Differences of Flexo and Digital Printer?

Printing nowadays still popular because there is an increasing need in print out resulting a growth in business that needs printing in order to assemble in production process or to create printing media that is seen in today.

Currently, most of consumer and consuming products in daily have some printing on including labels and containers which were created by printers. Hence, printing is in need these days.

Leading printing systems are Flexographic Printing and Digital Printing which are widely used in printing manufacturers in accordance to the nature of printing. The printing systems are selected by performance and cost effectiveness.

This article will help one understand differences of Flexographic and Digital printer in order to aid in decision making of printing and investment.

Flexo and Digital Printers are not quite alike but deliver similar result

Flexographic Printing or Flexo is a printer that uses rollers which are made by a Polymer plate. The emboss plate will receive colours and will create pictures on the desired printing material. Flexographic Printing requires an initialisation to prepare for printing especially the adjustment of each colour plate for best accuracy.

Therefore, Flexo printing is suitable for quantity printing to maximise time investment in set up process and printing material that may be consumed at large at the initialization.

On the other hand, Digital Printing can be used in both extensive and limited printing where variable data can be input that do not require a new printing plate and be able to print continuously unlike the Flexo printing that consume time and resources.

In conclusion, digital printing is cost effective as it saves time and resources for printing while delivers similar or even better outcome.

Selection of Flexo or Digital Printing to meet expectation

Choosing the right printing is quite an important task which need to consider cost of production and profit. Manufacturers should choose the perfect printing method that suits customers needs.

Perfection in Printing

Flexo printing will be at its best uses with only one type of printing at the large quantity because  it is needed for an investment in creating a new plate in each printing, installation and printer set up where large resources will be consumed at the early stage of printing. Therefore, a repetitive printing is appropriate of this task.

Digital printing is used for variety of jobs in less quantity where it can deliver consistency resolution and quality outcome. Digital printing highlight characteristic is prompt of service where it can be used at instant and can produce different types of printing such as tickets, barcodes, sticker labels, numeric on containers and those that need to change input data constantly.

Limitation of Printing

Printing both types of printers has outstanding limitations and should be selected at convenience.

Flexo printing has a limitation in creating a plate and is suitable for print one same information. When need to print different types of information, it requires many different plates. To do so, a new procedure must be set up in each time which consume time and resources, resulting in higher cost of printing.

Digital printing is slower in delivering results when compare with Flexo printing, but the outcome is quite similar.

Apart from aforementioned limitations, there are setbacks from Flexo printing which is an investment in a new printing plate.

1. The printing plate is made from flexible material in which along the process of printing, it may cause unevenness of the print. Once it is misshaped, it would be difficult to fix.
2. After use the printing plate, the plate itself will be a waste and cannot be reused.
3. Example of printing cannot be shown unlike the digital printing where an example can be produced at a glance before starting tasks.

Cost Comparison and Decision Making

In exhibit of sticky label printing, as an example case, to elaborate differences and cost of printing by using both types of printing. The outcome are 3 types of Bully Printing at 120,000 labels which were printed on 6,000 metres long labels.

From the production of Digital Printing, the preparation time was much less on a daily basis. It was unnecessary to change the printing plate and used less set up time to prepare for the next printing. However, if compare in terms of speed, the Flexo printing was faster.

To see deeper, cost of printing of the Flexo was higher which affected from the cost of new printing plates and resources waste.

At Harn Engineerings, there is a service to calculate cost of printing by using an own developed software to help business decide the right method of printing.

Summary

Regardless of types of printing, there are advantages to business in subject to types of printing and cost. If business is seeking for modern printing which deliver effective and quality printing, at less time, Digital Printing is recommended.

Should there be any inquiry in regard to printing for business, please feel free to comment below or contact us directly. We look forward to discuss with you soon.