Adopting waterless printing can result in significant improvement in printing productivity. The advantages of not using dampening solution can be felt immediately.
Printing press set-up time is a crucial factor in the printing industry, where the demand for small-lot printing is increasing. In conventional PS printing using dampening solution, a large amount of set-up time is required before starting the press run. As shown in the table below, compared to conventional PS printing, waterless printing can realize an improvement in printing press utilization of as much as 16%. As a result, switching to waterless printing allows firms to accept small-lot orders to which they could not have responded before.
The problem with conventional PS printing using dampening solution is that the dampening solution is difficult to adjust and fluctuates during the printing process. Fluctuation could be minimized if it were possible for conventional PS printing to use large amounts of IPA (organic solvent), but this is not possible in practice as the solvent is a regulated substance, so achieving consistency in the finished print quality remains a struggle. Waterless printing completely eliminates the use of the dampening solution, which is the main source of this inconsistency and makes it possible to maintain uniform quality from the first copy of the press run to the last.
One customer has introduced the waterless method in web offset printing and is using it to trial unmanned operation during lunchbreaks. In practice this means that the press is left to operate with no staff in attendance during the day and night shift meal breaks (12:00 to 1:00 pm and 1:00 to 2:00 am). The customer in question began unmanned operation in February 2002 and has now succeeded in introducing unmanned operation for 80% of break times. In the future, the aim is to achieve full unmanned operation not just for break times but for all times apart from set-up.
