A good way to reduce printing costs-low basis weight paper

In the current economic environment, printing buyers have begun to find new ways to reduce the production cost of printing jobs. Since paper generally accounts for 20-50% of the cost of a job (determined by the number of jobs and the number of prints), people first think of paper when cutting costs.

We are now seeing a very interesting phenomenon: a large number of heavy papers are being replaced by low grammage papers. If you do not believe this fact, you can confirm it with the following example. A large publishing house needs to produce 50,000 magazines with a size of 287x210 mm and 128 pages. Assuming that the printing loss of this job is 10%, and it can choose to print with 90 g / m2 coated paper without ground wood pulp or 70 g / m2 light web, So, without affecting the appearance and feel of the product, which paper has a lower production cost?

Before you start to calculate the cost, you must first know that 70 g / m2 paper is much cheaper than 90 g / m2 paper; if you choose the latter, printing buyers will spend about £ 15,000 more on paper. The problem now is quality-low-gram paper generally does not look good. However, if the publisher chooses 70 g / m² paper, it will save £ 11,000 in paper costs. This is indeed a large sum of money, especially in today's economic environment, printing buyers should be careful.

Current trends

In fact, printing customers had a long time ago the idea of ​​replacing heavy paper with light paper. Erik Ohl, UPM's technical sales director, said: "We noticed this problem more than a decade ago: the lighter the paper, the lower the cost of mailing-especially for large projects such as product catalogs."

However, in recent months, paper distributors have discovered an unusually large increase in the demand for light paper in the market, which has forced many ongoing printing projects to stop and re-select paper.

For example, newspapers generally chose 52 g / m2 paper before the Internet became popular, and now the standard weight of newsprint is only 42.5 g / m2. Some magazines that use gravure presses or web offset presses are now also reducing the weight of paper from 57 g / m2 to 52 g / m2-many used to be on 90 g / m2 paper Printed men's magazines are now turning to 60 g / m² paper.

In the continuous printing or production of products with a large number of pages, the luxury of paper is not really important. The key is that you need to reduce the unit cost of live parts by reducing the weight of the paper. Ohls said: "The more pages you can print on a paper roll, the greater the gain-this is what we call the profitability. Now everyone wants to replace the original with a lighter product. Paper. "

However, in the catalog, newspaper, and magazine markets, you must give readers a sense of value for money-and it seems that only harder and thicker paper can achieve this purpose. So in the process of moving to light paper, you have to convince readers that nothing has changed.

In addition to the above areas, low-gram bulky book paper is also popular with direct mail companies. This kind of paper can not only give people a very stable feeling, but also lower the cost of mailing.

tissue

According to Bolloré Thin Papers, the lower the weight of paper, the more environmentally friendly it is. In collaboration with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the papermaker evaluated the environmental impact of Primapage, its thin paper, throughout its life cycle. The results show that the lighter the paper, the smaller the impact on the environment.

However, there is nothing perfect in the world. Next, let's talk about the shortcomings of light paper. The most worrying thing about this kind of paper is the performance of machine printing. In order to ensure smooth printing, the paper must have sufficient hardness. Taking 90 g / m2 double-sided coated paper as an example, its coating weight is about 25-30 g / m2, while the weight of the base paper is only 60-65 g / m2, so it can't satisfy the printing machine at all. Requirements for paper hardness. As David Cook, general manager of Arjowiggins UK, puts it: "So far, I haven't seen any customers choose coated paper with a grammage less than 90 g / m2."

Patrick van Dommelen, Xerox Europe ’s paper business manager, also very much agrees with David Cook ’s point of view: “We generally do not choose coated paper with a weight of less than 120 g / m 2 because low-gram weight papers are usually serious Running problem. If the basis weight of the paper is too low, it means that it lacks sufficient stiffness. "

Insufficient hardness means that the paper cannot be kept flat during the printing process, which in turn affects the productivity of the printing house. Cook said: "The low-hardness paper will reduce the production speed of the printing press from 14,000 prints / hour to 10,000 prints / hour, which will reduce the production efficiency of the printing plant by 30%."

In addition, we have to consider the opacity of paper. UPM ’s Ohls said: “You cannot use paper that is too light, otherwise there will be a through-printing phenomenon in the printing process.” In order to avoid this situation, you can also choose to go through special treatment Titanium dioxide to enhance its opacity), but this kind of paper is usually more expensive. Of course, we can also find some cheap alternatives in the market, but their effectiveness mainly depends on the products that customers request to print.

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 more expensive than 70 g / m2 paper. This is mainly due to the low strength of low-gram weight paper, so manufacturers have to pay extra costs in the production process to ensure their strength.

Peter Sommerville, marketing director of Denmaur Independent Paper, said: "People have always had the misconception that light weight paper must be cheap, but if you are a magazine printing factory and you intend to use paper under 60 g / m , Then your paper supplier is likely to increase prices soon. "

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

Roger Warwick, chairman of the Printing and Paper Technology Association, explained: "This will not only reduce the cost efficiency of paper mills, but also will not bring them considerable economic benefits, so some paper mills would rather produce some alternative products."

As for future demand, Warwick concluded: "The paper industry usually adjusts its production plan according to market demand, so if this trend can continue, it will definitely make waves in the field of offset printing paper. In the end, this is a question of supply and demand. "

Tips: Issues to consider when choosing light paper

Printing application / running performance

Low-grade, low-hardness paper will reduce output. Web offset presses are more suitable for printing light paper than sheet-fed presses.

Yield

Number of sheets / roll required

Printed products

End user impact. Magazines and catalogs can be printed with low-gram-weight fluff paper; books and periodicals can be printed with low-gram-weight bulky paper; but gorgeous advertisements still need to be printed on high-quality paper.

Opacity

Paper that is too transparent is prone to through-printing

Manufacturers shop around. Not all paper mills are able or willing to produce low-gram paper. There are many types of paper manufacturers, so you better choose to cooperate with those who specialize in light paper. In addition, most paper distributors have published price calculators on the website, and you can compare the production costs of various papers.

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