Flexo print quality improvement is the objective of every printing company in the market. It is also the driving force behind the development of our industry. Both printing companies and their suppliers need to work towards that goal. Suppliers by offering new solutions and printers by using them daily in production and improving the quality of package printing.  by Dariusz Szymendera, CEO of Print Systems.

Our company specializes in delivering plate making technology for water-wash flexo and letterpress plates by Toyobo as well as the plates themselves. The situations described in this blog post represent the experiences we have from time to time with our potential clients.

Why printers don’t want to improve flexo print quality?

Here are five reasons we have come across while working in the printing and packaging industry.

1. We don’t want to change all the printing plates

Many clients who completed our tests and achieved printing quality improvements become worried that the introduction of the new technology will confuse related to changing all the printing plates for the current clients. This would involve enormous costs.

These concerns are unfounded, as we always recommend moving from one technology to another in a gradual way. In practice, we recommend that the production of the printing matrices in the new technology is used for all the new patterns and – possibly – for the patterns for which the end client requested higher quality.  This kind of smooth transition is the most common solution to our client’s facilities.

2. We don’t want to convince all our clients to pursue better quality, because it’s a huge effort for our organization

That is true – visiting clients and persuading them that quality improvement is important takes effort and money. In this case, the clients are sure to ask for the cost of the new printing matrices to be covered by the printing house.

From our clients’ experience we know that during the transfer to a water-based technology, in the transition period printing houses only print the following with the new printing plates:

• completely new patterns,
• patterns they have had quality problems with,
• patterns that require better quality at the end client’s request.

All the reprints are produced with old technology until the client discontinues the pattern.

3. Showing the supervisors that better flexo print quality is possible will result in more work

This is the dilemma often experienced by printing technicians who exaggerate the problems related to the change of the printing plates supplier.

True – it is necessary to leave the comfort zone, but as the supplier of new technology we take over a lot of work.

This involves getting technology installed and training graphic designers, CtP prepress operators and pressmen. We can diagnose printing problems during the technical audit and design the solutions and the implementation plan in such a way that they cause as little interference at the printing facility as possible.

4. Showing the supervisors that better printing is possible undermines my competences

This is a false assumption, but we do sometimes come across it. This problem borders on psychology. We think this assumption is wrong because the printing house managers cannot be held responsible for technology choices unless they have had the chance to run tests. Besides, every technology progresses and the right decision yesterday does not have to be the right decision tomorrow.

We encourage our clients to test every new technology we offer and – if they believe it can add value in their printing facility – to implement it.

Every good manager should be open to change because technology keeps moving on. Few people remember today that flexo printing plates were made of rubber, not photopolymer. The bottom line is that quality improvement will have a positive impact on profitability and company recognition.

5. We don’t need print quality improvement

What astonishes us most is when the client says „we don’t need higher quality”.

The company does not operate in a vacuum, but in a competitive environment where other printing houses work hard to improve quality. Unfortunately, we often hear this kind of statement, usually until your client decides to take a business to a rival printing house that can produce much better prints.

This is when we – Print Systems – meet with the client again and implement our technology.