A Call For Action

The gravure industry spent years just watching flexo improve and promote itself as the printing process of choice. Now, gravure printers and suppliers are preparing to market their process back into the spotlight.

GRAVURE'S GOT IT all: unsurpassed quality, affordability, and a committed and passionate industry. So, why is it such an unsung process?

There are several theories, but flexo leads the list of culprits. For the past few decades, flexo has successfully worked to upgrade its quality and reliability, and the industry hasn't kept its advances secret.

Flexo suppliers dominate the advertising in trade magazines, some of which focus solely on flexo. In addition, there are more associations based on supporting and promoting flexo than there are organizations for any other kind of printing process.

Most importantly, however, the flexo industry gets its message across to consumer goods companies (CGCs) louder and clearer than any other printing method. CGCs hear all about how flexo is an economical printing process with high-quality results that are getting better all the time.

What do print buyers hear about gravure? For the most part, only what the flexo industry tells them—it produces excellent results, but it's costly. The gravure industry has yet to rebut that claim on a public platform or vocalize any message meant for potential consumers. Slowly but surely, however, necessity is waking gravure printers and suppliers and calling for them to put gravure back on the map.

Gravure means quality

Gravure can do everything flexo can, but better. Its image reproduction quality is unmatched, as is its consistency from run-to-run. Technology advancements have also helped gravure compete in the growing realm of short runs, with faster changeover and makeready times, as well as decreased the time it takes to engrave gravure cylinders.

"There's a whole new chapter of engraving technology today, as well as short runs, smaller cylinders, sleeves, shaftless cylinders—there's a lot of work being done and it's ongoing," said Dick Chesnut, founder/owner/president of Chesnut Engineering, a press manufacturer. "Flexo dominates the media and industry meetings, but gravure has very interesting possibilities. It's by no means a dead technology at all. It's very vital."

Even without its advantages and new developments, gravure is still the better process, said Paul Sharkey, president for FLXON, a doctor blade supplier. "There's a fundamental shortcoming with flexo that gravure users don't have to deal with," he said. "That shortcoming is the raised image on the printing plate and the raised ink film on the anilox or ink transfer roll."

The "ideal" of flexo is for the raised image on the plate to just "kiss" the raised ink film on the anilox roll and then deposit that ink on the substrate with another "kiss." However, Sharkey said, flexo press operators often must use a plus impression to overcompensate for the ± tolerances in the plate material, the compressible mounting tapes, the cylinder as well as the anilox roll. This results in too much ink being applied which eventually will build up on the plate. The final result is a printed image that grows—producing dot gain and dirty print. This is why a flexo dot often looks like a donut.

With gravure, the image is contained in a hardened copper cylinder. A doctor blade wipes away the excess ink, leaving "pockets of ink just where you want it," Sharkey said. "There's no opportunity for the splat effect.

"Flexo can never, ever be as good as rotogravure. Dot gain, image growth—it's always going to be there because of the smashing and mashing," he continued. "It's gotten better, but it won't ever be as good as rotogravure."

A bad reputation

Despite this innate quality, gravure has a reputation like Mr. T: even though it has many respectable qualities, it appears big and bad and people don't want to mess with it. "The whole concept to people is that gravure is a big beast—an overbearing beast; that it's archaic," said Mark Sukovich, graphic services manager of NorthStar Print Group, a gravure and flexo printer. "It shouldn't scare people, but I think it really does."

Cost is a major issue with gravure—at least that's what everyone thinks. But nowadays, that's not always true. When once gravure made a large dent in the wallets of packaging buyers and printers employing the process, it is now more economically feasible than it's ever been, especially when compared to today's advanced flexo technology.

"There's a 20-year history where the cost of rotogravure cylinders have stayed the same, while flexo plate costs have increased dramatically," Chesnut said. "A lot of flexo costs have increased dramatically to the point that it's not a slam dunk that it's cheaper to go with flexo anymore."

Price increases in flexo have come hand-in-hand with improvements in the printing method. According to Larry Walton of American Packaging Co., which prints both gravure and flexo, digital plates and innovations in the shape of plate dots—like those found on Phototype's NuDot plates—improve the quality of flexo printing, but also raise costs.

A "misconception that flexo prepress costs drastically less than gravure" still persists, however, putting a lot of competitive pressure on gravure, said Mark Glendenning, president of Inland Printing Co. Inc., a gravure and offset printer. Recent price comparisons between gravure and flexo have proven otherwise, though.

At the Packaging & Label Gravure Association's (PLGA) technical and operational conference this past February in Jacksonville, Fla., Bill Disney, manager of graphics and printing technology at Diversapack—a gravure and flexo printer—gave a presentation on the price difference between gravure and flexo. Disney showed that switching a print job for one major CGC from 7-color flexo to 5-color gravure saved the customer almost $15,000 annually and provided superior graphics.

"We believe that over the long term (multiple runs of the same graphics), gravure can and has proved to be more economical," Glendenning said. "Advancements in automation, cylinders, and engraving continue to increase the quality of gravure printing."

So, again, why isn't gravure the printing process of choice?

What's the word?

For decades, the gravure industry has relied solely on the quality of its process to promote itself. But in a world that eats, sleeps, and breathes advertising and marketing schemes, an active flexo industry easily took over as top-dog in the '90s with a voice and message that's dominated package printing ever since.

"It just was never a thought, at least to me, that a print method like gravure would need to be marketed—it's been around forever," Glendenning said.

There are several hypotheses to flexo's success.

• One deals with suppliers, who drive the advertising and many of the news stories that reach readers in trade industry publications. The problem is gravure only has so many suppliers. It's a process that needs a press, engraver, gravure cylinder, doctor blade, ink, "and that's about it," Chesnut said.

On the other hand, flexo uses all of the above except gravure cylinders, plus plate materials, plate makers, plates, plate cylinders, anilox rollers, etc.—"The list is about five times as long," Chesnut said.

• Another problem is a lack of schools with gravure options. "Quality gravure courses are scarce for students of package printing," Chesnut said. "Up-to-date presses using current technology just don't exist in most of the schools. If no one is learning the process, then who's going to be able to sell it to print buyers?"

• Access and visibility is another factor. "In North America, there are many thousands of flexo print facilities while only a few hundred gravure facilities exist," Sharkey said. "The FTA (Flexographic Technical Association) has been very effective in mobilizing a large enough portion of these printers to help fund direct promotion to print buyers. At the same time, the GAA (Graphic Arts Association) was dominated by publication printers and lost focus on packaging.

"However, … the PLGA was formed five years ago to focus on the larger gravure print world including flexible packaging, labels, folding cartons, wall and floor coverings, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, tobacco packaging, and so on," Sharkey added. "As I see it, the PLGA is bringing new life and spirit back to the gravure industry."

That life was evident at the PLGA conference this past winter, when frustrations were voiced during a discussion on the marketing of gravure, or lack thereof. The consensus was that there is a desperate need for a promotional program focused on gravure, highlighting its value, advancements, and affordability.

"Today's gravure message is like a secret handshake at some old club," Glendenning said. "Customers who have been buying it or converters who have been applying it for a long time understand its value and advantages. Unfortunately, it seems we took a 10-20 year siesta while the flexo industry not only grew, but also did a very good job of marketing itself. We have to create and maintain an educational and marketable message around gravure to a new generation of packaging buyers with little or no gravure experience. The PLGA is capable of getting that message and training out."

It's through the PLGA that gravure users and suppliers in the package-printing industry are coming together and building new hope and possibilities for the future. It will undoubtedly be a challenge for gravure to recover some of the attention flexo has held for the past several years. But it's not impossible. According to Disney, members of the PLGA are currently planning a print portfolio "that would top any best of show," he said. Using the best of gravure technology, the portfolio will showcase the unparalleled quality achievable only with gravure, giving print buyers an accessible reference.

"I think you're starting to see the gravure industry wake up," Glendenning said. "People like Dick Chesnut have been trying to get the industry to take action for quite some time. With the growing success of the PLGA and the advances being made to gravure equipment and cylinders, I believe gravure is poised to not just hold, but increase its share of packaging applications."

by Kate Sharon

Associate Editor