Distributed Printing - Flexible Manufacturing Solutions Expert

Dispersive printing of printed products is a concept relative to centralized production of traditional printing. In a centralized production printing company, all the technologies, processes and production processes required for printing production are concentrated in one production site (place). Semi-finished products are only transferred within the production plant. Dispersive printing means that the production process is decomposed and distributed in several places. That is, the data defining the print job (not including the production material) can be delivered to a print shop that is nearest to or most suitable to the customer by means of a certain transmission tool such as a network, a satellite, or the like, for in-situ printing production. The emergence of decentralized production of printing jobs has emerged with the digitization of printing jobs and the development of various computer direct printing and electronic communication technologies. Obviously, distributed printing is a combination of printing and digital technology and electronic communication technology.

The disadvantages of centralized production over distributed printing

As mentioned earlier, centralized production is concentrated in one production site. Usually its production capacity is high. However, it is precisely because the entire production process is too concentrated. To a certain extent, it will reduce or completely offset the economic advantages of such centralized “large” equipment, which is embodied in the following points:

1. Poor adaptability. If the product type and format are not uniform, large equipment must be set to meet the maximum demand. For example, in a thermosetting web offset printing press, the circumference of the printing press cylinder must be set to the maximum width. Since unprinted paper must be cut off, additional costs for small-format production may increase. Decentralized production can be adapted to meet a variety of production needs by distributing production to the most suitable one or more printing plants, and at the same time, it can be matched with appropriate production work arrangements to obtain more economical products.

2. System reliability is poor. The failure of the centralized device is of great risk. Especially when the production cycle is very short. Only due to failure of the delivery device. It will lead to serious consequences. In decentralized production, jobs can be performed in parallel at several locations so that when one press fails. There will be no serious consequences.

3. Unable to implement continuous investment strategy. For the printing company's financial plan, the centralized production of one-time investment, the risk of misinvestment is extremely high, and this new and old alternative investment may affect the entire production process. The decentralized production has more flexibility than the centralized one, and has the possibility of continuous investment, and can replace the old equipment with new equipment in a certain period of time.

4. Poor timeliness. Focus on "a big unit". If the task volume is extremely large and the time requirement is short, there will be the possibility of job delay, and decentralized production is undoubtedly the best solution.

It can be seen that for a production company or a large printing company whose production system is constantly changing along with the market and product conditions, it is more advantageous to adopt a decentralized structure, and its products can be completed by a plurality of printing systems with low production capacity. It reduces both costs and productivity.

Decentralized printing in multiple locations

1, Dispersed printing production process. Disperse printing can choose different production methods, different printing companies and different machinery and equipment according to the difference of production system and work flow, as shown in Figure 1. For digital print jobs, its minimum need is a digital prepress department. If you use a computer direct printing/direct-to-platemaking system, you can transfer data over the network and produce it directly online (online).

2. Disperse printing different settings. Decentralized EP~Uf8 users' digital files are transmitted to the printing factories distributed by region. The decomposed locations can be formed into several forms as shown in Figure 2. Parallel/partial parallel decentralized production and serial decentralized production . The structure of the parallel and partially parallel decentralized production methods indicates that the necessary functions of all products should be completed in each site, ie each site can independently produce the final product. However, in a serial decentralized production, different production processes distributed at different production sites must be interconnected to form a complete production process of a printed product.

In short. Through modern digital technology. It has been very easy to implement the decentralized production setups shown in Figures 1 and 2 across multiple production sites. If printing Figure 2 Different layouts of decentralized printing across multiple sites

When the jobs are all digitized before printing, the data can be easily transmitted to various sites and production facilities, but it should be emphasized that the local printing company must be equipped with appropriate processes and technologies to receive these data, and ensure the transfer of jobs. Completeness, accuracy and printability.

3. The deciding factor of place selection. Of course, the selection of different locations and forms for distributed printing cannot be blind and arbitrary. The following factors must be taken into account:

(1) Close to the market. The configuration of a single production site should meet the market regional needs, so that it can quickly provide services to important users or reduce supply costs. Inverted magazines or product classification manuals, due to the need to communicate regularly with users, the prepress department should be located close to the user's editorial department. Large-scale book printing companies sometimes have their prepress department located near publishers, and they combine printing and binding operations.

For newspapers and magazines, due to their timeliness, their prepress production departments tend to adopt a centralized approach, while platemaking and printing are distributed. This is to ensure the delivery time of printed products. In addition, as publishers often set up a complete network to decentralize the production of printed products, printing companies must adapt to this change in demand.

(2) Location costs. The cost structure of production sites varies depending on space, construction, and additional services required. When selecting a second site, labor-intensive production should be considered. Therefore, the current site is not fixed and must carefully analyze the details of the priority long-term investment sites. It is impracticable for companies that choose to disperse printing to focus only on environmental convenience.

(3) Employees. In addition to wage levels in specific regions, other criteria for evaluating available employees are also important, such as the number of employees and the flexibility of the local labor market to meet short-term dispatch production needs.

(4) Specialization. In large-scale centralized production and complex production structures, specialization is crucial to the production of different types of products in decentralized locations.

The future of scattered printing

Printing at several production sites is feasible, especially for large-scale production and complex production, which reduces the complexity of production and ensures the smoothness of each production process. For small-scale printing companies, if it is used to a certain extent, it is also reasonable. Economy. In addition, due to the availability of new technologies such as digital output devices and R-print P, distributed printing becomes easier. In short, with the development of digital printing technology, high-speed telecommunication technology and globalization, the application of distributed printing will surely become more and more extensive. â– 

Source: China Printing Author: Zhang Lin