LaserFlex Corporation (below)

VII. Comparison of Production Costs As for cost, the PoS sleeve has a greater advantage than the CPPS sleeve (see Table 1). Taking the CTP plate as the standard reference value, assuming that the cost of the CTP plate is 100, the cost of the printing plate in the PoS technology will increase by 20% to 25%, including the cost of the tape material, but it does not include the loading in the CTP technology. Costs and costs do not include the cost of the support sleeve in the PoS. If CPPS technology is used, the cost of processing a seamless, continuous sleeve is increased by approximately 75% (excluding the support sleeve). The cost of processing a gravure cylinder is higher. However, according to JOERG GRIES, the comparison between a flexographic plate and a gravure plate cannot always be judged by the value of the surface. Table 1 Cost Comparison of Digital Flexographic Plates Process Technology CTP Technology PoS Technology CPPS Technology Cost Factor 100 (Reference Value) * Does not include labor costs for loading plates about 120~125* Excluding sleeves approximately 175* Excluding sleeves VIII. Choice range The current market trend is to use a thin flexible tape (thickness of 0.10 mm) with a soft elastic sleeve. However, in order to reduce costs and save costs, many printers use a "hard sleeve with a thick foam tape (thickness of 0.55 mm)" method. Both of these methods are currently used by LaserFlex. It is important to use a solvent resistant tape that uses a solvent to maintain viscosity and eliminate bubbles. In trial production, in order to ensure the quality of the products, LaserFlex only used a thin Cyrel photosensitive polymer plate with a thickness of 1.14 mm (0.45 ng). There was no experiment for thicker plates. One of the reasons for the low dot gain and high contrast of images obtained by PoS technology is due to the use of a hard thin plate material, Cyrel DPH/DPN, with a thickness of 1.14 mm. For comparison, the CPPS process uses a relatively thick plate with a thickness of approximately 2.84 mm (this thickness has a higher dot gain ratio than PoS). This must be compensated by appropriately lowering the curve during the copying process, which, to a certain degree, will cause the contrast of the final print to suffer a certain loss. Nine, PoS was still in its early stages of development. After nearly a year of using PoS, it proved that LaserFlex's decision was correct. Producing high-quality printing plates to meet the special requirements of flexo printing jobs achieves this established goal ahead of schedule. However, LaserFlex believes that this is only the first step in the development of digital and ITR flexo printing. The whole process of production has yet to be further optimized. There are still many aspects that need to be improved. Only in this way can the expected production efficiency be achieved. Throughout the trial production process, the company received strong support and assistance from the university student OLE ROLFE. OLE ROLFE has been employed by LaserFlex since September 1999. His thesis is to study seamless flexo printing technology and its process flow. Optimization. His first research results show that the main advantage may lie in laser imaging before. At present, the manual operation method still occupies a considerable proportion in this field. UWE BOGL said that the precise adjustment of the entire process will also help reduce the waste of media. At the same time, it is necessary to make necessary adjustments to the interrelationships between production processes. It takes about 30 to 35 minutes to prepare and pre-assemble the current PoS plate, and the laser imaging process itself takes only 20 minutes. That's enough. That's one area where LaserFlex and DuPont are working together to improve. X. First and foremost is to improve the technological process After the improvement of the tape pasting process, the focus of the current research is mainly on the processing technology of the sleeve. With the use of a sleeve on a printing press, the gap between the two ends of the printing plate should be as small as possible. The current goal is to control it to be less than 3 mm (1.18 inches), but the smaller the distance between the two ends of the printing plate, fill the gap (using one The more difficult it is to have a particular sealing compound, the more new methods need to be found. This is one of the areas that needs improvement. As for Cyrel Digital Imager (CDI), UWE BOGL also believes that both mechanical equipment and laser system software can be closer to the sleeve. He said that the ITR system is indeed very good, and he is most impressed with the unique flushing technology in addition to the imaging unit. During the plate-washing process, the sleeve is moved back and forth alternately, and the brush is oscillated back and forth while rotating, ensuring that the dots obtained after rinsing are very round. XI. Internal logic plays an important role LaserFlex believes that optimizing the internal logic relationship is one of the main scopes of optimizing the process flow. Since the production chain is composed of various modules and components, it is necessary to move in the production chain during the production process of the sleeve. Therefore, it is necessary to seriously consider and find a most effective method. The current solution is to make all employees of the company fully aware of the importance of internal logic. However, the company also understands that further improvements and improvements are needed in this area. In cooperation with its partners, LaserFlex has invented a "sandwich" structure consisting of: a lightweight support roller (composed of three different fiberglass fiber diameters and high-quality natural resins); The air cushion sleeve; the top layer is the image that is repeatedly printed. When processing and processing in a high-precision equipment such as a laser system, the weight of the object is required to be light, which is an important requirement. This is exactly what the world-renowned sleeve manufacturers Rotec and Rossini do. Because of this, steel is not used, but fiberglass fiber and high-quality natural resins are used. The weight is below 10-30 kg, which is about 80% less than that of a steel drum. The individual air cushion sleeves weigh between 3 and 17 kg, depending on the diameter. In addition, the design of the support system incorporates a special air delivery system capable of mounting several plate sleeves side by side on its surface, which is ideal for narrow-width flexo printing because it means that all color sleeves can be installed. To a length of 1600 mm (63 inches) on the support roller. However, this support system is not used during flushing. In addition, external developments such as sending sleeves to customers must also be able to adapt to the development of new situations. Compared with the original block-shaped flat plate, the use of the sleeve technology leads to an increase in transportation costs because the sleeve contains a large amount of air. However, a suitable economically effective method has not been found in the current market. In the future, at least part of the transportation burden can be reduced. If a new type of eco-friendly sleeve can be successfully developed, the relatively thin, more expensive printing is possible because it allows the relatively inexpensive thin sleeve to be disposable after use. Compared to sleeves, this technology will give printers greater convenience. Many manufacturers are currently researching and developing this thin new type of sleeve.