Why in India some printers are revisiting screen printing process to produce indoor/outdoor advertising materials?

Why in India some printers are revisiting screen printing process with a big bang to produce indoor/outdoor advertising materials?

Interesting! Here is a case of a printing house which discontinued digital printing and strategically re-ventured into advanced screen printing with a big bang to offer high quality indoor/outdoor advertising materials.

Jayanto Ghosh, Director of Studio Digital Pvt Ltd, New Delhi, who was once fond of digital printing, had a good 2-hour long chat with me.  He now finds big moolah in advanced screen printing. He has recently installed yet another Camshell from Grafica after tasting success from the first machine installed in June 2010 along with complete screen making set up and UV dryer. This is a clear reflection of his faith in the power of screen printing process.

Why did he deploy second Camshell while there is a mad rush to deploy digital presses? His decision to shift from digital to screen is paying him back as revealed by him during a chat with me. “We are now getting more business. Customers now prefer superior quality screen printed stuffs than the digital prints.”

Studio Digital caters to telecom, tobacco, liquor, banking and insurance – all are lucrative service sectors – for their indoor/outdoor advertising requirements such as POP/POS, 100% screen printed mostly on acrylic and vinyl substrates.

The company was originally founded 50 years ago by Jayanto Ghosh’s father late J.K. Ghosh, under the name Studio Printall in Kolkata to print a wide range of commercial jobs and at that time they had manual screen printing set up. His dad shifted their base to New Delhi in 1972.

Studio Digital’s re-entry into screen printing makes an inspirational case study and an eye opener for all those who are engaged in indoor/outdoor advertising services and printing.

Jayanto got associated with his family business during his studies when his dad was unwell. After the completing his education, he took over the reins of his family business as his dad almost stopped coming to the factory. Jayanto later ventured into offset business and by 2003 they had 1 single and 2 four colour offset presses including one computerised press.

His company Studio Digital was pursuing screen printing aggressively; at one point of time they had six semiautomatic and one fully automatic screen printing machines. But Jayanto was tempted to digital printing in 2003 and gradually he discarded screen printing. He continued with digital for 3-4 years until he saw himself caught in the web of severe competition with prices crashing down drastically, but he immediately realised a dry future in digital printing.

Jayanto says he gradually discontinued digital printing in 2008 and continued with offset business. During an interview with Grafica News, he even disclosed that his worth Rs.2 crore (Indian rupees 200 million) digital presses are now lying idle and may have to be sent to scrap-yard as there is no takers for these ‘obsolete’ machines.

This printing professional with immense experience in printing did not take everything into his heart of head. He developed a strong urge to embrace the powerful ‘screen printing’ process.

Quality issues

“Now the trend is changing, clients want more sharpness with more durability of advertising materials printed on vinyl and acrylic. We found that screen printing with UV is the best option to meet such quality demand of print buyers. Digital printing is good for distant viewing stuffs. But we produce only close view advertising materials for indoor and outdoor applications,” he told me during the interview.

“Screen printing is here to stay”:

That his confidence. “It is my experience that although digital can on many substrates, it cannot beat screen printing in terms of cost, production and quality. Digital has its own role in wide format for large hoardings and signage. For short run surely digital is viable. But for mass production like what we do, screen printing is cheaper, that’s because of automation and UV.”

Screen vs digital:

According to him screen printing requires less investment and with UV system it requires less space also. “You can reap reasonable profit. In digital you have to recover investment quickly as advanced technology flood the market. But a good screen printing machine has a high re-saleable value and at any point of time you want dispose off, you can get recover nearly 70-80% of your investment provided you keep the machine in good condition it happened in my case. When I discontinued my previous screen printing business I could recover near about 70% of the purchase cost when disposed off the machine.”

UV vs solvent ink:

Screen printing with UV is a profitable and economical business. Because of instant drying system it requires less space and manpower, faster and higher production besides more depth in print. In the case of solvent it is just the reverse. And in type of set up we can utilise the extra manpower and space for other productive purposes.

Manual and automation:

The Studio Digital top-brass is well conversant with both manual and automation in screen printing. “For all reasons automation is the best. Productivity-wise, one semi automatic screen printing machine is far better than 4-5 manual tables each requiring 3-4 labour. In automation we get equal registration accuracy from first print to last print with even ink deposition; productivity is higher and faster.”

ANYWAY, each printing process has its own  advantages and disadvantages. As screen  printing guru, Michel Caza used to always say it is upto the printing entrepreneur to use one or more of processes to suit their customers’ requirements.

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not intended to hurt the feeling of any printers. But just the result of a thought process of the interviewee and the writer and the contents of this blog should not be taken as a thumb rule for making any investment decision.