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So far, flexo printing technology has been widely used in the production of pharmaceutical flexible packaging products. However, the digital printing of heat transfer has suddenly risen and it is expected to take a share of the market share in this area. As more and more medical device companies march to the global market, they need to print the language of each country on the product packaging, and symbols that people everywhere can understand. Moreover, according to market practice, the packaging of medical products must include a variety of codes and service life. Therefore, if a flexographic printing process is used, it is necessary to replace the printing plate for every batch of products produced, which is economically very uneconomical.
In order to meet this market demand, some medical device companies have begun to shift to the thermal transfer digital printing process. The thermal transfer system can be programmed very conveniently, independent of the printing plate, and can output variable information directly from the database.
But not all flexo companies and users plan to abandon this technology, which has a history of several hundred years. New inks and plates make flexo printing uniquely attractive. The cost of production of some small systems is very low, and it is completely affordable for equipment manufacturers who do not have large production volumes. In addition, many packaging product processors are still using flexographic technology in large quantities. This is mainly because their customers usually require the printing of invariable information products, and they can also provide preprinted products. Therefore, it is difficult to say that a certain technology will overwhelm another technology, but both of you have me and I have your competitive partnership.
Flexographic and thermal transfer competition According to FTA (American Flexographic Technology Association) statistics, in the 18 billion soft film industry market, 70% of thin film printing uses flexographic technology. For the packaging and printing of medical products, flexo printing is the most common method. Tolas Health Products Packaging Corporation of the United States is a company that processes flexible packaging of medical products. Most of their products are printed flexographically. The company’s president Carl Marotta said: “This process is very flexible and the cost is very low.†Ron Fortunato, production manager of Perfecseal (in Philadelphia), another packaging company that uses flexo printing technology, also stated: “Printing on metal foils, films, and Tyvek synthetic fibers, flexo printing technology is much more suitable than thermal transfer printing technology. ."
Wazir Nobbee, a senior research engineer at DuPont Tyvek, added: "In the case of high-speed production, such as at production speeds of several hundred feet per minute, flexographic technology can provide better print quality. It is a kind of high-volume print production. The economical choice can complete the production of a whole volume of material without downtime, which is unmatched by other processes.The flexo printing roller width can also be wider than the thermal transfer roller, printing fine lines and Icon quality is better."
Although flexo printing has the advantages of high speed, low cost, and high performance, it is not as flexible as thermal transfer methods when handling jobs that contain variable information. In the flexo printing process, if you want to replace different texts or bar codes, you usually need to replace the plates. Sometimes you even need to re-create a new plate, which requires a lot of costs. When using the thermal transfer system, just press the keyboard to send the printer a place to change in the database. If the next order is a job that requires frequent plate changes, it makes sense to change from flexo to thermal transfer.
Today, medical device packaging companies need to replace plates more frequently than ever before because of the increasing market demand for bar codes, many numbers, and shelf life. There is also a need for multiple languages, such as Medtronic DLP packaging company in the production of multilingual cardiovascular medical device packaging products, each year to spend about 150,000 to 200,000 US dollars on the plate, is not a small number .
Another reason that flexographic systems can't provide benefits to some packaging companies is that they do not need to operate at such high speeds, especially when some packaging departments use assembly lines to complete product filling and sealing functions. Transport-fill-seal equipment is usually intermittently moved, so there is no need for a press to achieve continuous high-speed operation. And thermal transfer printers are not slow, and the EasyPrint thermal transfer system used by a company uses near-edge printhead technology to print at an angle instead of vertically, speeding up the system to print on a variety of substrates. speed.
Some people may think that the cost of thermal transfer printing is relatively high. Actually, according to one insider, the cost of flexo printing is higher than that of thermal transfer.
New partnerships Here we do not want to drive the flexo system out of the market. Instead, we want to combine the two processes organically to finally achieve a perfect situation for the company to use a low-cost, easy-to-operate flexo system. High-quality, standard, unaltered information; handles the content of variable information sections with an easy-to-program thermal transfer system. There are many companies that already do this, such as Canadian Graphic Controls. Previously, Graphic Controls used a hot press mounted on a transfer-fill-seal device to stamp variable information on pre-printed polyethylene rollers. Hot presses can only print a limited number of variables, and since the hot press cannot be programmed, when the printed content changes, the contents of the metal paper on the press have to be manually changed. Later, Graphic Controls purchased a thermal transfer printer from Greydon (York, PA) to print on changing numbers, product descriptions, quantities, bar codes, and lifespan. The change process can be done in a computer.
But for company names, contact details, pictures and symbols, and standard information common in multiple languages, Graphic Controls uses an in-line flexo press to print. Preserving too much pre-printed inventory in the factory can cause a large backlog of funds, and Graphic Controls has installed two thermal transfer printers on the front of a flexo press to enable flexographic and thermal transfer equipment. Connections can be produced according to the quantity required. In order to distinguish the invariant information from the variable information, the thermal transfer system is printed with black ink, while the flexographic system is printed with purple (other different colors can also be used).
There are also some packaging and printing companies that want to completely get rid of the flexo printing process. For example, Medtronic DLP thinks that the ink is too dirty and always needs to replace the printing plate. Even if the content does not change, the printing plate will be damaged. In addition, they also believe that installing two different types of systems in a company increases the burden on companies because they have to train two technicians to operate and maintain different systems. Therefore, they prefer to use the thermal transfer printer to print both unchanged information and variable information content.
Although flexo printing technology has made so many attacks and criticisms, there are still many supporters. Some companies believe that the use of a flexo system can maintain zero inventory of preprinted products, and that processing short runs is very fast—just change the plate. In addition, connecting a rotary flexo press with a transfer-fill-seal device is the most economical way to print online today. The flexo system is the most suitable process for handling static invariant information applications.
In addition, flexographic technology itself has also made great progress. For example, printing plates, formerly made flexographic plates or molded on rubber, or laser engraving, and the current plate is a photosensitive resin plate, such as DuPont's Cyrel material, after exposure by imaging, but also It is used in conjunction with computer direct plate making technology. With such plate printing, a stable quality print product can be obtained.
In order to comply with the regulations of the Environmental Protection Association and reduce the use of volatile organic compounds, many printing companies, including flexo printing companies, have used water-based inks in some applications. The medical device packaging company must also ensure that the water-based inks used can adhere to the packaging materials used in the medical products, and will not fall off even after repeated sterilization and long-distance transportation. Therefore, before printing, it is necessary to understand the way of sterilization of medical devices in order to find a stable ink.
The anilox roller is the mechanism that transfers ink to the printing plate and has also been greatly improved. Laser-engraved ceramic drums are more advanced than mechanically-engraved drums. The use of lasers can control the depth of the cut, the error is very small, and the number of network cables is also more refined. The finer the number of screen lines, the more helpful it is to transfer the even amount of ink to the printing plate, so that the quality of flexo printing has been greatly improved, and even comparable to gravure printing.
Another challenger has a growing role in the medical market as well as a printing process. According to the survey, pharmaceutical companies are interested in the method of producing variable data using inkjet printing technology. Inkjet printers are also computer driven, and the low volatility inks used in inkjet printers have also been greatly improved to withstand the sterilization process. SRI International (Menlo Park, CA) is the company that selected this technology. Recently, they replaced the flexo printing system with an inkjet system to produce high-density barcodes.
Inkjet technology also addresses an unattractive need for inkjet systems that can print on packages that are already filled with objects, while thermal transfer can only be printed on flat surfaces. Two ink-jet equipment suppliers are currently working together to develop a high-quality printing system. They are Domino Amjet (Gurnee, IL) and Videojet Systems International (Wood Dale, IL).
Conclusion The thermal transfer process cannot completely replace the flexo process anyway. Some medical equipment packagers effectively combined the two systems organically and used this as an advantage to achieve certain success. 
The growing demand for the inclusion of variable information in the packaging of medical products has led to an increasing number of customers who need to package medical equipment to consider the use of thermal transfer digital systems for the production of packaging products, which will bring about certainty for the survival of flexo printing companies. Threatening?