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Printing Industry Overview

sourcehttp://www.pneac.org/

time2016/05/23

"Print - It’s everywhere! It’s on your coffee table; in your freezer; on the bumper of your car. It can be found on your walls, your doorstep, and on your clothes. It’s on your mail, in your wallet, and most often in your hands." The commercial printing industry is one of the largest industries in the United States. According to 2009 data from the Printing Industry of America, the printing industry employs 909,179 people among 33,565 establishments with annual sales totaling over $140.7 billion in annual shipments.


While the industry accounts for a significant portion of the nations' total volume of goods and services, it also represents the largest conglomeration of small businesses in the domestic manufacturing sector. Seventy nine percent of the plants in the industry employ 19 people or less. Most firms in the industry serve local or regional markets, though some printers and many publishers reach national and international markets.

The industry is dominated by five separate and distinct processes, lithography, letterpress, flexography, gravure, and screen printing. However some of the newer plate-less technologies are beginning to take hold in the market. Based on 1997 sales figures lithography accounted 68.5% of the market; screen 9.0%; flexographic 6.4%; quick printing 5.7%; gravure 5.4%; letterpress 4.5%, and digital printing 0.6%. The market share is drastically changing as indicated by comparing 1990 sales figures with these current figures. In 1990 the market share was broken down to lithography 47%, gravure 19%; flexography 17%; letterpress 11%; and screen printing 3%.

The introduction of plateless printing processes are beginning to significantly impact the printing industry. Based on 1991 projections the plateless technologies include electronic printing such as xerography and laser printing; ink jet printing; magnetography; thermal printing; ion deposition printing; direct charge deposition printing; and the Mead Cucolor Photocapusle process.

While most printing facilities utilize primarily one process or type of printing press, it is not uncommon to see multiple processes or types of printing presses at a printing facility. For example a newspaper publishing company may be utilizing both offset lithographic printing presses as well as flexographic printing presses. At many smaller printing facilities which print a variety of products such as business cards, stationary, advertisements, etc. it is not uncommon to find both offset lithographic printing presses as well as letterpress printing.

The five major printing processes are distinguished by the method of image transfer and by the general type of image carrier employed. Depending upon the process, the printed image is transferred to the substrate either directly or indirectly. In direct printing the image is transferred directly from the image carrier to the substrate, examples of direct printing are gravure, flexography, screen printing and letterpress printing processes. In indirect, or offset, printing, the image is first transferred from the image carrier to the blanket cylinder and then to the substrate. Lithography, currently the dominant printing technology, is an indirect (offset) process.

Image carriers (or plates) can generally be classified as one of four types: relief, planographic, intaglio, or screen. In relief printing, the image or printing area is raised above the nonimage areas. Of the five major printing processes, those relying on relief printing are letterpress and flexography. In planographic printing, the image and nonimage areas are on the same plane. The image and nonimage areas are defined by differing physiochemical properties. Lithography is a planographic process. In the intaglio process, the nonprinting area is at a common surface level with the substrate while the printing area, consisting of minute etched or engraved wells of differing depth and/or size, is recessed. Gravure is an intaglio process. In the screen process (also known as porous printing), the image is transferred to the substrate by pushing ink through a porous mesh which carries the pictorial or typographic image.


Each printing process can be divided into three major steps: prepress, press, and postpress.

Prepress operations encompass that series of steps during which the idea for a printed image is converted into an image carrier such as a plate, cylinder, or screen. Prepress operations include composition and typesetting, graphic arts photography, image assembly, and image carrier preparation. Press refers to actual printing operations. Postpress primarily involves the assembly of printed materials and consists of binding and finishing operations.

Within each process, a variety of chemicals are used, depending on the types of operation involved. Prepress operations typically involve photoprocessing chemicals and solutions. Inks and cleaning solvents are the major types of chemicals used during press operations. Depending on the finishing work required, postpress operations can use large amounts of adhesives. This is especially true where the production of books and directories is involved. Of all the chemicals used in a typical printing plant, inks and organic cleaning solvents are the categories used in the largest quantities. Many of the chemicals used in the printing industry are potential hazards to human health and the environment