For most of corrugated board printing factory, out-sourcing plate by trade shop always a big cost and heavy burden for them, due to plate making company has to put on wages and margins with profit on the plate, these can not be low, for they need to deliver the plate for you which means that the transportation and courier expenses have to be added to the plate for you.
In addition, there are always possibilities of finding defect on the plate made, even its small but may affect the printing results or even defect production during the process have to make it again, so that they have to put on all the risk of manufacturing to cover up the cost of the plate and this is the reason why the trade shop has to sell you plate made by them in a higher cost, normally it is 4 times or 5 times of the raw material cost to the plate.
Because of new advanced photopolymer plate making technology has been developed recently, equipment for plate making with improvements of more versatility as well as raw material plates with finer re-productivity, wider latitude and higher sensibility. This means that plate making in-plant is no longer so difficult for a corrugated printing factory to start making plates in their own plant, it is not necessary to have a professional plate making engineer in your plant any more. Nowadays every body is capable to make a good plate.
On the contrary, in most of label printing factory, they almost make plate in their own factory. In addition to save cost, this is due to easy to control quality and time which are most important
factors for a productive plant by how to do your business quicker and more profitable. In-plant plate making after buying equipment, the rest of costs mostly is the plate only. Thus 50-80% cost saving is very easy to achieve.
Talking about plate making side from technical procedure point of view, these are negative making and plate making only. For preparing negatives, it is no longer necessary to use a camera in a darkroom by using photosensitive film then develop it with chemicals. Both laser printers and inkjet printers can do the job very easily by simply a click from a PC or NB, if the black density is not enough to block the hardening lights then can use LaserBlack enhancer after laser print to increase the black density.
For an inkjet printer with same problem can use nano black inks which is a new technology of making a density good enough negative from inkjet printer can be bought from market every where. The difference will be that by laser printer the biggest size can be get is up to A3 size (42 x 60 cm), for there is no laser printer size over it in the market while inkjet printer can do any size as big as you like especially big enough for corrugated printing plate making. ?????
From plate making side, there are 3 ways of plate making by different kinds of plate material and equipment :
Solvent wash flexo plate:
A conventional way of plate making from a solid plate as PS plate for offset printing. By using this kind of plate for corrugated printing it is a must to use solvent to washout the plate, because of the raw material polymer can only be solved by solvent.
Water wash flexo plate:
This is using a liquid type of photopolymer plate making. You have to pour and spread the liquid photopolymer before it becomes a plat-like on the equipment then cover the negative film to start the exposure in order to harden the image area from the negative.
FlexoBag water was plate:
New created plate making system by putting liquid photopolymer in a bag, no need to pour and spread resin quick, economic (costs you only 50% of a solid plate), green and easy handling.
We have this system with patents in USA, EU countries and many other countries over the world.
Flexo Technology Inc. will provide technical assistance with installation and training of each purchasing by sending a team of engineers from Taiwan to your plant for one week to help you start up the plate making production, after they come back, you will never rely on trade shop ?or any out source to make plate for you any more.
We have helped dozens of corrugated factories over the world with full experience to start their own plate making in-plant already.
You may be requested to answer any query you have or requesting for best quotation for your in-plant plate making by let us know your plate size and quantity per month of your requirements, by sending mail to this box: flexotec@ms32.hinet.net
or please visit this page for more information about plate making for corrugated board printing. http://www.flexotech.com.tw/english/online_plate_making_machine.htm
