A good way to reduce printing cost low weight pape

A good way to reduce printing costs -- low weight paper in the current economic environment, printing buyers have begun to look for new ways to reduce the production cost of printing movable parts. Since paper generally accounts for% of the cost of a live part (determined according to the number of live parts and the number of printing), people first think of paper when cutting costs

we now see a very interesting phenomenon: a large number of heavy-duty paper are being replaced by low gram weight paper. If you don't believe this fact, you can use the following example to confirm it. A large publishing house needs to produce 50000 magazines with a size of 287x210mm and 128 pages. Assuming that the printing loss of this movable part is 10%, and that it can be printed with either 90 g/m2 coated paper without wood pulp or 70 g/m2 light web paper, which paper has a lower production cost without affecting the appearance and feeling of the product

before you start to calculate the cost, you should first know that the paper of 70g/m2 is much cheaper than the paper of 90g/m2, which is the most common instrument in the laboratories of plastic mixing manufacturers; If the latter is chosen, the printing buyer will spend about 15000 pounds more on the paper. The problem now is that low-quality, gram heavy paper generally doesn't look very good. However, if this publishing house chooses 70 g/m2 paper, it will save 11000 pounds of paper cost. This is indeed a lot of money, especially in today's economic environment, printing buyers should be more careful

current trend

in fact, printing customers had the idea of replacing heavy paper with light paper long ago. Erik OHL, technical sales director of UPM, said: we noticed this problem more than ten years ago: the lighter the paper, the lower the mailing cost, especially for large projects such as product catalogs

however, in recent months, paper dealers have found that the market demand for light paper has increased significantly, which has forced many ongoing printing projects to stop and choose paper again

for example, before the Internet became popular, newspapers generally chose 52 g/m2 paper, while the standard weight of paper now is only 42.5 g/m2. Some magazines produced by gravure press or web offset press now reduce the weight of paper from 57 g/m2 to 52 g/m2. Many men's magazines once printed on 90 g/m2 paper are now turning to 60 g/m2 paper

when printing continuously or producing products with a large number of pages, the luxury of paper is not important. The key is to reduce the unit cost of live parts by reducing the weight of paper. Ohls said: the more pages you can print on a roll of paper, the greater the income you will get. This is what we call the yield. Now everyone wants to replace the original paper with lighter products

however, in the catalog, newspaper and magazine markets, your domestic demand is strong. You must give readers a sense of value for money. It seems that this can only be achieved with harder and thicker paper. So in the process of turning to light paper, you should make the reader believe that nothing has changed

in addition to the above areas, loose and thick book paper with low gram weight is also favored by direct mail enterprises. This kind of paper can not only bring people a very stable feeling, but also the mailing cost is relatively low

tissue paper

according to the introduction of bollor thin papers, the lower the weight of paper, the more environmentally friendly it is. In partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the paper maker assessed the environmental impact of its thin paper primapage throughout its life cycle. The results show that the lighter the gram weight of paper, the smaller the impact on the environment

however, there is nothing perfect in the world. Next, let's talk about the disadvantages of light paper. The most worrying thing about this kind of paper is the performance of computer printing. In order to ensure the smooth printing, the paper must have enough hardness. Taking the double-sided coated paper of 90 g/M2 as an example, its coating weight is about g/m2, while the weight of the base paper is only g/m2, so it does not meet the requirements of the printing press for paper hardness. As David Cook, general manager of Arjowiggins UK, said: so far, I haven't seen any customer choose coated paper with a weight of less than 90 g/m2

Patrick van dommelen, the paper business manager of Xerox Europe, also agreed with David Cook. He said: we generally do not choose coated paper with a weight of less than 120 g/m2, because low G paper usually has serious operation problems. If the base weight of the paper is too low, it means that it lacks sufficient hardness

insufficient hardness means that the paper cannot be kept flat during the printing process, thus affecting the production efficiency of the printing plant. Cook said: low hardness paper will reduce the production speed of the printing press from 14000 prints/h to 10000 prints/h, which will reduce the productivity of the printing plant by 30%

in addition, we should also consider the opacity of the paper. Ohls of UPM said: you can't use too light paper, otherwise there will be through printing in the printing process. To avoid this situation, you can also choose thin paper with special treatment (coating the offset paper with titanium dioxide to enhance its opacity), but this kind of paper is usually more expensive. Of course, we can also find some cheap substitutes in the market, but their effect mainly depends on the products that customers require to be printed

how light paper can you choose

the production cost of paper determines that 70 g/m2 paper may be much cheaper than 90 g/m2 paper, but 60 g/m2 paper may be even more expensive than 70 g/m2 paper. This is mainly because the strength of low weight paper is low, so manufacturers have to pay extra costs in the production process to ensure their strength

peter Sommerville, marketing director of Denmark independent paper, said: there has always been a misconception that light paper must be cheap. However, if you are a magazine printing plant and intend to use less than 60g/m2 of paper, your paper supplier may soon raise the price

of course, not all paper mills will produce this kind of light paper, because the special requirements for raw materials will change their production cycle

as for the future demand, Warwick concluded that the paper industry usually adjusts its production plan according to the market demand, so if this trend can continue, it will certainly cause great waves in the field of offset printing paper. In the final analysis, this is a problem of supply-demand relationship

tips: considerations when selecting lightweight paper

printing application/operational performance

low grade and low hardness paper will reduce production. Web offset press is more suitable for printing light paper than sheet fed press

output

the number of sheets/rolls required

finished printing products

impact on end users. Magazines and catalogues can be printed on woolen paper with the influence of factors such as the structure of the cashmere die and the forming conditions; Books and periodicals can be printed on loose and thick paper with low gram weight; But gorgeous advertisements still need to be printed on high-quality paper

opacity

paper that is too transparent is prone to transparent printing.

manufacturers

shop around. Not all paper mills are able or willing to produce low weight paper. There are many kinds of paper makers, so you'd better choose to cooperate with those who specialize in light paper. In addition, most paper dealers have released price calculators on the website, so you can compare the production costs of various kinds of paper