the company to have slight variations in print which allows small modifications of the packaging material such as adding recommended retail price in various currencies or other promotional information easier NIRR Board, 2009()

Flexographic printing is also capable of producing very high quality prints on several types of substrates and being a simple operation, it is easily adaptable to use water-based inks. However, this creates a disadvantage in that there is need to balance the amount of ink and water in order to maintain the same high quality print. Flexographic printing can also be used in the production of folding cartons for the company which will be used to package the products.

Flexographic printing also has one disadvantage in that it is expensive to set up. This plays in two ways. If the company is planning to set up their own packaging printing office, these costs will need to be considered. However, if the company is planning on outsourcing printing to an already set up printing firm, these costs will not be applicable.

Flexographic printing is also chosen because the artwork for flexo printing can be produced in digital format. Therefore it eliminates steps of converting the artwork into a more flexographic friendly format. It also offers more flexibility in color separation and it allows the company to run several stations of flexographic printing as the space available allows. Therefore flexography allows the company to increase productivity considerably which also contributes to cost reductions. In addition to this, the parts used in print design are easily exchangeable which allows for variations in print design. These are essential in promotional periods. It is also known to achieve better sharpness of barcodes which is essential for packaging material.

Flexographic printing is also associated with waste reduction meaning it will also create cost savings for the company and reduce the amount of waste generated. Flexography as a process creates more usable product by eliminating most of the WIP inventory which considerably reduces the chances of print spoilage, allowing for removal of gripper waste and creating opportunity for better nesting of the products. This is because the flexographic method is robust in design and contains sufficient controls to ensure high quality prints.

Rationale for lithographic printing

Method for larger print runs

As the number of print runs continues to increase, the company will need to move to better methods that achieve higher economies of scale while maintaining the same quality of print over time. The suggested method is gravure printing where an image that is made up of sunk holes is filled with ink then when paper comes into contact with the ink in the holes, the image is transferred to the paper. Gravure printing is only good for long and high-quality print runs because of the high costs involved Mattern, 2003()

One of the major advantages of gravure printing is that it reduces printing costs significantly. However, this is only applicable to long runs. This is because it uses low cost gravure ink and the machines also run at higher speeds which reduce print time considerable. Gravure printing also ensures color consistency throughout the whole print run compared to other printing methods, it is thought to be the best method to achieve high quality long runs. High quality prints are also ensured by using bright fluorescent and metallic inks which are mixed in other inks ensuring that the print is as bright as possible.

Gravure printing also uses lightweight films which allow for ease of handling of the films even at high speeds thus reducing the amount of spoilage. It also has the capability of creating laminated labels that are reverse printed which is an essential aspect of packaging printing. Gravure printing also has disadvantages. The first is that it is plate making for gravure printing is extremely demanding. The second disadvantage is that it has limited sharpness and does not allow for flexibility or variations in print work.