1. Overreliance on manual operation to print well is difficult to find a captain alone
Curved surface printing relies on manual operation in multiple aspects such as chromaticity, pressure adjustment, feeding, and sampling. During the inorganic long term, the printing machine is basically in a semi paralyzed state. In the absence of templates and follow-up samples, the printer operator adjusts the ink volume based on their own preferences and experience, and the quality of the printed product is largely determined by the operator's level. Even some pilots with experience may have limited professional knowledge and slow technological updates due to educational qualifications, perspectives, and other constraints. Professional and highly skilled printing machine operators are hard to come by.
2. The complex matching of ink consumables makes printing quality and cost difficult to control
The concentration, fineness, viscosity, fluidity, saturation, water resistance, acid and alkaline resistance of different inks also vary. They are mixed in proportion with diluents, matched with material properties, and mixed in proportion with pigments, linking materials, fillers, and additives. The difficulty in grasping this variability leads to serious waste of consumables such as ink and rubber, greatly increasing printing costs. Most inks on the market now have a viscosity of 13TV, while curved printing only requires a viscosity of 18TV, which is most suitable. This type of specialized ink without targeting curved printing can easily cause quality problems such as blurry printed images, inconsistent ink colors, and bubbles or indentations in printed stripes.
3. Frequent occupational hazards and severe loss of skilled workers
The printing industry frequently comes into contact with ink, and various harmful organic solvents such as alcohols, formaldehyde, and phenol that evaporate from the ink can enter the body through the respiratory tract and skin of workers, causing various respiratory diseases and occupational poisoning. The UV rays released by the curing system during the startup process can irritate the eyes, and long-term exposure may cause eye film damage and vision loss. So printing workers generally do not work for more than five years. The high occupational hazards have led printing technicians to choose short-term jobs or simply switch careers, causing serious talent loss and recruitment difficulties for enterprises.
4. Low production efficiency, lack of professional customization in equipment structure
Severe waste of consumables, slow manual operation, and high defect rate lead to low production efficiency. The structure of the printing machine equipment is extensive, and there is no one-on-one creative design of the equipment structure for a certain type of printing. When printing, the printing materials need to accommodate the equipment.
5. High quality curved printing equipment constrained by international monopolies is expensive to produce
Flexographic printing has reached a mature stage in Europe and America, while China's flexographic printing has only started in recent years. Therefore, China's flexographic printing materials and plate making equipment largely rely on imports. The high prices and monopolistic after-sales service to some extent restrict the popularization and promotion of flexographic printing in the Chinese market.
6. Intensified regulatory efforts in the flexographic printing industry face stricter regulations and lower standards
In 2010, the printing industry was included in the scope of "carrying out the prevention and control of volatile organic compound pollution", and relevant functional departments implemented stricter standards for the parts of the entire printing production process that did not meet environmental requirements. Especially in accordance with the "Ten Measures for Water" and "Ten Measures for Air", the pollution treatment of water and volatile organic compounds has been focused on. The VOCs pollution discharge fee has pushed the printing environment governance to a substantive new stage, and the development of curved printing is facing a more stringent regulatory situation.
7. High quality curved surface printing is a huge market worth over 100 million yuan

The development of traditional curved surface printing has matured, and the emerging green printing flexographic printing is in the ascendant. China's flexographic printing industry has the ability to meet the diversified and all-round needs of the international market. In the next three years, the demand for domestically produced flexographic printing machines will rapidly expand, coupled with the demand for ink accessories and equipment, the overall market demand for Chinese flexographic printing equipment will exceed 100 million, and China will become a truly important global manufacturing base for flexographic printing machines.