We reproduce here below excerpts from the Michel Caza's interview published in Screen, Sign & Digital India Magazine of SPAI recently. (The full version of the interview was published in this magazine).
According to you what is the future of screen-printing in India?
A big part of screen printing technology is and will remain accessible for many small or very small companies family business as well as an other part will need huge investments and big companies using high technology and excellent equipments and products.
Screen-printing is becoming, and not only in India, a « two speeds » technology, as well as digital printing : there will still be a lot of small companies working to satisfy the local markets, using the people work force and basic cheap (or not too expensive!) equipments. Drawback : low level of production in screen-printing and low speed in digital printing. On the other hand, there will be, as everywhere in the world, a few thousands big and medium companies able to invest in sophisticated equipments in screen and digital and serving the States, National and International markets.
Believe me, those companies will be « multi-process » users with screen and digital but also with offset, flexography, tampography, in a manner to offer the customer a « full service », a fact that will include finishing and even packing and shipping facilities : from the artwork to the delivered finished product for the end user where aver he wants.
According to you how important is it to have more and more training institutes like DMI and why (because there nearly 100000 screen printers in India still doing business of printing without much training in established institutes?)
I always claim that quality, efficiency and marketing aptitudes are the keys for success. I should say that this not really possible without 'training' : you must know your tools and how to use them. India would need at least 100 Institutes or Schools like DMI : an example, in France with 7,000 companies or in-plant departments, we have 25 schools for screen and digital printing… Mathematically, in India with 100,000 companies, you should need… 350 such schools! Even with the short, deep and severe training on three months initiated by Bhargav at DMI 60 students per year + permanent trainees from companies, you will need a minimum of 80/90 Institutes of the size and capacities of DMI!
Please comment something about screen printing in Europe?
I can briefly explain what happen in our European countries : As the advent of digital happened since 96 I was President widely between 1996 and 2002 I could both observe and do in my company at that moment, what I preached : Buy digital, it is complementary! not a 'big threat'. In my POP manufacturing business, I was using screen, digital and offset… according to the needed quantities and purpose of the images. So did a lot of other European companies initially purely 'screen printers' : they entered in POP field, signage, industrial applications and invest in different technologies. Smaller companies regroup themselves together to have the good scale to invest both in screen and other technologies … and some disappeared!
Screen printing as a technology reacted, using digital for pre-press, using CTS for screening, using multi- color (4 or 5) huge press, creating new workflows with faster setting, fully UV technology, automatic screen reclaiming, drying, enducting, exposing, washing, drying… in a manner to be more competitive for smaller quantities or against offset for bigger quantities.
Which country is the best in screen-printing?
No one country is the best, even globally! In each country there are excellent, good … and bad or very bad screen- and digital printers…
I can only and « modestly » say that my direct or indirect pupils are the best in Switzerland, Russia, Bulgaria, China, Thailand, Japan, USA, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, Norway, Belgium, Pollen, Ukrainia, Turkey… and India : a fact easily controlable with the number of Awards they get in International or National Contests!
What is the importance of quality raw material and equipment in Screen-printing in view of the competition?
Vital, both if you want quality and if you want to export to other countries, the international big customers want quality image on quality substrates, for automotive, POP and Industrial electronic or ceramic applications : you need good products, good equipments and well trained people to produce….
What is the newest trend in screen printing?
As for digital printing a big part of the future for screen lies in industrial and textile applications : don't forget that in screen printing, despite in exhibitions you see mostly visual, graphic and sign applications, this part is only 25% of screen printing technology : an other 30% is the textile applications and the remaining 45% are the purely industrial applications (glass, ceramic, electronic including mobile phones, RFIDS and PCB, packaging, objects, IMD, automotive, cards and CD, etc.)… And all the future applications that we don't even imagine now!
Can you please comment something SIGN - its prospects for India and trend in foreign countries? What is the latest in this field?
Sign making is one of the industries that uses screen and digital to produce its images for outdoor, indoor, POP, etc… Many screen printers are sign makers without knowing they are! For me, it is extremely difficult to imagine sign as a separate technology or industry : sign = POP = outdoor and indoor applications = screen = digital! Of course some applications are special, neon for example, but again, when you are POP manufacturer and display maker, you have to work with electricity, electro-luminescence, LEDs, etc. It is of course much more profitable to manufacture signs and POP displays than to be simply 'a printer'.
Finally, please also comment in short about digital age?
My position is well known and extremely clear since I wrote this article as FESPA Vice-President in our FESPA World magazine during 94 or 95 : 'Don't be afraid of non-contact the name of digital at that moment BUY it'! I then made and still make a lot of articles, conferences, seminars where I claim that 'Screen and Digital printing are Brothers rather than Enemies', the top was the big seminar held in FESPA 96 Lyon with almost 600 people listening, and I pushed the FESPA as President in this direction.
This clearly also means that I believe those technologies to 'create images' are fully complementary of our good old and quite young screen-printing. Again, don't forget that the graphic applications are only a quart of the screen-printing applications.
Let us be realistic : digital printing took some parts of the market and will take more of small screen printing companies, but when the companies using it are basically screen printers (and in the world they control 50% of the wide format digital printing), you simply use an other technology to open a new market that was not possible before, mostly for cost reasons.
To end, I like to repeat my 'credo' : we are not anymore 'printers', screen, digital, or even offset or flexo… We are 'image makers and services providers' and we must know a lot about many things : this is our future and to find it we need to imagine and create it : it does not 'pre-exist', it is in our hands, brain and dreams.
As an expert what are your feedback/suggestion to Indian screen printers?
My answer is partly self-contained above! But I should add that you will have to work in different directions : some 'niche' applications can be extremely profitable, both for small and for big companies. For some others, they will have to produce fast, relatively cheap, in big quantities : this will need investments, a certain size and financial aptitudes. For some other, the market will be at the local scale… But in all the cases, it will be very competitive and hard : don't forget that, unfortunately, there is always someone to produce « bad and cheap » and some customers to buy it… Even if it is for a short moment and generally ends with a commercial catastrophe both for the printer and his customer!
But, believe me again, your future goes through Quality and the digital images I saw in Mumbai at the moment of the elections are so poor and so bad that I should never vote for the poor people shown on the banners ! So, don't do it!
Try to control your work if you have the equipment and desire for it - from the very beginning (creation), to the very end (shipping). The more control you will have, the easiest it will be for the customer who speak only to 'one single person', and for you because you can choose your products and act as well in marketing as in production for your customer : think 'global' and you will also make more money!
(Courtesy : Screen, Sign & Digital India, a new magazine initiated by SPAI and FESPA). |
