China’s Printing Blanket National Standard Gap Remains; Offset Standard Tentatively Set for 2013 Project Plan

Standards are often regarded as the foundation for orderly growth in any industry, and many businesses have long called for them. The printing blanket segment is no different. In terms of national standards, this niche still has a blank space. An announcement issued by the National Printing Standardization Technical Committee at the end of January 2012 indicated that an offset printing blanket standard was tentatively included in the 2013 standard project initiation plan.

On the production side, China's annual capacity for printing blankets has surpassed 1.5 million square meters, with yearly total output value of roughly 400 million yuan. Even though this accounts for only a small share of the printing industry's overall output value, it has a major bearing on the quality of printed products.

To better steer the future growth of printing equipment and materials companies, the China Printing and Equipment Industry Association formed a Printing Blanket Professional Committee in July 2012. At that point, however, China still lacked a dedicated national standard for printing blankets. The only related publication was 'Technical Manual for Users of Printing Blankets', released by Printing Industry Press in July 2012, which filled a domestic gap in technical reference books of this type.

Li An, secretary-general of the National Printing Standardization Technical Committee, noted that Shanghai Xinxing, as a council member of the Printing Blanket Professional Committee, should take an active part in drafting relevant national industry standards. Although creating such standards is difficult and cumbersome and demands extensive data testing, a domestic brand aiming to win this market must secure this strategic high ground. For printing blanket standards, issues such as printability, usage requirements and process control need to be covered, and the related test data must be accumulated to a sufficient level.

The announcement from the National Printing Standardization Technical Committee at the end of January 2012 also showed that the offset printing blanket standard was tentatively scheduled for inclusion in the 2013 standard project initiation plan.

Postscript: A printing blanket is built from multiple layers of specialty woven fabric and synthetic rubber compounds. In manufacturing, the fabric and rubber are bonded through controlled processes using thermal and chemical energy. Different compounds and structures also give blankets different performance characteristics on the press. —This article was reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn); original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-361960.html