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As the quality achievable with flexography improves, it challt:ages other printing
methods, such as litho/offset, rotary letterpress, gravure and even screen. Aside
from quality, flexo is a simpler and less expensive printing process. For these
reasons, flexo printing is growing at a faster rate than the other printing processes.
The forecast is that by the end of the decade, flexo will represent 50% of the total
North American printing market. The major UV flexo activity in the US is currently
in narrow web applications, i.e. tags, labels, and business forms. The advantages
include print quality, ink consistency, press stability of UV inks, low VOCs (volatile
organic components), adhesion to a variety of substrates, etc... The predominant
drawback is lack of confidence in the technology at the printer level. UV inks
behave differently on press from either solvent based or water based inks and
printers don't know how to apply them and obtain consistent high uality. A
relatively small but growing number of printers have gone through this learning
curve to date. Most are waiting for the process to be more standardized so that they
can purchase equipment and ink and start printing a job.
For wide web applications, the driving force is environmental the elimination of
VOCs. The options are water borne or UVIEB. Both have unique challenges and
each technology will have its application niches.
For best results, a printer must bring together a team comprising of 'pressmen,
production engineers, a press supplier, UV equipment and UV ink suppliers.
