Printer's Perplexity --- Choosing Paper

---Select Paper (LWC VS SC)

Author's note: Paper occupies the largest part of printing costs, and customers expect to quantify lighter paper. But what kind of price and quality is the most appropriate for the quality of the final printed product?

All along, book printing is one of the most striking areas of the printing industry. The latest ABC survey figures show that more than half of the magazines (58%) have increased their circulation. The British company Howitt plans to build a new gravure printing plant, which is expected to start production this year after work. Polestar Company invested 25 million pounds to purchase printing equipment, including a 3.52-meter-wide gravure printing machine...

As early as the beginning of this year, paper prices attracted more and more attention. At present, people are anxiously watching whether pulp prices will decline, mainly because paper is the largest part of the printing industry's cost. Printing companies should consider saving money by using lower-grade paper. A common choice is to replace light weight coated paper (LWC) with specially processed paper (SC), and many users accept the slightest decline in final print quality.

high performance

In the United Kingdom, a high-end user using SC paper is Argos, which revealed that they had printed 1,568 pp at Polestar's gravure printing plant last month. Alan Cray, head of the company’s purchasing department, said: “Since we switched paper from LWC to SCA+, we have seen some changes in customers. We have changed from a heavier LWC to a lighter LWC and finally to SCA. While other printing companies have always used SCA, we have found that LWC usage is relatively stable. It depends on the customer's own choice, which is the type of business and the customer's own needs."

Significant improvement

About 10-15% of Argos' printing paper comes from the SCl type from UPM Kymenne and Norske Skog. Mr. Cray claimed that the performance of paper has been greatly improved, so customers have more choices. He explained that the LWC paper type has also been continuously improved, so that all grades of paper tend to be similar in price, so the focus of attention has shifted from price to quality. If the customer chooses, they prefer to get a whiter, brighter paper.

In Stephens & George's single-page journal printing factory in Wales, UK, the use of SC paper has risen to 50% of the entire business volume. Bill Bird, the company's principal, explained that this approach is consistent with the company's guidance in recent years. Each year they use 5,000 tons of paper, of which 2,500 tons are SC paper and 25% are supplied by customers.

Mr. Bird said: "At present, SC paper does not have much price advantage, but customers prefer its brightness, although high whiteness means lower transparency. Both are mutually exclusive, but currently What people see is paper whiteness. In addition, paper quantification is also an important consideration because many magazines will eventually fall directly into the hands of customers.” The number of prints in our printed magazines is not high, and customers are more concerned about circulation. . With SC paper, you can get more pages at the same cost. ”

“I think that for this type of paper, technology has made a quantum leap. By adjusting the fountain solution and ink, we can use this type of paper at an appropriate speed. The factory also improved the sheet itself. To reduce the static electricity of the paper, in addition to improving the runnability of the paper, it is also possible to change the chemical composition of the paper."

“We don’t change paper often. For us, this shift is too great because it will cause a lot of inconvenience. The paper we use must be rigorously tested. If we change the paper type, we must use a few Tons of paper to do experiments and test production before they can be officially adopted.”

Commitment quality

The producer Stora Enso and the purchaser James McNaughton have been working together for a long time. Both parties have always emphasized their commitment to quality. Mr. Bird said: "We have established a good relationship with McNaughton, and now we have achieved 1% of the company's sheetfed market share. We may visit McNaughton once every two years. We are as close to the market as possible. In fact, our sales staff got a lot of training experience from Stora's German factory.” “In the beginning, customers were only concerned about the price, but they also looked forward to good service and quality, but the price is the primary principle for customers to accept the product. ."

Increased usage

In the past two years, Pindar has also continued to increase the use of SC paper. Its paper consumption totals up to 50,000 tons, of which 2,000 and 3,000 are SCs, but they are now choosing SC every year. Philip Ely, Purdue Manager of Pindar, said: "It all depends on the price. Now those who want to reduce the weight are willing to choose the SCA paper type."

Philip Ely added: “The improvement in paper performance has also contributed to this development. For example, SC paper provided by companies such as UPM-Kymenne, Stora Enso and M-real has been highly recognized by the public and its printability is no longer Question: If the customer's marketing is correct, then the user's acceptance of SC paper can be perfect.It never caused us any trouble. For a larger print job, it may take a little longer To do cleaning drums, etc. But I think SC paper's target market has certain limitations, it can not be used for fashion high-grade printing products, but it is quite ideal for direct mail printing SC, the printing fees for these types of printing It is usually compressed very low."

Steve Evans, TPL’s Purchasing Manager, said: “For catalog products like the Book Club, we prefer to use SCB paper instead of SC. The quality of this paper is poor, but the performance on the press is Better. Some customers are willing to choose inferior quality and lower cost paper.” The Kidderminster printing factory purchases approximately 35,000 tons of paper from the manufacturer each year, including Stora Enso, provided by SCA and M-real. Journals include Reed Business, Emap and Haymarket, and recent IPC Media. In fact, consumer journals account for 60% of the company's business.

Attractive price

Due to the attractive price of LWC paper, most St Ives customers are still satisfied with the tested and long-term choice of LWC, and some even upgraded to MWC level. Howard Undely, head of the Rotary Printing Division, said: “Now 45% of our business uses LWC and 50% uses MWC, compared to 70/30 five years ago. Some users who use SC coated papers have changed to improved ones. Newsprint, although the quality of SC paper has been greatly improved, we found that simply by increasing the weight of the paper, we can improve its performance, including Stora Enso, SCA, M-real and UPM-Kymenne, Mr Undely, The market players and technicians of several major companies all agree that the overall development trend of the printing industry is to select higher-grade paper.

However, Southernprint, a single-page periodical printing house in Poole, UK, seldom uses SC paper. They are always looking forward to the emergence of a new generation of paper. Currently, they will not consider SC. David Mears said: “What confuses us most is that SC quality is poor compared to LWC. In the past, we have been considering whether we need to use another Special ink. At present, some papers can adapt to ordinary thermosetting inks, but at a lower cost. The higher the SC, thus increasing the overall production cost. However, the current use of such paper is not as high as LWC. For each print, the choice of paper depends on its own value and demand."