Ten Development Trends of Postpress Equipment

Direction one: Post-printing equipment diversification People's growing demand for personalization of printed materials, the growing differentiation of market competition strategies, the development of digital printing, and the diversity and complexity of post-press processing processes determine the diversity of post-press processing equipment. Change. Post-press processing is a production process that processes prints to meet the required specifications and performance requirements. The diversification of processing patterns and product performance also necessitates the diversification of postpress equipment. Individualized requirements and differentiated strategies will inevitably further cause product differentiation and diversification, which will in turn lead to the diversification of post-press processing technology, thereby contributing to the diversified development of post-press processing equipment.

Direction Two: More Functions and More Flexibility In recent years, post-press equipment manufacturers have focused on perfecting product functions and increasing flexibility in product design and development. Devices with high flexibility are generally based on a certain product base type, and can be flexibly and flexibly configured, and the device structure is more flexible. By increasing or decreasing some parts and components, flexible production can be achieved and the purpose of meeting customers' individual needs can be met.

In order to meet the different requirements of different customers on the products, the product design develops towards modularization, and continuously perfects and develops new special function modules. These basic function modules and special function modules can be flexibly configured and installed in different On the equipment, the function of the equipment is increased, trying to combine multi-channel printing and finishing processes to meet the ever-changing market demands.

Direction 3: More efficient production determines efficiency, and efficiency determines survival. The production efficiency of the equipment must not only consider the production speed, but also comprehensively consider factors such as equipment adjustment and auxiliary time, continuous and reliable high-speed production performance, and reject rate.

Heidelberg's new Stahl KH82 modular folding machine is equipped with an automatic cross-folding function. The speed has been increased to 30,000 rpm and can process up to 230 meters per minute. Due to the different automation configuration, the installation time of this machine's cross-folding unit can be reduced by more than 80% compared to the previous-generation Stahl KH78 folder. At the same time, the Stahl KH82 folding machine is particularly suitable for commercial jobs and manuals with a processing volume of 7,000 to 15,000 sheets due to the short preparation time. In addition, the aircraft's high performance enables it to be competent for the long version of books and magazines. Therefore, its target customers include large-scale industrial printing plants and professional post-press processing enterprises.

Direction four: More humanized humanity has become a new feature in the design of printing and finishing equipment. Humanization means that manufacturers strive to achieve perfection from the perspective of ergonomics, ecology and aesthetics when designing products, so as to truly realize the goal of people-oriented science and technology, and to satisfy people’s physiological and psychological needs, materials and spirits in a human-centered manner and scale. need. In general, the embodiment of humanized design in postpress equipment can be summarized as: beautiful appearance, easy operation, flexible and convenient use, environmental protection and safety.

Direction 5: Greater stability and reliability With the increase in the printing speed of printing presses and the expansion of market demand, the requirements for speed, accuracy, and stability of post-press processing equipment are also increasing. Today's post-press equipment has greatly improved stability and reliability, and its stability and reliability are mainly reflected in higher accuracy, lower error rate and higher reliability of equipment after printing. The impact of the external environment is even smaller.

It is a systematic project to improve and improve the reliability and stability of equipment. It is necessary to increase the initiative and self-consciousness of designers and strengthen the theoretical research on the key parts and overall machine stability and reliability of printed machinery to overcome the difficulties in design and manufacturing. Blindness applies various modern design methods to the design and manufacture of key parts. At the same time, due to the improvement of the people’s living standards and the strengthening of their aesthetic sense, their demands for equipment stability and reliability have increased. At the same time, the human-machine affinity and appearance requirements for equipment have also been correspondingly improved. Designers use ergonomics and industrial design knowledge to continuously enrich their minds and apply them to design practice.

Direction 6: Automation, intelligence, and networking are more automated. Automation refers to the process in which a machine or device automatically operates or controls according to a specified procedure or instruction without human intervention. According to the definition of artificial intelligence, intelligence refers to the work that enables the subject to have sensitive and accurate sensing functions, correct thinking and judgment functions, and effective execution functions. Networkization mainly refers to the form of information transmission, which has the advantages of high speed and wide distribution.

Nowadays, advanced postpress equipment is basically controlled by computers and quality monitoring devices are deployed on the devices. Therefore, equipment adjustment and control can basically be completed automatically by using a computer program that has been stored in advance in the control system, or by means of device interface conversion. The network directly adjusts the relevant information before printing and printing as a directive. Its level of automation, intelligence, and networking is higher. This will not only facilitate the integration of prepress, printing, and postpress with CIP3 and CIP4, but also realize the entire printing process. The digitization will increase the production efficiency, and at the same time, it will also facilitate the control of a good production process and guarantee the quality of production products.

The addition of most post-press equipment to intelligent modules will greatly reduce duplication of effort and increase the level of intelligence in the equipment. In general, intelligent devices can perform both independent operations and network control. These devices can respond to different process requirements to complete the specified operational requirements.

Direction 7: The most important manifestation of the development of prepress, integration of printing, and digitization toward prepress, integration of printing, and digitization is the digital workflow. The application and promotion of the digital workflow has led to the development of the digital capabilities of postpress equipment by international postpress equipment manufacturers. CIP4 is a digital workflow specification based on the JDF format, which is an extension of CIP3. CIP3 connects prepress, printing, and postpress processing together, and CIP4 expands it into a complete system including task management, production management, and process control, thereby enabling processing from receipt, prepress, printing, and postpress To product delivery, cost accounting and a series of functions.

In the field of post-press, from the realization of digital folding, automatic collation, folding, bookbinding, gluing, attaching pages, three-sided cutting, automatic creeping, and sales and transportation have basically realized the digital management of computers. Digital printing, including post-press processing, is an all-digital production process. By connecting the JDF to the management system (MIS), various digital printers are connected to the corresponding prepress and postpress equipment to meet the needs of various printing processes.

In the postpress process, there are not many applications of CIP4 at present, mainly cutting procedures, such as Heidelberg's Polar Compucut cutting system uses the CIP3 workflow. MBO's Navigator control system can realize the information transmission between the folding machine and prepress and printing equipment through the network; MBO's data manager is also an open database management system for remote access and control, built on the Windows operating platform. on. With the data manager software, the MBO folding machine can be integrated into a workflow that is compatible with CIP3/CIP4 and JDF, and the connection between the office computer terminal and the multiple folding machines of the bookbinding shop can be realized.

Direction 8: The development towards the printing and line-up process mainly refers to the process of online processing such as light-up, die-cutting, folding, laminating, cutting, etc., which is performed after the printing process. In-line processing of fusion printing and post-printing processes are integrated into one another. Subsidiary materials automatically enter the post-press processing section after the printing is completed. This in-line processing method is particularly suitable for fast, small-volume, personalized, on-demand printing. Digital printing is said to be able to meet the needs of buyers of printing machinery to purchase post-press processing functions while purchasing printing presses.

In-line processing has the advantages of high degree of automation, saving time in the entire production process, and improving work efficiency. However, on-line processing also has unsatisfactory places, such as high prices, long machine adjustment time, and size specifications for processing operations. There are great restrictions, but with the continuous advancement of technology, on-line processing will become a clear trend.

The Roland 700HiPrint and InlineFoilerPrindor inline cold-rolling devices from Manroland have impressed the printing industry with on-line cold offset value-added printing capabilities. As part of Manroland's value-added printing concept, users appreciate the value-added approach of combining cold foil transfer onto a sheet-fed press. This new process is also very popular in the field of high-quality folding carton manufacturing, these manufacturers are looking for new and more economical value-added ways of stamping. In addition to the single-foil method, it is often possible to obtain orders for multi-foil machines that can be stamped together with 5 different width foil rolls.

Direction 9: Higher safety performance In the printing industry, there is often a phenomenon of serious personal injury caused by the lack of reliable and reliable safety protection devices for mechanical equipment. To prevent this kind of injury from happening, along with the printing industry and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) For the continuous improvement of the importance of equipment safety, post-press machinery and equipment manufacturers consider the safety performance of equipment more and more.

The SQZKC series program-controlled paper cutting machine introduced by Shanghai Shenweida Machinery Co., Ltd. fully embodies the “safety and high efficiency” design concept. The main advantages of the safety performance are as follows: The plating process of the workbench is comprehensively improved and the previous chrome plating treatment is discarded. , Started to adopt nickel plating treatment with environmental protection features, while avoiding the light pollution of the work surface to better protect the operator's health; using high-speed, low-noise high-precision ball screw, making it emit noise at high speed compared to SQZK The series can be reduced by 5 to 6 decibels. With a more secure and reliable hydraulic clutch system, the braking performance is better. At the same time, through the unique flexible clutch function in the hydraulic system, the impact of the paper cutter on the machine when driving a short vehicle is achieved. Smaller, the cutting movement is more stable and reliable; the SQZKC series paper cutter optimizes the position and performance of the built-in electronic knife lock, and especially optimizes the performance and working status of the electromagnet, making it safer and more reliable.

Direction 10: Linkage At present, the linkage of postpress equipment mainly manifests itself as a binding linkage production line, such as a horse-riding linkage production line, a wireless glue binding linkage production line and a hardcover book processing linkage production line, a paperback binding linkage production line, and a lock linkage production line. Printing linkage production line and so on.

At present, there are Martini, Kolbus, Warrenberg, and Beiren Group companies. Kolbus BF40 hardcover book block processing coordinator is a production line that uses semi-finished book blocks for continuous flow processing to become a hardcover book production line. It is a fully automatic hardcover bookbinding device for hardcover binding processing.

Of course, there are still a series of problems in the development of postpress equipment, such as the inability to integrate well with prepress and printing processes, the inconsistency of post-press equipment design and production standards, and the lack of accessibility of related interface standards for postpress processes. Flexibility needs to be further improved, but we have reason to believe that post-press equipment will surely achieve rapid and good development.