1. As a production leader, your main responsibilities are meeting shipping dates, realising short delivery and lead times, consistent print quality and the lowest cost price.
2. A manually controlled printing process leads to a significantly higher risk of human error and could keep you from achieving your goals.
3. Printing automation doesn’t just optimise your printing process by eliminating errors;
4. It also ensures that repetitive tasks belong to the past. It enables you to recall settings you’ve previously used if you receive an order you’ve already run.
5. By recalling settings, you’re sure they are exactly the same as the first time. Therefore, you don’t just eliminate the risk of errors, you also save time.
6. In short, printing automation ensures optimal process control which leads to:
- Saving time, which enables you to run more jobs per day
- Less waste, because human errors are kept to a minimum
- Higher quality, because of the elimination of human errors and ensured required settings, over and over again.
7. if you want to automate your printing process, investments are needed. You need to invest in printing presses that contain servo motor-controlled adjustments with a very high accuracy.
8. The degree of automation, however, depends on the product portfolio of your printing jobs. If you mainly print on a certain type of material, a limited degree of automation is enough to achieve your objectives. If you’re printing on a wide range of materials, extended automation is needed to reach the same goals.
EXAMPLE OF PRINTING AUTOMATION
1. Automated print pressure
With automated print pressure, you are sure there isn’t too much pressure on printing plates. Therefore, print results and print effects, like dot gain, will always be exactly the same. This ensures a consistent quality.
2. Automated adjustment of the anilox roller
With automated ink settings, the right quantity of ink with the right density will always be applied. This results in high-quality products and less printing waste because erroneous prints are limited.
3. MPS / AVT Presco system
MPS / AVT Presco system is an automatic plate & anilox pressure pre-setting & control. In the process control stage, it measures the pressure settings of the anilox and print sleeves and adjusts it automatically. This generates transparent and standardised press settings for jobs and ensures feedback when pressure setting problems occur.
4. Auto teach technology
Every job you run has different converting options. One time you are laminating after printing three colours, the other time you adjust cold foil after six colours, or you need a web turn after two colours. This generates different web paths for every job.
5. Cloud Printing
Cloud printers work in two ways: file is either sent straight to a Wi-Fi enabled printer, or to a normal printer via a device connected to the Cloud server. Users no longer have to deal with software, drivers or cables, instead of sending their documents to print from any Cloud-connected device – including mobile phones and tablets.
6. PRINT SECURITY
Ever-evolving cyber-security threats will take advantage of any undiscovered vulnerabilities created by new infrastructures. Attackers may be able to breach confidential data stored on print devices or exploit open access points.
PRESS AND POST-PRESS INNOVATIONS SOLUTIONS
1. Currently, however, automation is taking on tasks that could only be done before by a highly skilled press operator — including critical color matching and sustaining ink density and color levels through an entire press run.
2. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) allows for machine learning, so that press performance will continue to improve without operator intervention.
3. Newer technologies enable integration between the press and post-press processes, like bindery and finishing, in order to automate the entire package manufacturing process across the plant.
4. By collecting and routing data to the cloud, managers can check the status of production remotely on their desktops or smartphones.
ELECTRONIC VISION AND SCANNER
1. Technically, cameras photograph every sheet that’s being printed while it’s still in the press but after all the printing has taken place.
2. These electronic images are compared to a master printed sheet that was already approved or a PDF or TIFF electronic file that generated the plate.
3. When electronic vision finds deviations, it immediately reports where the issue is on the sheet and the type of problem and the sheet number (if inkjet numbering is used).
4. In addition to checking for image problems, electronic vision can also manage the color of the piece using closed loop color control. In this case, the cameras read the color bar and compare that data to target densities, or Delta E.
5. It continually and automatically adjusts the ink keys to keep the job running in the desired color space. Again, this type of automation improves efficiencies, reduces waste and maintains a strict consistency to ensure quality throughout the press run.
6. Again, this type of automation improves efficiencies, reduces waste and maintains a strict consistency to ensure quality throughout the press run.
Source:
https://blog.mps4u.com/printing-automation-label-printing-industry
https://smartech-asia.com/three-trends-to-dominate-the-print-industry/
https://www.packagingstrategies.com/articles/95549-innovations-in-package-printing-automation
