Improving print quality is the goal of every major printing company on the market. It is also the driving force behind the development of our industry. Both printers and suppliers are working for it. Suppliers offer newer and newer technological solutions, and printers use them in their daily production, improving the quality of packaging printing," writes Dariusz Szymendera, President of Print Systems.
Our company specializes in supplying Toyobo's water-washed flexo and letterpress plate processing technology and the plates themselves for printing plates production, and the situations outlined below occur from time to time with our potential customers.
Why don't printers want to improve the quality of their production?
Here are five reasons we have encountered in practice in the printing and packaging industry.
1. we don't want to change all the designs
In many customers where we have successfully tested and obtained improvements in print quality, the fear arises that the introduction of the new technology will cause a lot of confusion in changing all the designs at customers. And this involves a huge cost.
These concerns are not justified, as we always suggest a gradual transition from one technology to another. It looks like we recommend that printing plates production from the new technology be applied to all new designs and possibly to designs where the customer has requested quality improvement. Such a smooth transition is the most common solution with our customers.
2. we don't want to convince all our customers for better quality, because it's a huge organizational effort
In fact, visiting each customer and convincing them to improve quality is a considerable organizational effort and cost. In such a case, customers are bound to ask that the cost of the dies rest on the shoulders of the printer.
From our customers' experience, I know that in the case of changing to water-based technology, printers print on the new plates during the transition period:
- completely new designs,
- designs with which they had quality problems before,
- As well as those that should be of better quality at the customer's request.
All renewals are produced on the old technology until the customer cancels the design.
3. showing my superiors that I can print better will get me more work
Such a dilemma is often had by those in charge of printing, who exaggerate the problems associated with changing plate suppliers.
Fact, you have to get out of your comfort zone, but as a supplier we take a lot of work on ourselves.
Installations, training of graphic designers, prepress staff and printing machine operators. We can diagnose problems in printing at the audit stage and prepare solutions and an action plan in such a way that it is the least invasive for the printing house.
4. showing my superiors that I can print better undermines my competence
This is a false assumption, but it sometimes occurs. We are entering the realm of psychology. In our opinion, such an assumption is false for the reason that a printer's manager cannot be responsible for choosing a technology until he has had a chance to test it. Besides, every technology evolves and a good decision "yesterday" may not be good "tomorrow."
We urge our customers, when we launch any new product, to test it and if they think it can bring some additional value to the printing plant - apply it.
Every good manager should be open to change, because technology is moving forward. Even today few people remember that flexo printing plates were made of rubber, not photopolymer. At the end of the day, improving quality will have a positive effect on increasing the profitability and recognition of the company.
5. we don't need higher quality
The most surprising situation is when the customer says "we don't need higher quality."
The company does not operate in a vacuum, but in a competitive environment where other printers are constantly working to improve quality. Unfortunately, we often hear such declarations usually until your customer moves his work to a competing printing house that can print something far better.
Then we - Print Systems - meet once again with the customer and implement our technology!
